Mumbai Attacked

Yet again.. yet again... India has been attacked.. Mumbai has been attacked. Its painful to see again and again people going through all this. I agree with Mr. Ratan Tata, in last 25 years we are still incapable to handle these situations. How easier for these morons to enter the the mega city and fires gun shots randomly. For these exigencies policemen were carrying lathis to handle these "equipped guys". How easy it is to plan such events in India !!

Just watching these footage on news channels I was wondering where are the politicians who ideologies which are region centric. Maharashtra is attacked .. Mumbai is attacked.. India is attacked.

Cable television was disconnected in these hotels so that terrorists are disconnected from outside world. But I want to know why Internet connectivity was still on. If guests in hotels can access them why not terrorists. Isn't it a lapse ?

Professional Australians : Change the definition

"Professional" Australians almost redefined the word of "gentleman". Cricket still believed to be a gentleman's game in the cricket books. But today at the end of Sydney cricket test did everything to put India on losing side. Human errors ( read umpires ) were at its best almost every wrong decision was made against Indians. Australians needed additional support from umpires to get 10 Indian wickets. Professional and arrogantly aggressive Ricky Ponting did not hesitated to raise finger to give Ganguly out on the ground. Umpire meekly followed ponting. I think match fixing is a passe and looks like we are heading for something more spicy.

Ponting with his burning eyes questioned the journalist if he was doubting his integrity with his pointing finger. Mr. Ponting I think you should check it out from your inner conscious. There are better ways and tactics to be admirable champion side.

Impressive Words !

Ever thought whats going on his mind when I am interviewing him..
Well it happened yesterday. No I was not interviewing anyone. I was on the other side. The company needed a new senior project manager so this guy was given a responsibilty ( another project manager ) to interview from the current talent pool in the company.

I have always been turned off by "I knew it all" attitudes no matter at what levels it existed. I was surprised by the way he conducted the whole thing. The kind of words he choosed to address the profile or his expectation for new project manager was not at all impressive. As he was judging me if I suited for the position. Did he thought for a moment if I was thinking on the same lines... "Is he the kind of guy I would like to work with"

Restructuring continues ..

This week started with the speculations and then actual firing of quark employees. So I my last two posts have been about them their firing and "restructuring". Just when I thought ( rather everyone @quark thought ) the "restructuring" is over. Late in the evening I got the news about two more techies being fired. This latest hitlist has count of 10. Strangely all this happened even the teams were addressed to calmn down as there will be no more firing. In my honest opinion this is poor strategy. Your actual are speaking louder than words. Management not only loses faith but also respect from employees.

Restructuring = Mandatory Firing

Continuing from where I left in the last post, firing of quarkians seems to have stopped. But it has left few scars. The "big guy" from HR had an impressive speech for all the "left overs". Restructuring was the center of attraction. Many choose not to see the beautiful faces and did not attendid his impressive speech. Floor seemed slippery.
This "restructuring" was need of the hour to make things "better" in quark said the "big guy". Yeah you must be thinking to checking your latest dictionaries to check what actually "restructring" means. I am calling my beautiful english teacher... its ringing !!

Yeah it has stopped raining now but expect some more heavy showers in mid october when another "ship" is going to sink. But don't expect many casualities next time. I heard few of them are already on their way to jump to the nearby ships. Is it stinking ..

Second cricket test between India and England starts in Oval today. Chak de India !

Quark is firing again

Well I just heard that Quark has started firing his employees here in India. The way they fire their hard working employees is just phenomenal. The employee is suddenly called, he is asked to leave the office premises in next 15 minutes or so. The security guard and a networking guy accompanies him/her to his desk. Networking guy locks and takes custody his/her machine. The employee collects the belongings in next 15 minutes and the the security guy makes sure that this employee is out of the office premises.

No questions, no answers, no reasons. He is given a two month salary in advance and is asked to sign a paper which says due to internal company department transfer, your professional goals will not be met so You are resigning. Isn't it incredible !!

And funny thing is some of them are top performers and have received appreciations in the near past. Quark does not acknowledge the previous performances. Cost cutting is all there on thier mind. Employees have just no idea about the criterion for firing. Quark has a reputation of being a most insecure company as far as job security is concerned. Would you like to work for such company no matter how much hefty packages they have ?

Just got a sms .. one more fired !

Update : this post is continued here.

laziness

I just keep scribbling here what ever comes to my mind. I think that is what blogging is all about. I will be more frequently blogging what happening all around me.

The clock hits 3:08PM as I am writing this. Surrounded by laziness, I am feeling bit sleepy. I think it has more to do with my job. Just not enjoying my work !
I am ugrading my technical skills at slow pace. Yeah I know I have to be bit quick if I want to be out of this mess.

I am learning few designing techniques in .net. I have googled for MVP ( Model View Presenter ). Found few good links. Although most of them target asp.net but I am specifically looking for winforms. These are the few links I will be reading.

Martin Fowler's post
Jeremy Miller's post
From MSDN Magazine

Not sure when I will be through with MVP..
hah ...

Money Money !!

Ever wondered what money has a role in our lives. I know what you are thinking. No its not all about materialistic aspect. Money has a lot to do with one's confidence. Money brings confidence in your personality, even if you don't need it at that very moment.

Just try a small trick. For one day leave your wallet and credit cards at home. Be at your office without your accessibility to money. Its just about 8-10 hours. You will feel weak and low in confidence. Just try it once.

Safari Beta for Windows : Are you really using it ?

Its been two days I downloaded and installed Safari beta for windows. Apple has released a press release that Safari beta has 1 million downloads in just 48 hours. That's quite a figure to show the kind of interest generated about safari among internet users. But there is a an other side of the coin too. I have installed safari but I was not happy with beta release for obvious reasons and switched back to FireFox within couple of hours. There are number of users who have switched back to their older browsers. I have seen the buzz about Safari for windows on various community websites and forums. But vast number of users have been dissappointed with Safari. I feel beta release should have been open for selected users only.

Apple is known for reliable and quality products than their competitors. But 1 million download may not tell you the real picture. Apple has already released a patch to seal the bugs. But I am sure in the days to come there will be lot of patch releases for Safari to really get stable.

Tags : Apple , Safari , Browsers

KBC3 - SRK Over Do's

KBC starts their new season with quite a fanfare. This is the third season of India's most popular quiz show. This has been a come back vehicle for superstar Shah Rukh Khan to small screen. SRK, who started his acting career on television in late 80's, went on to become India biggest bollywood star of his era. King khan has given a number of hits in his career spaning more than 15 years.

KBC last two seasons were hosted by biggest superstar of all time, Amitabh Bachchan. AB not only hosted the show successfully but made a turnaround for himself in dropping showbiz career but also put Star Plus to number one spot in TRP ratings. People whole heartedly accept Big B in his new avatar as a quiz master. The show went stronger and stronger with masses. The show is not only about making people crorepatis ( millionaire ) but thier chance to meet and interact with AB. The charm of evergreen AB has just been irresistible on KBC.

SRK has stepped into the shoes ( bigger shoes ) of AB by accepting to host the KBC. SRK's popularity is nothing less than AB. There were no better options for producers when AB refused to continue with the show. SRK has his own histrionics and charm to bind people. The show started his third innings on 22 January 2007. There has been tremendous speculations about the future of show with SRK. Star Plus have been publicizing the show for more than a month before the start of show. Even Big B came home early to watch the show on TV. He was
anxious to see how his successor hosts the show.

KBC3 started with an item song of SRK. Quite a filmy touch to the song. The song was not catchy enough keep you glued to the TV for 5 minutes. The set was quite the same what
we are used to see. But compters have been changed from lenovo to "Compaq da". Yes, thats what SRK was addressing computer ji. Brands endorsed by Shah Rukh will fancy thier chances. SRK tried to make few changes in presentation of show in a witty style. King ordered that "lock kiya jaye" has been replaced with "freeze it". Dear contestants now on you cannot "quit" the show. You have to say "gale laga lo".
SRK declare "one never quits !!" so "gale laga lo". At times SRK tries to sound witty but sounded sarcastic to AB which I am sure viewers wouldn't like. I personally did not expected this from Shah Rukh. Many times he looked conscious and slight loss of appropriate words. I am sure as he moves further with the show, we will see him a bit more relaxed. Shah Rukh we don't want to see you act in the show. Be yourself. He lacked natural expressions on the face which we are used ( and like ) to see on AB's face. It helps you to connect with the audience. I would say SRK over do's in his debut episode or the shoes of AB are too big for SRK.

Tags : KBC , SRK , AB , KBC3 , Quiz

Why we always want to prove our point ?

Why we always want to prove our point ?

As I was driving down to my office. This question raised in my mind. We always tend to be assertive. I, being aggressive in nature, always tries to prove my point. Yes, I admit , I try to prove my point.

As I was driving in my car, I always try to overtake other vehicles ( may be we all do it ). I feel happy about it when I just zoom ahead them. Out of 100 times, 95 times we take a small or big risks with our lives or the others'. The chances of getting knocked down by other vehicles or you knocking some other vehicles are quite high.

Just when you find some more aggressive guy whom you overtook tries to get pass you. We tend to become better drivers. We think we can just zoom ahead no matter how much traffic we are into. To prove our point , we drive rash. We drive at high speed. Its quite immature behaviour. We are trying to prove a point on such a silly thing. Just on a pessimistic side, we meet a small accident where you damaged your headlight of your car or a small dent on it ( which you hate to see it ). We might have proved our point at the cost of such a damage but is it worth. We will spend a few bucks to repair the car and more importantly waste a couple of hours and energy in getting it repaired.

Sometimes its not at all important to prove your point everytime. We waste a lot of our precious energy in it. It may not be worth , at times to prove your point. One has to learn to be patient even if one may not feel like being it.

Tags: India, Point

Whats New On Yahoo Mail

Well yesterday ( 31-Aug-06 ) as I was checking my yahoo mail. I saw a small little surprise. It was a cool new feature on yahoo mail. The mails were expandable right at the pane without opening the mail actually. Its quite similiar to treeview but without child nodes. The mail opened in new format quite quickly. Surely yahoo users will like this feature. I guess it is in testing stage as when I reopened it in the evening, the feature was not available. I am really looking forward to this cool new feature.

Update :

I have figured it out why its happening. It happens in Firefox extension. It only supports Mozilla Firefox browser. This cool extension has been developed by Viamatic. This extension converts Yahoo! Mail into Ajax enabled web account.

Firefox user can install the extension from here.

Source : http://viamatic.com/blogs/index.php/firefox

Tags : yahoo, yahoo mail, new feature, Firefox

Rules to Better ..

I just found a cool link on Scott Guthrie's Blog. This link all about how you can improve your various skills like communication, marketing and technical skills. The articles on better software development and project management are cool. Check it out. Nice work by SSW.

Tags : Coding Standards, Project Management, Application Design, .NET

Spam : Group2001

I get this mail ( below ) everyday without fail... courtesy Naukri.com. Everyday similiar mail from Group2001 get routed through naukri.com to my yahoo inbox. I don't remember how many times I reported this matter to naukri at abuse@naukri.com. This email id is just to report any spam you get through naukri.com emails. But I guess naukri.com does not bother to take any measures .. hah !!



Group2001


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We are looking for a few associates who are positive professional / self employed and ambitious, with whom we can establish our business relationship.If you would like to know the details kindly visit the below mentioned website
WEBSITE : www.group2001.com with
Guest Login :5679582
Kindly see the following links
1. Parable of pipline movie
2. Business Model
3. FAQs which you can go through to get your questions answered.
If you like the concept the next step is to contact me from the contact us area so that we can meet on our next trip and take you t! o t! he next step. You must respond only if you are looking for a +ve change in your life in terms of money and time. We are not seeking any capital investment. A few hours a week of your time in the next two to five years can put you in a position to earn a serious six figure ongoing regenerative income. Also you are presented with an opportunity to build an international business of your own which is part of your willable estate. The time is short. If you are interested, please respond immediately.
Sincerely your
Pankaj Grover
+91-9310240295
+91-9810240295
Pankajgrover04@yahoo.co.in
Please Read This Carefully Before Replying :
As we value both yours and our ‘time’, we want you to reply this mail only if you are genuinely interested in diversification of your income and really serious about developing additional source of income along with your job/business.
Disclaimer: This mail is intended to be for the use of the individuals! who ! are seeking job/business opportunities and consented over to receive related offers. If you are not the intended recipient and nor seeking any opportunity/job/business offer, kindly ignore/delete this message and block sender’s address to make sure you do not receive any further offers/correspondence from the sender.


Group2001

Regards
Group2001 Team
Regards
Tonny

Cashing Pramod Mahajan's Death

The day the news of Pramod Mahajan's death flashed on various TV news channel, it was time to catch with some TRP ratings. Every other news channel was focusing on Pramod's life. Suddenly Pramod seemed to be India's one of the greatest leaders. Rajat Sharma's India Tv went on to flash the message "India TV ke Pramod Mahajan ko sachi shradhanjali de" meaning India TV's true homage to Pramod Mahajan. Disgusting .. how these news channels donot miss any opporunity to cash some publicity and attention.

Love Hotels in Japan

Love hotels (also known as boutique or fashion hotels) are hotels that offer double rooms for short time periods of usually two hours during the day and for the whole night (usually from 10 pm). As the name suggests, the main purpose of love hotels is to provide couples with a room to spend some undisturbed time together.

Love hotels can be found all over Japan. Many of them can be easily recognized because of their strange looks. In Tokyo exist some districts where many love hotels can be found side by side.

A stay overnight costs about 8000 Yen. The room fee for two hours during the day is usually a little bit lower, while on weekends, the prices can be much higher. The reception at a love hotel is very anonymous. The guests usually choose a room on a board by pressing a button and then pay at a little window where the receptionist behind cannot be seen.

The rooms are equipped according to their purpose with large double beds, a television offering erotic programs, a nice bathroom, etc.

Real Estate Reality in TriCity

With the advent of IT in and around Chandigarh. Many new developments are taking place in the tricity. Chandigarh Technology Park was inaugurated few months back. Many local IT companies and big names like IBM-Daksh, Infosys, Wipro showed interest in set up thier facilities. A super highway is planned between Delhi and Chandigarh for easy connectivity. Many engineering colleges, Punjab University , UBS , Fashion institutes have resulted in skilled but cheap manpower. Mohali was given the status of district this april. Greater Mohali is on the cards similiar to the lines of Greater Noida. All these developments have resulted in boom in real estate sector.

Many renowened builder came up with thier projects in Zirakpur, Mohali, Panchkula, Dera Bassi, Baddi, Kharar. The year 2005 saw property prices almost doubled. Easy home loans from ICICI, HDFC, SBI, PNB etc and higher salary brackets resulted in people investing in property. But since the begining of 2006, property prices have begun to fall.

The main reason for this fall is more supply then demand. The current prices are quite exaggerated. Suburb areas like Zirakpur, Baltana etc lacks basic amenities like good roads, electricity, sewerage systems, water. Many IT major like Wipro,Dell have shelved thier plans of expansion in the regions. Local property consultants admit that prices have fallen by 10-15% and in some areas its as high as 25%. This trend is expected to continue till the end of the year 2006. Prices are expected to stablise around Diwali.

Control Your Anger Buddy !!

I just had a bad day in office.

What made me angry ?
Was my anger justified ?
Is it affecting me ?
Am I happy now after my outburst ?
What impression the people have about ?
Do I really want to control my anger ?
Does my anger helped my cause ?
Am I mature enough to handle my outbursts ?

hah ... so many questions .. nobody to answer. Only solution I remmember about controlling my anger is to stop and count upto 10 before reacting. But I forget this when I get angry. I just can't help it. If you know its your negative point, you should try to curb this habit. Here are few tips to control your anger.

• Take a "time out." Count to 10 before reacting or leave the situation altogether.
• Do something physically exerting. Physical activity can provide an outlet for your emotions, especially if you're about to erupt. Go for a walk or a run, swim, lift weights or shoot baskets, for example.
• Find ways to calm and soothe yourself. Practice deep-breathing exercises, visualize a relaxing scene, or repeat a calming word or phrase to yourself, such as "take it easy." You can also listen to music, paint, journal or do yoga.
• Express your anger as soon as possible so that you aren't left stewing. If you can't express your anger in a controlled manner to the person who angered you, try talking to a family member, friend, counselor or another trusted person.
• Think carefully before you say anything so that you don't end up saying something you'll regret.
• Work with the person who angered you to identify solutions to the situation.
• Use "I" statements when describing the problem to avoid criticizing or placing blame. For instance, say "I'm upset you didn't help with the housework this evening," instead of, "You should have helped with the housework." To do otherwise will likely upset the other person and escalate tensions.
• Don't hold a grudge. Forgive the other person. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to behave exactly as you want.
• Use humor to defuse your anger, such as imagining yourself or the other person in silly situations. Don't use sarcasm, though — it's just another form of unhealthy expression.
• Keep an anger log to identify the kinds of situations that set you off and to monitor your reactions.

Tags : Anger Management, Anger, Control

Funny Page3

Recently Mid Day uncovered a story about Renee Jhaveri who successfully made into Page3 with the help of Mid-Day team. Mid Day came out with the concept and approached Renee for thier operation. Mid Day wanted to show the fake world of Page3 personalities. Page3 is all about money,style and how you present yourselves. Its so funny how people in Page3 parties believed in Renee's fake identitiy. Photographers and various TV channels were fooly covering Renee assuming she must be a high profile celebrity. Stars like New Zealand crickter Chris Cairns and bollywood starlet Priety Zinta posing with Renee. Renee, who is a just a normal girl studying in Mumbai's Law college. Almost Rs. 4.5 lakhs were spent on Renee's makeover.

Lakme Fashion Week

Three days of fashion in Lakme Fashion Week 2006 and two wardrobe malfunctions. First it was Carol Gracias who lost her top ( halter neck ) and the very nex day it was Ex-Miss India Gauhar Khan who found her skirt torn while she was on ramp. All seems to be well scripted. Its quite strange that models found themselves in an embarressing situation in consecutive days. Its seems its a stunt to get attention.

Its hard to believe that the same incident can happen twice in a fashion week. Various models have expressed thier views and called it as just an accident. Although these are the first incident of its kind that happened on Indian ramp. Carol topless video clip is already on net.

A successful publicity stunt.