Ani's (and Ashi's) Small World

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's - 10 Commandments of Investing

2011-03-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

•Be an optimist! The necessary quality for investing success.
•Expect a realistic return. Balance fear and greed.

•Invest on broad parameters and the larger picture. Make it an act of wisdom, not intelligence.

•Caveat emptor. Never forget this four-letter word -R-I-S-K.

•Be disciplined. Have a game plan.

•Be flexible. For Investing is always in the realms of possibilities.

•Contrarian investing. Not a rule, not ruled out.

•Its important what you buy. It’s more important at what price you buy.

•Have conviction. Be patient. Your patience may be tested, but your conviction will be rewarded.

•Make exit an independent decision, not driven by profit or loss.

Is your computer “male” or “female”?

2011-03-06T22:34:00.000-08:00

Found this wonderful little "pearl of knowledge" from my friend Raghavenrda Saboo's FB updates....
How can you confirm whether your BABY computer is a GIRL or a BOY....

Read On......it's a simple 4 step process...

1. Open Notepad

2. Type the following line in notepad: CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice").Speak"I love You"

3. Save file as computer_gender.vbs

4. Run the file (Make sure you are not on MUTE)

If you hear a male voice, it's a boy.

If you hear a female voice, it's a girl!..

Now...Geeks will know what I'm talking about....the SAPI thing is a "giveaway"...still a harmless little fun for a Dull Monday Morning...

So much for today....

Are Entrepreneurs BORN...or MADE?

2011-02-23T06:49:00.000-08:00

ARE ENTREPRENEURS BORN OR MADE?

Encountered this question in a LinkedIn group....Lot of interesting ideas from some very talented folks...
Thought it would be nice to add my 2 cents to the burgeoning treasury...
So here's Ani's answer to the Q....

They are NEITHER Born NOR Made...

IMHO....they GERMINATE....

to draw an analogy....

ALL of us (people of the world) are like seeds (millions...with unlimited potential but blissfully dormant)

...MOST of us go wasted (die and get dried in the compressor of life), SOME get eaten by animals

.....and SOME lucky ones get dropped in soil...

........a FEW of them find the the right atmosphere (air, sunshine and water...love)

............and when ALL THESE factors are optimal (i.e incubator of life)

...............ONLY A FEW of these germinate to become saplings (budding entreprenneurs)....

...................again only a FEW of THESE grow and become saplings (eager to grow and conquer the world)

.............................and a very few can become HUGE Trees
....................................(that can create new seeds)......

What do think of this take....cryptic.....crazy....coool....
I felt it was a nice metaphorical take on the entrepreneurial journey....after all only 1 in 1000 take the jump and 1 in 100000 get the success...pretty the same ration of seeds becoming trees

So much for today

Ani

35 Revolutions (Around the Sun) – A Short Journey by Ani

2011-02-20T06:24:00.000-08:00

What would be the Table of Content of the My Autobiography (if I wrote...EVER) -

This was one of the questions asked in an MBA application....
It was one of the best essays that I had to write...made me think in a different way...
How could you summarise your journey in less than 1000 words...

Well....here's a shot at it...

35 Revolutions (Around the Sun) – A Short Journey by Ani
1) Prologue – An Interview Of Life

2) 1975 – The 13th of December

3) Growing up in the Ruhr of India…West Bengal in the staid 80’s

4) Search the Ticket to Excellence…..by all round academics

5) Here comes the Tabla Maestro….Enthalling and enthralled..

6) With Fame comes Hype – The invincible quizzer

7) 1991 – A New India in born…Liberalization from past…

8) The winds of change…and how they rock you…

9) The higher you rise….the harder you fall

10) Fighting the Personal Demons…one at a time

11) Poetry is the best friend of the loner…the fighter…the dreamer

12) The Miner finds a Stone…Diamond?

13) Meet the Mine Manager…in the jungles of India

14) Refocus…Aim…Dream…Jump

15) IT is the key in IIIT...and Bangalore is the Key to India

16) Studying with scholarships…making it a habit

17) Open your Heart to Me…Thanks Yahoo Messenger

18) GE and I…Made for each other

19) 9/11 and the Accidental Leader

20) Six Sigma in good…until you show the Ugly Truth..

21) US Beckons…Greenville Embraces

22) An Indian in the Redneck land

23) Marriage with a 2 year Honeymoon…

24) Chasing the 4 Es (Edge, Energy, Energizing Execution)…

25) Change is the only constant…in GE...

26) The Cycles of failures and successes…keep rolling

27) Bring back the leadership to India

28) Agile…The Game Changer….The Life Catalyst

29) The Biggest Project Failure…The Biggest People Success..

30) Decide before you jump!!

31) You can keep everything locked…what if you lost the KEY

32) A Day in the Life of DATA…Lost…Found…Protected…

33) SOA…to Cloud…via virtualization

34) “Jao Pakhi”…I Believe I Can Fly…

35) The Leadership Pipeline….the stairs to the journey…

So much for today....

On "Command and Control" in Agile Methods

2010-08-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

Someone asked - Why does Agile/Scrum suggest Servant Leadership and No Command and Control management....Another person asked recently....Can we really do without command and control in Scrum...
Worse still...someone made a statement...this concept about NO Command and Control in Scrum in B.S...you just can't deliver Software without CONTROL...

Been thinking....are we taking 2 extreme sides here....ultimately came with my theory..here it is..

Ultimately we all know that "Command and Control" is a Time Tested management technique used to "Balance between Constraints".
As Mr Pressman has been teaching us for long, in software development, managers need to balance the iron triangle of Time, Scope and Resource (i.e PEOPLE)...also Quality...but then that's non negotiable :-)

With this context let's relook at any Agile model (Scrum/XP/DSDM) that highlights the principle of NOT using Command and Control (explicit or implicit)...I think there is a "fine print" here...

What Agile/Scrum postulates is NOT to use command and control on PEOPLE...i.e one of the constraints (resources)....at the same time the idea IS to have command and control on the other 2 constraints i.e Scope and Time...

1) The way Scrum/Agile puts command and control on Scope is by ALWAYS having a prioritized Backlog and fixing the Sprint/Iteration Scope at the start of sprints....The PRODUCT OWNER has total command and control on the Backlog and the sprint team commands the scope.
2) The way it puts command and control on Time is by Timeboxing the sprint AND the ceremonies in sprints...The TEAM (PO, SM and Team) has complete Command and control on this Timebox.

SO according to me Agile methods like Scrum/XP etc (with its emphasis on people) have explicitly taken away the control on people but equally explicitly places a tight control on scope and time....

Friends who believe some control is needed for SW delivery....the answer is simple....by taking away one control completely AND simultaneously putting explicit/total control on the other two, Agile basically empowers the team with more"usable" and "beneficial" control...
Even though most Agile methods are empirical there is definitely some scientific method is this perceived model (methods in the madness!!).
Remember Boyle's Law in Physics (PV=RT)...if we have 3 variables then you cannot control all 3 of them, your best bet is to control (or fix) 2 so that you can allow the 3rd to vary...so obviously you will provide tge freedom to the most important (priceless) component ..PEOPLE...Don't control them ...rather control your other 2 variables...and that's the People Centric Work Paradigm....

So much for now...let me think on this theory to see if there are any chinks :-)

Answering some queries on Agile

2010-08-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

I joined a groupsite (AgileBangalore) sometime back...it has been an exciting experience till now....collaborating with fellow Agile enthusiasts, discussing Agile issues/experiences....overtime I have answered a few queries in the groupsite...thought of collating some of those and publishing here..

Question: I am a software tools engineer. How agail and/or scrum helps me to become better tools engineer? (http://agilebangalore.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/show/375323#message_455702)

Ani's Take: Agile is an umbrella term (collection of different names but similar processes based on same principles..e.g: Scrum, XP, DSDM, Crystal, Lean SW Dev etc)....all of them espouse certain human-centered management processes/framework...some of them (like XP) go further and suggest Engineering Best Practices to adopt (e.g: Unit Testing and TDD, Continous Integration/Build and Config Mgmt, Automated Testing etc)...
Nearly all Agile practices will need some or all of these practices to succeed and these will in turn demand skilled artisans/craftsmen to implement via tools....so if you joined the Agile revolution to enhance your ability in this direction, your best bet will be to investigate these...(try googling "software craftsmanship" and you'll get lot of starters)...
However I want to give a caveat....Agile DOESNOT espouse Tools and Automation for any human-centered interactions (you can still use them but in my experience they are rightly used only by mature teams).....
So if your idea of using tools is to get status updates I would not support that since by doing so you are going to sap the spirit of the daily scrum...your best tools to manage these would be whiteboards, excel files (and for mature teams some lightweight manegement tools like VersionOne, RallyDev, Mingle etc.
Lastly, you can still use some tools to capture metrics ...follow the same rule...try and focus metrics on the work and not the people....so you can use tools for code review, defect management, static code analysis...all these will enable better agile team spirit...don't focus on tools to captures things like - the time taken to complere stories (unless mandated by mgmt), variance in productivity between team members etc etc..

Question: Generally people believe that Agile doesn't require documentation or doenn't support documentation. How much documentation do you use in your agile projects? What has worked well for you, and what hasn't? (http://agilebangalore.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/show/306245)

Ani's Take: There are 2 types to documentation (and the Agile principle is minimal but sufficient documentations)
1) Documents supporting delivery to external customers (this can be Release notes, User guides, Admin guides etc)....I don't think there is any scope of reducing this type of documentation

2) Documentation supporting internal delivery - e.g: Status Reports, Meeting Minutes, Specification documents (Use Cases Diagram, Functional Specs, Tech Specs etc etc)...again sometime a few of these are mandated (in service companies, clients may ask for this before transition to support)...

However the Agile principle should be to question the need and detail needed for each and take the minimum but sufficient approach...e.g: If client wants a Use Case diagram before the transition, I will take the following approach...thruout dev cycle I will NOT manage any document but rely on .MDL files to manage by user cases, classes, sequence diagrams etc and in the last sprint keep a story item to create a use case diagram....by that time the components of the mdl file would be stable and it would be easy to create the document (in fact tools like Rational Rose may just create it for you)...Similarly I will NOT waste time on multiple status reports (no reports of scrum meetings etc), however make sure the team is capturing the relevant and important "conversations" in some sort of documents...

Bottom line....Agile is not for NO documentation it's for any documentation that has a purpose AND the simplest way to deliver those...

Question: As per your experience provide the details of key challanges you faced at your organization/project etc? (http://agilebangalore.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/show/303844)

Ani's Take: IMHO challenges in Agile Adoption can be at three levels

1) Higher Management Level challenges
i) If Agile was thought of as a silver bullet that will fix all issues, it causes problems since Agile on the other hand has a great knack of bringing forth the hiddne orgnanization issues (e.g: manager's tendency to command and control, no preparedness in Test Automation)
ii) Agile needs cross functional collaboaration which sometimes can open a can of worms in a strictly Functional Org (Mgmt needs to subscribe to matrix organizations)
iii) Management dictats (need metrics from teams, need to compare productivity from diff teams etc) can be misinterpreted by teams or can be mis-directional to Agile principles.

2) Mid Management Level (level of Functional managers who are assigned to drive Agile Adoption)
i) Not understanding the essence of Agile may lead to modifying Agile wrongly (What we call as Scrumbuts)...e.g: Functional managers tend to attend Scrum meetings and it ends up being status meeting AND team stop talking between themselves since now they are escalating issues to respective managers and they are discussing issues at their level...
ii) Not having or consulting Agile Coaches leads to combining Agile with Waterfall practices (e.g: Let's use Sprints 1 and 2 for Designing only)...We popularly hear terms like Scrummerfall (Try googling to get case studies...have seen in my experience too)
iii) This layer feels insecure (specially when there are no coaches OR senior mgmt is not clear in communicating) about their diminished role in day to day activities (loss of command) and hence resist Agile adoption using hidden or clear obstacles.

3) Team level
i) I have seen that teams are normally the least part of the problem....IF they are properly guided by a strong ScrumMaster/Coach in the initial part of agile (Guidance is not just theory...but providing the RIGHT hands on advice as an when needed)...however sometimes teams face issues in understanding "self - organization" and tend to depend on managers for decision making
ii) In few cases (not many) I have seen some team members who have come from successful Waterfall/Iterative implementations, resist Agile (too fast, too risky, too pressure).....acc to me these were symptoms of other problems (most probably they were insecure in some way, or may be didn't understand the tenets of Agile clearly).
iii) Product Owners - Unfortunately the spread of scrum has produced very good ScrumMasters (training, guidance etc)....but there are not many mature product owners (simply because there are not enough mentors, guidance or training for them)...I believe POs are the most complex role (they face the maximum change in work process) and hence if not guided or trained they will not succeed and put the teams at risk
iv) SMs - There are lot of SMs but not many who really can mentor the team, push back on outside interference AND be a true "servant leader"....SMs tend to become PMs (unfortunately due to environments or lack of coaching).

So much for now....will add some queries and my 2 cents on them later...ciao

Stay Hungry, Stay foolish - Steve Jobs

2010-04-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

HERE IS A SPEECH DELIVERED BY STEVE JOBS...The Best I have heard from a Leader...EVER (and that's a toll Order)

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.

That's it. No big deal.
Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with. And I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parent’s garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was a awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades.

Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important - have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

The Art of Appraisal

2010-04-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

Big Boss: This year your performance was good, excellent and outstanding. So, your rating is "average".

Kumar: What? How come 'average'?

Big Boss: Because...err...uhh...you lack domain knowledge.

Kumar: But last year you said I am a domain expert and you put me in this project as a domain consultant.

Big Boss: Oh is it? Well, in that case, I think your domain knowledge has eroded this year.

Kumar: What???

Big Boss: Yes, I didn't see you sharing knowledge on Purchasing domain.

Kumar: Why would I? Because I am not in Purchasing, I am in Manufacturing.

Big Boss: This is what I don't like about you. You give excuse for everything.

Kumar: Huh? *Confused*

Big Boss: Next, you need to improve your communication skills.

Kumar: Like what? I am the one who trained the team on "Business Communication", you sat in the audience and took notes, you remember?

Big Boss: Oh is it? Errr...well..I mean, you need to improve your Social Pragmatic Affirmative Communication.

Kumar: Huh? What the hell is that? *Confused*

Big Boss: See! That's why you need to learn about it.

Kumar: *head spinning*

Big Boss: Next, you need to sharpen your recruiting skills. All the guys you recruited left within 2 months.

Kumar: Well, not my mistake. You told them you will sit beside them and review their code, and most resigned the next day itself. Couple of them even attempted suicide.

Big Boss:*stunned* (recovers from shock) Err...anyway, I tried to give you a better rating, but our Normalization process gave you only 'average'.

Kumar: Last year that process gave me 'excellent'. This year just 'average'? Why is this process pushing me up and down every year?

Boss: That's a complicated process. You don't want to hear.

Kumar: I'll try to understand. Go ahead.

Big Boss: Well, we gather in a large room, write down the names of sub-ordinates in bits of paper, and throw them up in the air. Whichever lands on the floor gets 'average', whichever lands on table gets 'good', whichever we manage to catch gets 'excellent' and whichever gets stuck toceiling gets 'outstanding'.

Kumar: (eyes popping out) What? Ridiculous! So who gets 'poor' rating?

Big Boss: Those are the ones we forget to write down.

Kumar: What the hell! And how can paper bits stick to ceiling for 'outstanding'?

Big Boss: Oh no, now you have started questioning our 20 year old organizational process!

Kumar: *faints*

Bollywood stars in FRIENDS movie ... who is who??? Here is my pick.

2009-11-27T09:16:00.000-08:00

Hey ... we all know the Friends couldn't have been FRIENDS without the wonderful star cast but ifffffff Bollywood is coming up with a movie on Friends then here is my suggestion for the star cast (explanation given like a good designer .. :-) )
1) Joey - John Abraham (Think Dostana - Joey's character needs brawn and dumbness)
2) Chandler - Abhishek Bachchan (Again...think Dostana)
3) Ross - Irrfan Khan (Toughest role to cast....the character needs tremendous self depreciation and crankyness...Irrfan suits...Think Metro)
4) Monica - Lara Dutta (Think No Entry....this role needs a tough and obsessive-ness that Lara Dutta has in oodles)
5) Rachel - Priyanka Chopra (Classy...saucy....nerdy...stylo...what else do u need)
6) Phoebe - Mallika Sherawat (Hmmmmm.....the fun casting...She can be the star....she has the crazy, dumb, simpleton, tough-cookie combo)

Deming's 14 Points of Management:

2009-11-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

At this new economic era the key is competitiveness. The markets are global, are worldwide and if you intend to stay in business, you need to be competitive. To be competitive, the best way is to improve the products or services you offer. But not only improve one time, you need to be constantly improved in order to offer the best of a kind in products or services. Today, an American company competes against not only Japanese but Canadian, Mexican, European,etc. To be successful a firm must be competitive.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

The Western management certainly is behind the Oriental management. We are in a new economic era with more competition, Global markets, technology improvements, and the challenge is huge. American companies and American people need to adopt a new philosophy considering cost reduction, team work, quality and leadership. If we do not, we will see other countries taking advantage from us and our industry.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

The first thing we need to change is our thinking. To achieve quality does not mean inspection 100%. Inspection costs are high and we need cost reduction. Inspection takes timeand we are looking for better timing, better delivery.

We have to think in quality on Product Design not at the end of the production process but at the very beginning: when a product or service is designed. Quality assurance must be considered since the first stage of production; and probably at the end of the process no inspection will be necessary.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost.

Move towarda single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust. To be competitive it is very important to have lower costs. We have to minimize total cost; not only the price. Remember that defective units are cost; delay in delivery is cost, excessive inventory is cost, etc. To minimize total cost long-term relationship with suppliers is really important. If you as a customer help your supplier to develop, to improve the quality, you will receive better products so you will win and your supplier too.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

As discussed in the previous point, the total costs involved in the production/service system are high. Continuous improvements in the system will help lower costs through increased productivity and efficiency. This, in turn, should help keep the costs manageable.

6. Institute training on the job.

The Deming video noted that there is a difference between education and training. Management should recognize this and provide the necessary training to their employees. Training should also be ongoing. Continuous improvement of the work force will contribute greatly to the success of the organization.

7. Institute leadership.

The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul as well as supervision of production workers. Leadership empowers everyone. It promotes excellence in everything "we" do. Deming suggests that through leadership at all levels, the organization will be able to achieve success. The old style of management is out.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

Fear is both a motivator and de-motivator. Fear motivates, only to the extent that the "job" is done to avoid repercussions. it serves as a greater demotivator as it oppresses individuals creativity. Ultimately the organization suffers in such a negative atmosphere.

9. Break down barriers between departments.

People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service. Barriers impede sharing and cooperation. Organizations today should eliminate the "department barriers" that isolate employees. This isolation inhibits team play that is an essential element for organizational success today. The "team" philosophy can be used outside of sports to create the same cohesiveness within organizations that champion sports teams possess.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity.

Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force. Building quality into operation eliminates the uses of slogans and targets because of continuous organizational improvements.

11. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.

Improve operation skills and eliminating quotas will allow employees to experience different tasks on their job. By implementing some of these, employees will feel productive, therefore, will contribute more to the organization. Eliminate methods can improve product and services quality. Methods are operating systems used by the organization during the actual transformation process.

12. Create Pride in the job being done.

1. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workers of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. All successful quality enhancement programs involve making the person responsible for doing the job responsible for making sure it is done right. Then employment involvement is a critical component in improving quality.

2. Remove barriers that rob people in management and engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual merit rating and of management by objective.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

Increasing the flexibility of an organization's work force by training employees to perform a number of different jobs. For instance, cross training allows the firms to function with fewer workers, because workers can be transferred easily to areas where they are most needed.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.

The transformation is everybody's job. The involvement might range form an individual worker being given a bigger voice in how she or he does the job, to a formal agreement of cooperation between management and labor, to total involvement throughout the organization. Take action.

A List of Useful Excel Shortcuts

2009-10-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

Ctrl+A Select All None

Ctrl+B Bold Format, Cells, Font, Font Style, Bold

Ctrl+C Copy Edit, Copy

Ctrl+D Fill Down Edit, Fill, Down

Ctrl+F Find Edit, Find

Ctrl+G Goto Edit, Goto

Ctrl+H Replace Edit, Replace

Ctrl+I Italic Format, Cells, Font, Font Style, Italic

Ctrl+K Insert Hyperlink Insert, Hyperlink

Ctrl+N New Workbook File, New

Ctrl+O Open File, Open

Ctrl+P Print File, Print

Ctrl+R Fill Right Edit, Fill Right

Ctrl+S Save File, Save

Ctrl+U Underline Format, Cells, Font, Underline, Single

Ctrl+V Paste Edit, Paste

Ctrl W Close File, Close

Ctrl+X Cut Edit, Cut

Ctrl+Y Repeat Edit, Repeat

Ctrl+Z Undo Edit, Undo

F1 Help Help, Contents and Index

F2 Edit None

F3 Paste Name Insert, Name, Paste

F4 Repeat last action Edit, Repeat. Works while not in Edit mode.

F4 While typing a formula, switch between absolute/relative refs None

F5 Goto Edit, Goto

F6 Next Pane None

F7 Spell check Tools, Spelling

F8 Extend mode None

F9 Recalculate all workbooks Tools, Options, Calculation, Calc,Now

F10 Activate Menubar N/A

F11 New Chart Insert, Chart

F12 Save As File, Save As

Ctrl+: Insert Current Time None

Ctrl+; Insert Current Date None

Ctrl+" Copy Value from Cell Above Edit, Paste Special, Value

Ctrl+’ Copy Fromula from Cell Above Edit, Copy

Shift Hold down shift for additional functions in Excel’s menu none

Shift+F1 What’s This? Help, What’s This?

Shift+F2 Edit cell comment Insert, Edit Comments

Shift+F3 Paste function into formula Insert, Function

Shift+F4 Find Next Edit, Find, Find Next

Shift+F5 Find Edit, Find, Find Next

Shift+F6 Previous Pane None

Shift+F8 Add to selection None

Shift+F9 Calculate active worksheet Calc Sheet

Shift+F10 Display shortcut menu None

Shift+F11 New worksheet Insert, Worksheet

Shift+F12 Save File, Save

Ctrl+F3 Define name Insert, Names, Define

Ctrl+F4 Close File, Close

Ctrl+F5 XL, Restore window size Restore

Ctrl+F6 Next workbook window Window, ...

Shift+Ctrl+F6 Previous workbook window Window, ...

Ctrl+F7 Move window XL, Move

Ctrl+F8 Resize window XL, Size

Ctrl+F9 Minimize workbook XL, Minimize

Ctrl+F10 Maximize or restore window XL, Maximize

Ctrl+F11 Inset 4.0 Macro sheet None in Excel 97. In versions prior to 97 - Insert, Macro, 4.0 Macro

Ctrl+F12 File Open File, Open

Alt+F1 Insert Chart Insert, Chart...

Alt+F2 Save As File, Save As

Alt+F4 Exit File, Exit

Alt+F8 Macro dialog box Tools, Macro, Macros in Excel 97 Tools,Macros - in earlier versions

Alt+F11 Visual Basic Editor Tools, Macro, Visual Basic Editor

Ctrl+Shift+F3 Create name by using names of row and column labels Insert, Name, Create

Ctrl+Shift+F6 Previous Window Window, ...

Ctrl+Shift+F12 Print File, Print

Alt+Shift+F1 New worksheet Insert, Worksheet

Alt+Shift+F2 Save File, Save

Alt+= AutoSum No direct equivalent

Ctrl+` Toggle Value/Formula display Tools, Options, View, Formulas

Ctrl+Shift+A Insert argument names into formula No direct equivalent

Alt+Down arrow Display AutoComplete list None

Alt+’ Format Style dialog box Format, Style

Ctrl+Shift+~ General format Format, Cells, Number, Category, General

Ctrl+Shift+! Comma format Format, Cells, Number, Category, Number

Ctrl+Shift+@ Time format Format, Cells, Number, Category, Time

Ctrl+Shift+# Date format Format, Cells, Number, Category, Date

Ctrl+Shift+$ Currency format Format, Cells, Number, Category, Currency

Ctrl+Shift+% Percent format Format, Cells, Number, Category, Percentage

Ctrl+Shift+^ Exponential format Format, Cells, Number, Category,

Ctrl+Shift+& Place outline border around selected cells Format, Cells, Border

Ctrl+Shift+_ Remove outline border Format, Cells, Border

Ctrl+Shift+* Select current region Edit, Goto, Special, Current Region

Ctrl++ Insert Insert, (Rows, Columns, or Cells) Depends on selection

Ctrl+- Delete Delete, (Rows, Columns, or Cells) Depends on selection

Ctrl+1 Format cells dialog box Format, Cells

Ctrl+2 Bold Format, Cells, Font, Font Style, Bold

Ctrl+3 Italic Format, Cells, Font, Font Style, Italic

Ctrl+4 Underline Format, Cells, Font, Font Style, Underline

Ctrl+5 Strikethrough Format, Cells, Font, Effects, Strikethrough

Ctrl+6 Show/Hide objects Tools, Options, View, Objects, Show All/Hide

Ctrl+7 Show/Hide Standard toolbar View, Toolbars, Stardard

Ctrl+8 Toggle Outline symbols None

Ctrl+9 Hide rows Format, Row, Hide

Ctrl+0 Hide columns Format, Column, Hide

Ctrl+Shift+( Unhide rows Format, Row, Unhide

Ctrl+Shift+) Unhide columns Format, Column, Unhide

Alt or F10 Activate the menu None

Ctrl+Tab In toolbar: next toolbar None

Shift+Ctrl+Tab In toolbar: previous toolbar None

Ctrl+Tab In a workbook: activate next workbook None

Shift+Ctrl+Tab In a workbook: activate previous workbook None

Tab Next tool None

Shift+Tab Previous tool None

Enter Do the command None

Shift+Ctrl+F Font Drop Down List Format, Cells, Font

Shift+Ctrl+F+F Font tab of Format Cell Dialog box Format, Cells, Font

Shift+Ctrl+P Point size Drop Down List Format, Cells, Font

- CTRL combination shortcut keys -

- Key Description -

CTRL+( Unhides any hidden rows within the selection.

CTRL+) Unhides any hidden columns within the selection.

CTRL+& Applies the outline border to the selected cells.

CTRL+_ Removes the outline border from the selected cells.

CTRL+~ Applies the General number format.

CTRL+$ Applies the Currency format with two decimal places (negative numbers in parentheses).

CTRL+% Applies the Percentage format with no decimal places.

CTRL+^ Applies the Exponential number format with two decimal places.

CTRL+# Applies the Date format with the day, month, and year.

CTRL+@ Applies the Time format with the hour and minute, and AM or PM.

CTRL+! Applies the Number format with two decimal places, thousands separator, and minus sign (-) for negative values.

CTRL+- Displays the Delete dialog box to delete the selected cells.

CTRL+* Selects the current region around the active cell (the data area enclosed by blank rows and blank columns).

In a PivotTable, it selects the entire PivotTable report.

CTRL+: Enters the current time.

CTRL+; Enters the current date.

CTRL+` Alternates between displaying cell values and displaying formulas in the worksheet.

CTRL+' Copies a formula from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the Formula Bar.

CTRL+" Copies the value from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the Formula Bar.

CTRL++ Displays the Insert dialog box to insert blank cells.

CTRL+1 Displays the Format Cells dialog box.

CTRL+2 Applies or removes bold formatting.

CTRL+3 Applies or removes italic formatting.

CTRL+4 Applies or removes underlining.

CTRL+5 Applies or removes strikethrough.

CTRL+6 Alternates between hiding objects, displaying objects, and displaying placeholders for objects.

CTRL+7 Displays or hides the Standard toolbar.

CTRL+8 Displays or hides the outline symbols.

CTRL+9 Hides the selected rows.

CTRL+0 Hides the selected columns.

CTRL+A Selects the entire worksheet.

If the worksheet contains data, CTRL+A selects the current region. Pressing CTRL+A a second time selects the entire worksheet.

When the insertion point is to the right of a function name in a formula, displays the Function Arguments dialog box.

CTRL+SHIFT+A inserts the argument names and parentheses when the insertion point is to the right of a function name in a formula.

CTRL+B Applies or removes bold formatting.

CTRL+C Copies the selected cells.

CTRL+C followed by another CTRL+C displays the Microsoft Office Clipboard.

CTRL+D Uses the Fill Down command to copy the contents and format of the topmost cell of a selected range into the cells below.

CTRL+F Displays the Find dialog box.

SHIFT+F5 also displays this dialog box, while SHIFT+F4 repeats the last Find action.

CTRL+G Displays the Go To dialog box.

F5 also displays this dialog box.

CTRL+H Displays the Find and Replace dialog box.

CTRL+I Applies or removes italic formatting.

CTRL+K Displays the Insert Hyperlink dialog box for new hyperlinks or the Edit Hyperlink dialog box for selected existing hyperlinks.

CTRL+L Displays the Create List dialog box.

CTRL+N Creates a new, blank file.

CTRL+O Displays the Open dialog box to open or find a file.

CTRL+SHIFT+O selects all cells that contain comments.

CTRL+P Displays the Print dialog box.

CTRL+R Uses the Fill Right command to copy the contents and format of the leftmost cell of a selected range into the cells to the right.

CTRL+S Saves the active file with its current file name, location, and file format.

CTRL+U Applies or removes underlining.

CTRL+V Inserts the contents of the Clipboard at the insertion point and replaces any selection. Available only after you cut or copied an object, text, or cell contents.

CTRL+W Closes the selected workbook window.

CTRL+X Cuts the selected cells.

CTRL+Y Repeats the last command or action, if possible.

CTRL+Z Uses the Undo command to reverse the last command or to delete the last entry you typed.

CTRL+SHIFT+Z uses the Undo or Redo command to reverse or restore the last automatic correction when AutoCorrect Smart Tags are displayed.

- Function keys -

F1 Displays the Help task pane.

CTRL+F1 closes and reopens the current task pane.

ALT+F1 creates a chart of the data in the current range.

ALT+SHIFT+F1 inserts a new worksheet.

F2 Edits the active cell and positions the insertion point at the end of the cell contents. It also moves the insertion point into the Formula Bar when editing in a cell is turned off.

SHIFT+F2 edits a cell comment.

F3 Pastes a defined name into a formula.

SHIFT+F3 displays the Insert Function dialog box.

F4 Repeats the last command or action, if possible.

CTRL+F4 closes the selected workbook window.

F5 Displays the Go To dialog box.

CTRL+F5 restores the window size of the selected workbook window.

F6 Switches to the next pane in a worksheet that has been split (Window menu, Split command).

SHIFT+F6 switches to the previous pane in a worksheet that has been split.

CTRL+F6 switches to the next workbook window when more than one workbook window is open.

Note When the task pane is visible, F6 and SHIFT+F6 include that pane when switching between panes.

F7 Displays the Spelling dialog box to check spelling in the active worksheet or selected range.

CTRL+F7 performs the Move command on the workbook window when it is not maximized. Use the arrow keys to move the window, and when finished press ESC.

F8 Turns extend mode on or off. In extend mode, EXT appears in the status line, and the arrow keys extend the selection.

SHIFT+F8 enables you to add a non-adjacent cell or range to a selection of cells by using the arrow keys.

CTRL+F8 performs the Size command (on the Control menu for the workbook window) when a workbook is not maximized.

ALT+F8 displays the Macro dialog box to run, edit, or delete a macro.

F9 Calculates all worksheets in all open workbooks.

F9 followed by ENTER (or followed by CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER for array formulas) calculates the selected a portion of a formula and replaces the selected portion with the calculated value.

SHIFT+F9 calculates the active worksheet.

CTRL+ALT+F9 calculates all worksheets in all open workbooks, regardless of whether they have changed since the last calculation.

CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F9 rechecks dependent formulas, and then calculates all cells in all open workbooks, including cells not marked as needing to be calculated.

CTRL+F9 minimizes a workbook window to an icon.

F10 Selects the menu bar or closes an open menu and submenu at the same time.

SHIFT+F10 displays the shortcut menu for a selected item.

ALT+SHIFT+F10 displays the menu or message for a smart tag. If more than one smart tag is present, it switches to the next smart tag and displays its menu or message.

CTRL+F10 maximizes or restores the selected workbook window.

F11 Creates a chart of the data in the current range.

SHIFT+F11 inserts a new worksheet.

ALT+F11 opens the Visual Basic Editor, in which you can create a macro by using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

ALT+SHIFT+F11 opens the Microsoft Script Editor, where you can add text, edit HTML tags, and modify any script code.

F12 Displays the Save As dialog box.

- Other useful shortcut keys -

ARROW KEYS Move one cell up, down, left, or right in a worksheet.

CTRL+ARROW KEY moves to the edge of the current data region (data region: A range of cells that contains data and that is bounded by empty cells or datasheet borders.) in a worksheet.

SHIFT+ARROW KEY extends the selection of cells by one cell.

CTRL+SHIFT+ARROW KEY extends the selection of cells to the last nonblank cell in the same column or row as the active cell.

LEFT ARROW or RIGHT ARROW selects the menu to the left or right when a menu is visible. When a submenu is open, these arrow keys switch between the main menu and the submenu.

DOWN ARROW or UP ARROW selects the next or previous command when a menu or submenu is open.

In a dialog box, arrow keys move between options in an open drop-down list, or between options in a group of options.

ALT+DOWN ARROW opens a selected drop-down list.

BACKSPACE Deletes one character to the left in the Formula Bar.

Also clears the content of the active cell.

DELETE Removes the cell contents (data and formulas) from selected cells without affecting cell formats or comments.

In cell editing mode, it deletes the character to the right of the insertion point.

END Moves to the cell in the lower-right corner of the window when SCROLL LOCK is turned on.

Also selects the last command on the menu when a menu or submenu is visible.

CTRL+END moves to the last cell on a worksheet, in the lowest used row of the rightmost used column.

CTRL+SHIFT+END extends the selection of cells to the last used cell on the worksheet (lower-right corner).

ENTER Completes a cell entry from the cell or the Formula Bar, and selects the cell below (by default).

In a data form, it moves to the first field in the next record.

Opens a selected menu (press F10 to activate the menu bar) or performs the action for a selected command.

In a dialog box, it performs the action for the default command button in the dialog box (the button with the bold outline, often the OK button).

ALT+ENTER starts a new line in the same cell.

CTRL+ENTER fills the selected cell range with the current entry.

SHIFT+ENTER completes a cell entry and selects the cell above.

ESC Cancels an entry in the cell or Formula Bar.

It also closes an open menu or submenu, dialog box, or message window.

HOME Moves to the beginning of a row in a worksheet.

Moves to the cell in the upper-left corner of the window when SCROLL LOCK is turned on.

Selects the first command on the menu when a menu or submenu is visible.

CTRL+HOME moves to the beginning of a worksheet.

CTRL+SHIFT+HOME extends the selection of cells to the beginning of the worksheet.

PAGE DOWN Moves one screen down in a worksheet.

ALT+PAGE DOWN moves one screen to the right in a worksheet.

CTRL+PAGE DOWN moves to the next sheet in a workbook.

CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE DOWN selects the current and next sheet in a workbook.

PAGE UP Moves one screen up in a worksheet.

ALT+PAGE UP moves one screen to the left in a worksheet.

CTRL+PAGE UP moves to the previous sheet in a workbook.

CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE UP selects the current and previous sheet in a workbook.

SPACEBAR In a dialog box, performs the action for the selected button, or selects or clears a check box.

CTRL+SPACEBAR selects an entire column in a worksheet.

SHIFT+SPACEBAR selects an entire row in a worksheet.

CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR selects the entire worksheet.

If the worksheet contains data, CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR selects the current region. Pressing CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR a second time selects the entire worksheet.

When an object is selected, CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR selects all objects on a worksheet.

ALT+SPACEBAR displays the Control menu for the Excel window.

TAB Moves one cell to the right in a worksheet.

Moves between unlocked cells in a protected worksheet.

Moves to the next option or option group in a dialog box.

SHIFT+TAB moves to the previous cell in a worksheet or the previous option in a dialog box.

CTRL+TAB switches to the next tab in dialog box.

CTRL+SHIFT+TAB switches to the previous tab in a dialog box.

Useful - Windows ShOrtcuts

Windows system key combinations

• F1: Help

• CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu

• ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs

• ALT+F4: Quit program

• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently

Windows program key combinations

• CTRL+C: Copy

• CTRL+X: Cut

• CTRL+V: Paste

• CTRL+Z: Undo

• CTRL+B: Bold

• CTRL+U: Underline

• CTRL+I: Italic

Mouse click/keyboard modifier combinations for shell objects

• SHIFT+right click: Displays a shortcut menu containing alternative commands

• SHIFT+double click: Runs the alternate default command (the second item on the menu)

• ALT+double click: Displays properties

• SHIFT+DELETE: Deletes an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin

General keyboard-only commands

• F1: Starts Windows Help

• F10: Activates menu bar options

• SHIFT+F10 Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object

• CTRL+ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item)

• CTRL+ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu)

• ALT+DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box

• ALT+TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)

• SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature

• ALT+SPACE: Displays the main window's System menu (from the System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the window)

• ALT+- (ALT+hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) child window's System menu (from the MDI child window's System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window)

• CTRL+TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) program

• ALT+underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu

• ALT+F4: Closes the current window

• CTRL+F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window

• ALT+F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed, ALT+F6 switches between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window)

Shell objects and general folder/Windows Explorer shortcuts

For a selected object:

• F2: Rename object

• F3: Find all files

• CTRL+X: Cut

• CTRL+C: Copy

• CTRL+V: Paste

• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin

• ALT+ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object

To copy a file

Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.

To create a shortcut

Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.

General folder/shortcut control

• F4: Selects the Go To A Different Folder box and moves down the entries in the box (if the toolbar is active in Windows Explorer)

• F5: Refreshes the current window.

• F6: Moves among panes in Windows Explorer

• CTRL+G: Opens the Go To Folder tool (in Windows 95 Windows Explorer only)

• CTRL+Z: Undo the last command

• CTRL+A: Select all the items in the current window

• BACKSPACE: Switch to the parent folder

• SHIFT+click+Close button: For folders, close the current folder plus all parent folders

Windows Explorer tree control

• Numeric Keypad *: Expands everything under the current selection

• Numeric Keypad +: Expands the current selection

• Numeric Keypad -: Collapses the current selection.

• RIGHT ARROW: Expands the current selection if it is not expanded, otherwise goes to the first child

• LEFT ARROW: Collapses the current selection if it is expanded, otherwise goes to the parent

Properties control

• CTRL+TAB/CTRL+SHIFT+TAB: Move through the property tabs

Accessibility shortcuts

• Press SHIFT five times: Toggles StickyKeys on and off

• Press down and hold the right SHIFT key for eight seconds: Toggles FilterKeys on and off

• Press down and hold the NUM LOCK key for five seconds: Toggles ToggleKeys on and off

• Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK: Toggles MouseKeys on and off

• Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN: Toggles high contrast on and off

Microsoft Natural Keyboard keys

• Windows Logo: Start menu

• Windows Logo+R: Run dialog box

• Windows Logo+M: Minimize all

• SHIFT+Windows Logo+M: Undo minimize all

• Windows Logo+F1: Help

• Windows Logo+E: Windows Explorer

• Windows Logo+F: Find files or folders

• Windows Logo+D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop

• CTRL+Windows Logo+F: Find computer

• CTRL+Windows Logo+TAB: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch toolbar, to the system tray (use RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW to move focus to items on the Quick Launch toolbar and the system tray)

• Windows Logo+TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons

• Windows Logo+Break: System Properties dialog box

• Application key: Displays a shortcut menu for the selected item

Microsoft Natural Keyboard with IntelliType software installed

• Windows Logo+L: Log off Windows

• Windows Logo+P: Starts Print Manager

• Windows Logo+C: Opens Control Panel

• Windows Logo+V: Starts Clipboard

• Windows Logo+K: Opens Keyboard Properties dialog box

• Windows Logo+I: Opens Mouse Properties dialog box

• Windows Logo+A: Starts Accessibility Options (if installed)

• Windows Logo+SPACEBAR: Displays the list of Microsoft IntelliType shortcut keys

• Windows Logo+S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off

Dialog box keyboard commands

• TAB: Move to the next control in the dialog box

• SHIFT+TAB: Move to the previous control in the dialog box

• SPACEBAR: If the current control is a button, this clicks the button. If the current control is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the current control is an option, this selects the option.

• ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected button (the button with the outline)

• ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button

• ALT+underlined letter in dialog box item: Move to the corresponding item

Detailed brochure of Regent Ganga (RDB Industries) - Our new apartment in Uttarpara

2009-10-27T03:26:00.000-07:00

I just found out a website where our Uttarpara Apartment (Regent Ganga by RDB Industries) plans are available....nice...here is it....

Manifesto For Software Craftmanship.....

2009-10-27T00:56:00.000-07:00

Have been neglecting the blogging demands for some time now..

Here's a quick update of something exciting. Recently I became a signatory of the Manifesto of Software Craftsmanship.
It's a group of likeminded individuals who believe building software is a high-end craft. The journey to become an expert craftsman (just like any other craft) is a long and self-learning and rewarding one - full of pitfalls and ecstacies.
For the uninitiated - here's the manifesto

Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship
As aspiring Software Craftsmen we are raising the bar of professional software development by practicing it and helping others learn the craft. Through this work we have come to value:
Not only working software, but also well-crafted software
Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value
Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals
Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships
That is, in pursuit of the items on the left we have found the items on the right to be indispensable.

Yes, it's very similar to the Agile manifesto and that's because the movement is sort of an offshoot from the Agile movement, and a lot of signatories are people who are "agile-minded and spirited" to the core..

We believe in the Agile principles (people oever processes, collaboration over negotiation etc etc) but more importantly, we believe that Software craftsmanship is a step further in the journey towards great software build by great teams....

Proud to be part of the movement....invite you to join in....it'll be a great adventure....

LOVE YOUR JOB, BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY BCOZ U NEVER KNOW WHEN COMPANY STOPS LOVING YOU

2009-08-15T04:02:00.001-07:00

Extract of Mr. Narayana Murthy's Speech during Mentor Session:

I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I don't know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace. Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization.

There are things managers can do to change this for everyone's benefit.Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors. My colleagues who are in the office long hours frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue. Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others.I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday.

Another problem is that people who are in the office for long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who aren't working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them.Such behaviour poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another. As Managers,there are things we can do to help people leave the office.

First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding group e-mails with a Time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday. Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives. For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:

1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.

2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.

3) Go home.

4) Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc.

5) Eat well and sleep well.

This is called recreating. Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2.

Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts. They are hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them.In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my eldest son. When he was a toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was.! He would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid that he would miss something. Once our visitors' left, he would go to sleep.By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out. Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they don't want to miss anything when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life !

Things happen 24 hours a day. Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap.Things will happen while you're asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake. Hence.

"LOVE YOUR JOB BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY" .
- Narayana Murthy

Managing Tough Projects - Some points of advise

2009-08-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

Steps for When the Project Starts to Fall Behind

1. Renegotiate. Discuss with stakeholders about increasing the budget or extending the deadline.
2. Recover during later steps. Reexamine budgets and schedules to see if you can you make up the time elsewhere.
3. Narrow project scope. Are there nonessential elements of the project that can be dropped to reduce costs and save time.
4. Deploy more resources. Can you put more people or machines to work? Weigh the costs against the importance of the deadline.
5. Accept substitution. Can you substitute a less-expensive or more readily available item?
6. Seek alternative sources. Can another source supply the missing item?
7. Accept partial delivery. Can you accept a few of a missing item to keep work going and complete the delivery later?
8. Offer incentives. Can you offer bonuses or other incentives for on-time delivery?
9. Demand compliance. Will demanding that people do what they said they would get the desired result? This may require support from upper management.

Steps for Building a Gantt Chart.
1. List phases of project, from first to last, down left side of page.
2. Add time scale across bottom from beginning to deadline.
3. Draw blank rectangle for phase one from phase start date to estimated completion date.
4. Draw rectangles for each remaining phase; make sure dependent phases start on or after the date that any earlier, dependent phases finish.
5. For independent phases, draw time-estimate rectangles according to preferences of people doing and supervising the work.
6. Adjust phase time estimates as needed so that the entire project finishes on or before deadline.
7. Add a milestone legend as appropriate.
8. Show chart to stakeholders and team members for feedback.
9. Adjust as needed.
Tips for Scheduling

1. Know which deadlines are hard-and-fast and which are not.
2. Compare your project to similar previous projects.
3. No task should last longer than four to six weeks. When tasks approach that time frame, they can probably be broken down further.
4. Don’t schedule more detail than you yourself can actually oversee.
5. Develop schedules according to what is logically possible: resource allocation should be done later.
6. Record all time segments in the same increments. Do not schedule a project so that overtime is needed to meet original target dates; this leaves little flexibility for handling problems that might occur later.

Tips for Monitoring Budgets

When monitoring actual costs against your estimate, watch out for these common contingencies that can send your project over budget:

1. Inflation during long-term projects.
2. Failing to factor in currency exchange rates.
3. Not getting firm prices from suppliers and subcontractors.
4. Estimates based on different costing methods; for example, hours vs. dollars.
5. Capital equipment purchased before the plan.
6. Unplanned personnel costs used to remain on schedule, including increased overtime.
7. A need for additional space.
8. Unexpected training costs.
9. Consultant fees for unforeseen problems.

The following contingencies contribute to costs being under budget:
1. Capital expenditures not made as planned.
2. Staff not allocated as planned.

PCI DSS 101

2009-07-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

Here are the basic tenets of PCI DSS regulation. There are divided into six major principles/canonicals and a total of 12 requirements each of which fall in any of the 6 major canonicals.

Build and Maintain a Secure Network

Requirement 1: Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data.
Requirement 2: Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters.

Protect Cardholder Data
Requirement 3: Protect stored cardholder data.
Requirement 4: Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program
Requirement 5: Use and regularly update anti-virus software.
Requirement 6: Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.

Implement Strong Access Control Measures
Requirement 7: Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know.
Requirement 8: Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access.
Requirement 9: Restrict physical access to cardholder data

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks
Requirement 10: Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.
Requirement 11: Regularly test security systems and processes.

Maintain an Information Security Policy
Requirement 12: Maintain a policy that addresses information security.

So much for now.....may be there will be a PCI DSS 201 soon.

97 things SW Architects should know

2009-06-28T07:09:00.001-07:00

Found this fantastic website. It's more of a wiki where people have collaborated to bring out a master list of "gems of wisdom" from SW architects for all future ones...
http://97-things.near-time.net/wiki
Here's the collected list (as of today)...I guess this has been distilled and released as a book by O'Reilly....would be a great book to get hands on....

Other Things Software Architects Should Know

The axioms have been accepted into the web project but not the 97 Things book . Axioms here are complete and useful and should be considered great runner-ups to the axioms on the other two lists. Thanks to everyone who conributed these axioms as well as others - they all provide great advice and should be read in addition to the other axioms.

Architects should be Pragmatic by John Davies
Applications are for making users as effective as possible by Ben Geyer
Community by Evan Cofsky
Know all the rules -- so you know which ones you're breaking by Kevin Bedell
Not all problems are solved with a layer of abstraction by Apu Shah
Learn to be humble by Apu Shah
Architecture is more than just the pieces byPaul W. Homer
Responsible explorer by George Malamidis
Design for limited resources by Mncedisi Kasper
The fastest system components are the one's that aren't there by John Tullis
The closer the better by John Tullis
It's not an architecture if it can't be managed by Dan Pritchett
Your project does not exist in a vacuum by Charles Martin
Design for needs, not wants by Claudio Perrone
Consider application failures, and design for ease of recovery by Stephen Jones
Risk priority by George Malamidis
Test the Architecture by Matt McKnight
An architect's responsibility never finishes after the architecture is created by Kamal Wickramanayake
Change is a constant; architecture needs to be adaptable and the architect needs to be a change driver by Daniel Noguerol
One alternative is a trap, two are a dilemma, three are freedom by Lior Bar-On
Work on thy soft skills just as much as on your hard skills by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz
Examine the sourcing of calculated fields by Stephen Jones
Feel it by Mahomedalid Pacheco
No, the goal is not the code nor the design by William Martinez
Quality is a feature by Sam Gardiner
Good Requirements Are Boring by Eben Hewitt
Don’t Make Worlds, Make Containers for Worlds by Eben Hewitt
Architecture = SPICE RTM by António Melo
Know your limitations by Peter Gillard-Moss
Tarchitects vs. Marketects vs. Carhitects by Yi Zhou
Read Philoophy (and related Arts) by Keith Braithwaite
Prioritize Challenges to Drive Architecture Decisions by Charlie Alfred
Reduce Conceptual Distance by Charlie Alfred
The User Interface drives the User Experience by Burk Hufnagel
If you're unwilling to be hands-on, maybe you should keep your hands off by Barry Hawkins
Lead by Influence by Travis Illig
Software Should Be Invisible by Eben Hewitt
Requirements are not the measure of success but the beginnings of a conversation by Christopher Dempsey

Changes in PMBOK 4th Edition (as compared with 3rd Edition)

2009-06-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

The 4th edition of PMI BOK has no major structural changes.
The idea behind this revision was to simplify some processes e.g dropping the Preliminary Project Scope Statements, Conditional and GERT scheduling and Activity on arrow (AOA).
One of the good things (and this has helped PMI is achieveing its position)that PMI has always followed is to keep abreast of the project management methodologies and also to be aware of deadwood (and dump it).
Based on my experience I can vouch that I never used (and doubt if I will ever) GERT scheduling or Activity on Arrow.

Also, PMBOK 4th edition has more details on project justification and project environment. Both of these make sense -
1) Project Justification - being in the IT industry I believe this is where most projects get delayed or "dead-on-birth" because too much or too else happens in justifying the project
2) Project Environment - There are just too many variables in the environment to overlook them. The best way is to be aware and track as many as possible...

Specific to the PMI notion of processes (44 current processes) the changes are:

1) Integration Management – reduced to 6 (earlier 7)- PPSS has been removed
2) Scope Management - – Unchanged(5) - but "Scope Planning" is replaced by "Collect Requirements" (I think this is a great change....in my experience eliciting requirement is a much broader aspect in scope management rather than planning)
3) Time Management – unchanged (6), minor edits but no major changes
4) Cost Management – unchanged (3), minor edits but no major changes
5) Quality Management – unchanged (3), minor edits but no major changes
6) HR management – unchanged (4), minor edits but no major changes
7) Communication Management – increased to 5 (earliuer 4) - addition of "Identify Stakeholders"
8) Risk Management - unchanged (6), minor edits but no major changes
9) Procurement Management - reduced to 4 (earlier 6) - However most of the content is same, some structural changes - content repackaging into Plan/Conduct/Admin/Close

Hope this helps...Will add more details as and when possible..

Ciao

Microsoft Project Tips and Tricks

2009-06-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

The following is a collection of Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Project. Unless otherwise noted, these tips and tricks work with all versions of Microsoft Project.
I would try and keep this list updated as and when I get more cheats or tricks

1. In the Gantt Chart, doubleclick on the right edge of a column header to "best fit" the column.
2. To quickly change the name of a column, doubleclick in the column header and enter a new name for the field in the Title field. For example, you may want to abbreviate the Duration field name to Dur to allow the field to be narrower.
3. To quickly change the field in a column, doubleclick in the column header and select the new field from the Field Name list. While in the Field Name list, press the first letter of the desired field to go to that field.
4. In the Gantt Chart Table (or any table), to quickly hide a column, click on the right edge of the column header and drag it to the left until it disappears (becomes a 0 width column). To display this hidden column, place the cursor a little to the right of the column separator bar where the column used to be, click and drag to the right.
5. You can wrap text in the Gantt Chart to display text on multiple lines if you increase the row height. To increase the row height, place the cursor between any two row numbers (if the ID field is displayed in the first column and is "locked"), click and drag down to increase the row height. Only Text fields wrap and only if the column is narrower than the text in the field.
6. When printing Gantt Charts (or other timescaled charts) you can adjust the width of the timescale to fit the page without changing the timescale units. Doubleclick on the Timescale and increase the number in the % field (or Enlarge field in some versions of Project) to make the timescale take up more of the page or decrease the number in the % (or Enlarge) field to make the timescale narrower. The latter step is useful when a chart is just a little too wide to fit on a page.
7. To select two or more non-adjacent tasks, click on a task (in the table area), hold down the Ctrl Key and click on another task in the chart. Continue holding the Ctrl key to select other tasks. This is especially useful for linking or unlinking tasks that are not on consecutive rows.
8. To change information for a number of tasks at once, highlight the desired tasks (select non-adjacent tasks using the method described above) and select the Task Information button. Enter the common information in one of the fields displayed in the "Multiple Task Information" dialog box.
9. To remove a date constraint from a task, select the task (or multiple tasks) and select the Task Information button. Click in the Advanced tab, change the Type field to As Soon As Possible and click OK. This removes any date constraint in the task and allows it to be scheduled based on the dependencies rather than a date entered (perhaps accidentally) by a user.
10. If a task does not move (reschedule) based on a dependency, it may contain a "fixed" date of some kind. A fixed date could be an Actual Start or a constraint such as Must Start On or Start No Earlier Than. Use the Tasks with Fixed Dates Filter to view only those tasks in a plan that contain fixed dates. You can then determine if these tasks should have these types of fixed dates. Use the previous tip to remove an unwanted constraint.
11. If after removing the Actual Start and any constraint (such as Must Start On or Start No Earlier Than) a task still does not reschedule based on a dependency, check the Resource Leveling feature. Make sure Automatic Leveling is turned off by selecting Resource Leveling from the Tools menu and choosing Manual. If a task still does not move, it may contain a delay based on a previous Resource Level. Select Resource Leveling again from the Tools menu and choose Clear Leveling. Select whether or not to remove Leveling from the selected tasks or for the entire project.
12. After applying a Filter in a Gantt chart press F3 to view all tasks again instead of applying the All Tasks filter.
13. Press Alt-Home in the Gantt chart to position the chart on the start of the project.
14. If you have indented tasks to create Summary Tasks and Detail Tasks, click the little box with the minus sign to the left of the Summary Task name to quickly hide the detail tasks below it. Click the box with the plus sign to display the detail tasks that were hidden.
15. In the Gantt chart, you can create dependencies by clicking on the Gantt bar of a task and dragging to another Gantt bar to create a Finish-to-Start dependency between the two tasks.
16. To quickly modify or delete a dependency, doubleclick on the dependency line between the two tasks to display the Task Dependency form (be sure to place your cursor directly on the dependency line).
17. In any drop down list such as the list of Resource Names or the list of Filters you can press the first letter of the item you are looking for to quickly go that item.
18. Use the Insert key on your keyboard to quickly insert rows and columns. In the Gantt chart, click on a row and press the Insert key to insert a blank row above the selected row. Click on a column header to highlight a column and press Insert to insert a column to the left of the selected column. You can also use the Delete key to reverse this process but be careful…
19. In the Network Diagram (or PERT Chart in some versions of Project), to move multiple task boxes, click in the chart area, drag the cursor to select any number of boxes and release the cursor. Then, click on the border of a box and drag the entire selection of boxes to a new location. In Project 2000, 2002 and 2003 you must first select the Format menu, Layout and then Manual Box Positioning to enable the ability to move task boxes around.
20. An often overlooked but handy report is the Calendar view using a Resource Filter. Select Calendar from the View menu. Select the Using Resource… Filter and type in the name of the desired resource to display the Calendar for a particular resource. This produces a nice printout of a resource’s tasks with each month of a project on a separate page.
21. For Project 2000, 2002 and 2003, to prevent an item from appearing in the legend for the Gantt chart, select the Format menu, Bar Styles and place an asterisk (*) before the name of the item that you do not want to appear. In Project 98 you can delete the bar styles you do not use to avoid displaying them in the legend.
22. Right click in the Toolbar area to display the list of available Toolbars. A check next to a Toolbar indicates that it is currently displayed. Click on a Toolbar to display or hide it.
23. In the Gantt Chart (or any chart with a table and a chart area) doubleclick the separator line between the table and chart to automatically push the separator line to the closest column edge.
24. To split the screen and place a specific View into the lower pane, hold the shift key while selecting an item from the View menu. You can also split the screen by selecting Split from the Window menu or doubleclick the small horizontal split bar in the lower right corner of the screen. Doubleclick it again to remove the split (or choose Remove Split from the Windows menu).
25. Just for fun - Create two 10 day tasks. Place the cursor in the Finish field of the first task and click the Copy button. Place the cursor in the Start field of the second task and select Paste Special-Paste Link from the Edit menu. Place the cursor on the Finish field of the second task and click the Copy button. Place the cursor on the Start field of the first task, select Paste Special-Paste Link and watch the tasks "walk" across the chart. Delete one of the tasks to stop.

Agile SW Development - Here are the Bibles (Books that you should read)

2009-06-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

For all the hype about Agile, I have seen very few people who have really understood the concepts and processes (you can't understand unless you know how they came about). And this often leads to people making the wrong conclusions about Agile (It's too easy, It's too tough, It's too radical, I can customise it as I wish)...

Here are some classic books that you need to reference if you are serious about Agile. You may not be able to really read all but any one can be a start...

- Agile Project Management with Scrum, Ken Schwaber, Microsoft Press
- Agile and Iterative Development,A Managers Guide, Craig Larman, Addison-Wesley
- Agile Software Development with Scrum, Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle, Prentice Hall
- The Enterprise and Scrum, Ken Schwaber, Microsoft Press
- Implementing Lean Software Development,From Concept to Cash, Mary & Tom Poppendieck, Addison-Wesley **
- Agile Adoption Patterns,A Roadmap to Organizational Success, Amr Elssamadisy, Addison-Wesley
- Scaling Software Agility,Best Practices for Large Enterprise, Dean Leffingwell, Addison-Wesley **
- User Stories Applied,For Agile Software Development, Mike Cohn, Addison-Wesley
- Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn, Addison-Wesley

There is a very good wiki on Agile too.
http://www.agilekiwi.com/charting_change.htm

Hope this helps...

Bachche....Man Ke Sachche....

2009-05-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

Time for some timepass....found this in an email...

Application to the principal ... FOR ???
Well... read it out to bring back that smile on your face

To,
The Principel
Govarment School, Patiyala,
Panjab.

Sir,
Gal E Hai Ki School wich hun Dil nai Lagda, Te Ratta Nu neend nai Aaandi Kyuki School wich kudiya Ghat rahi hai, Te Saddi Class wich ek vi ni hai, jo hai wo bhi Inni mariyal hai ki dekhan nu ji nai karda, te nakhare Asmaan pe. Madam vi koi enni khas patakha nai hai.
Kuch nai te tennu 4 kaam walian hi rakh lawo. Tainnu Bahut Dhanyawadi Howange.

Your Faithfully
All 3rd standard Students

Lessons from "The Cathedral And The Bazaar"

2009-05-09T04:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a summary of all the lessons learnt (acc to the author himself) in his seminal "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".

1. Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.
2. Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse).
3. ``Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.''
4. If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
5. When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.
6. Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.
7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.
8. Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone
9. Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.
10. If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource
11. The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.
12. Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong
13. ``Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.''
14. Any tool should be useful in the expected way, but a truly great tool lends itself to uses you never expected.
15. When writing gateway software of any kind, take pains to disturb the data stream as little as possible—and never throw away information unless the recipient forces you to!
16. When your language is nowhere near Turing-complete, syntactic sugar can be your friend.
17. A security system is only as secure as its secret. Beware of pseudo-secrets.
18. To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a problem that is interesting to you.
19. Provided the development coordinator has a communications medium at least as good as the Internet, and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one.

The Agile Manifesto..and the principles behind it..

2009-05-09T02:43:00.000-07:00

For anyone who is starting to work on Agile SW Development, or already managing an Agile Projects, this is where it should all start...even if you have never heard of Agile but have been in Software Development, you'll immediately understand why Agile has become the "catchphrase" now...

First the MANIFESTO ()

"We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more."

And now for the 12 principles behind the Manifesto (equally powerful ...if not more)

1) Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer
through early and continuous delivery
of valuable software.

2) Welcome changing requirements, even late in
development. Agile processes harness change for
the customer's competitive advantage.

3) Deliver working software frequently, from a
couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a
preference to the shorter timescale.

4) Business people and developers must work
together daily throughout the project.

5) Build projects around motivated individuals.
Give them the environment and support they need,
and trust them to get the job done.

6) The most efficient and effective method of
conveying information to and within a development
team is face-to-face conversation.

7) Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8) Agile processes promote sustainable development.
The sponsors, developers, and users should be able
to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9) Continuous attention to technical excellence
and good design enhances agility.

10) Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount
of work not done--is essential.

11) The best architectures, requirements, and designs
emerge from self-organizing teams.

12) At regular intervals, the team reflects on how
to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts
its behavior accordingly.

Here's my 2 Cents to this: Take your time and read the manifesto and the principles several times(atleast 10 attempts) and try to assimilate or challenge each of these based on your experience...you'll realize that these ring the right bells in your mind..

That would be a right start for your move towards "Agile Reincarnation"...

A Primer to Open Source SW Development Ideas..

2009-05-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

A nice modern Zen poem to start the blog:

To follow the path:
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.

Have been doing some study on the Open Source Initiative.

For those who want to have a primer (and it's a lovely read too), here's the most revered article on the subject. It's titles "The Cathedral And The Bazaar" and is written by Eric Raymond.
Coming from Unix background, he was taken in surprise in 1991 by the Open Source movement and became a beliver himself by 1996. He has actually drawn heavily from the experiences he had with Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman and these have heavily influenced his writings.

Eric is the person who popularised the line "Given Enough Eyeballs, All Bugs Are Shallow". It's actually a one line summary of the concept of a Bazaar (which is how Linux was developed)...where there is no given protocol and ANYONE can say (contribute) whereas the Cathedral mode of development is when there is a Open Source development thru guidelines and frameworks.

Also interesting to note, when you read the article you will start seeing the myriad ways in which Open Source Development is so similar to Agile SW Development Practices.

I found the following ideas of open source development very similar to that of Agile Development.
4. If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
5. When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.
6. Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.
7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers
8. Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone
10. If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.
11. The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.
13. ``Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.''
18. To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a problem that is interesting to you
19: Provided the development coordinator has a medium at least as good as the Internet, and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one

So much for today...see you soon

A Short Tutorial - What A to Z means to Bengalis

2009-04-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

A is for Awpheesh. (as in Office).This is where the average Kolkakatan goes and spends a day hard at work. And if he works for the 'Vest Bengal Gawrment' he will arrive at 10, wipe his forehead till 11, have a tea break at 12, throw around a few files at 12.30, break for lunch at 1, smoke the 7th unfiltered cigarette at 2, break for 5th cup of tea at 3, sleep sitting down at 4 and go home at 4:30. It's a hard life!

B is for Bhision. For some reason many Bengalis don't have good bhision. In fact in Kolkata most people are wearing spectacles all the time....Bhishon Bhalo and Bibhotso.... though means opposite ...used for same situations.. .depending on the Beauty of fairer sex...are close ...almost in a tie for second spot....

C is for Chappell. Currently, this is the Bengali word for the Devil, for the worst form of evil. In the night mothers put their kids to sleep saying, 'Na ghumoley ebar Chappell eshey dhorey niye jabe.'

D is for Debashish or any other name starting with Deb. By an ancient law every fourth Bengali Child has to be named Debashish. So you have a Debashish everywhere and trying to get creative they are also called Deb, Debu, Deba with variations like Debopriyo, Deboprotim, Debojyoti, etc. thrown in at times....as creations of God himself !!

E is for Eeeeesh. This is a very common Bengali exclamation made famous by Aishwarya Rai in the movie Devdas. It is estimated that on an average a Bengali, especially Bengali women, use eeesh 10,089 times every year. 'Ei Morechhey' is a close second to Eeesh.

F is for Feeesh. These are creatures that swim in rivers and seas and are a favourite food of the Bengalis. Despite the fact that a fish market has such strong smells, with one sniff a Bengali knows if a fish is all right. If not, he will say 'eeesh what feeesh is theesh!'

G is for Good Name (as in .. “so what eej is your good name?”). Every Bengali boy will have a good name like Debashish or Deboprotim and a pet name like Motka, Bhombol, Thobla, etc. While every Bengali girl will have pet names like Tia, Tuktuki, Mishti, Khuku, et cetera.

H is for Harmonium. This is the Bengali equivalent of a rockstar’s guitar. Take four Bengalis and a Harmonium and you have the successors to The Bheatles!

I is for Ileesh. This is a feeesh with 10,987 bones which would kill any ordinary person, but which the Bengalis eat with releeesh!

J is for Jhola. No self-respecting Bengali is complete without his Jhola. It is a shapeless cloth bag where he keeps all his belongings and he fits an amazing number of things in. Even as you read this there are two million jholas bobbling around Kolkata, and they all look exactly the same! Note that 'Jhol' with mysterious condiments.. . as in Maachher Jhol is a close second. Jhaamela and Jachhetai are distant 3rd and 4th

K is for Kee Kaando! It used to be the favourite Bengali exclamation till eeesh took over because of Aishwarya Rai. Kee mushkil is a close second.

L is for Lungi, the dress for all occasions. People in Kolkata manage to play football and cricket wearing it not to mention the daily trip in the morning to the local bajaar. Now there is talk of a lungi expedition to Mt Everest.

M is for Minibaas. These are dangerous half buses whose antics would effortlessly frighten the living daylights out of all James Bond stuntmen as well as Formula 1 race car drivers.

N is for Nangto. This is the Bengali word for Naked. It is the most interesting naked word in any language!

O is for Oil. The Bengalis believe that a touch of mustard oil will cure anything from cold (oil in the nose), to earache (oil in the ear), to cough (oil on the throat) to piles (oil you know where!).

P is for Phootball. This is always a phavourite phassion of the Kolkattan. Every Bengali is born an expert in this game. The two biggest clubs there are MohanBagan and East Bengal and when they play the city comes to a stop.

Q is for Qoshchen (question) as in "Mamatadi Qoshchens Cheap Ministaar in Writaars Buiding."

R is for Robi Thakur. Many many years ago Rabindranath got the Nobel Prize. This has given the right to all Bengalis no matter where they are to frame their acceptance speeches as if they were directly related to the great poet and walk with their head held high. This also gives Bengalis the birthright to look down at Delhi and Mumbai and of course 'all non-Bengawlees'! Note that 'Roshogolla' comes a close second!

S is for Shourov. (as in Saurav) Now that they finally produced a genuine cricketer, (that too a captain) Bengalis think that he should be allowed to play until he is 70 years old.

T is for Trams. Hundred years later there are still trams in Kolkata. Of course if you are in a hurry it's faster to walk....Trams are still existing in Paris too.......you see !

U is for (A)Umbrela. When a Bengali baby is born he is handed one.

V is for Vhaayolence. Bengalis are the most non-violent violent people around. When an accident happens they will fold up their sleeves, shout and scream and curse and abuse, "Chherey De Bolchhi" but the last time someone actually hit someone was in 1939.

W is for Waatar. For three months of the year the city is underwater and every year for the last 200 years the authorities are taken by surprise by this!

X is for X'mas. It's very big in Kolkata, with Park Street fully lit up and all Bengalis agreeing that they must eat cake that day.

Y is for Yesshtaarday. Which is always better than today for a Bengali (see R for Robi Thakur)?. It is also for Jubraj Shingh and Joga.

Z is for Jebra, Joo, and Jipper.

A Love Note…in C Minor

2009-04-23T05:47:00.001-07:00

.r{}
#include
#include
#include
#include
#define Cute beautiful_lady
main()
{
goto college;
scanf(”100%” ,&ladies);
if(lady ==Cute)
line++;
while( !reply )
{
printf(”I Love U”);
scanf(”100%” ,&reply);
}
if(reply == “GAALI”)
main(); .r{}
else if(reply == “SANDAL “)
exit(1);
else if(reply == “I Love U”)
{
lover =Cute ;
love = (heart*)malloc( sizeof(lover) );
}
goto restaurant;
restaurant:
{
food++;
smile++;
pay->money = lover->money;
return(college) ;
}
if(time==2.30)
goto cinema;
cinema:
{
watch++;
if(intermission)
{
coke++;
Popecorn++;
}
}

P.S: This is not my original stuff….came across this nice poem in an email…felt it’s interesting enough to publish…

Making sense out of Soracle....or is it OraSun?

2009-04-22T01:15:00.000-07:00

Now that the world has got their bit of IT news bytes (Oracle to buy out Sun @ 7.4 B USD), let me try to make some sense out of the deal...

Why is Oracle suddenly interested in Sun (specially when they went that road halfway in 2003/4)? Though the world is directing the pointer to IBM, I have a suspicion that Oracle is gonna use Sun to fight Microsoft in a more strategic direction..

For Oracle the biggest assets from Sun would be Java and OpenOffice. Owning the future directions of Java (ya I know its in the Open world but even Open Source directions can be controlled by the biggies..look at Eclipse and IBM) gives Oracle a direct way of competing with Microsoft (with the .Net world). Also Oracle would have a great business proposition when they drive the Fusion road map (and internally build Fusion components on Java and XML). Obviously Oracle has a few tools (e.g: BAM) which are non Java based but we can safely say that these are just outliers which would be removed in medium term.

With OpenOffice, Oracle can play the biggest attack on Microsoft. MS is directly integrating MS Office to its ERP (Dynamics) components (e.g: MS CRM has a tight integration and UI look and feel of an MS Office tool). Oracle can integrate OpenOffice to its ERP components (Fusion Architecture comes to play but in a much tighter coupling) and provide a huge value add to its customers.

Where does this leave SAP and IBM vis-a-vis Oracle. I think Oracle will build a ref architecture using SUN Solaris and StorgeTek and also build Sun's cloud infra to build the next generation data center and SAAS offerings.
Obviously SAP would be looking very closely at the SAAS story and IBM would look at the NGDC.

The biggest loser in this deal would be MySQL and Sun's MW Tools (including GlassFish). Forget Netbeans and SPARC too (Though SPARC and some other HW divisions can be spun off to other parties). Another interesting option in the HW world would be Appliancees (Application bundled with standard Hadrware). A few gurus have already started chanting the AOA word (Appliance Oriented Architecture). Not surprisingly Oracle seems to be in a great position to drive the AOA future!

Seems Oracle is all set for the next round of the battle...It's FIRE...READY...AIM time again (apologies to Tom Peters)...beware HP...IBM...Microsoft (isn't it ironical that you can skip to mention SAP in this?.Oracle has surely progressed from a focused SAP fight to a much wider strategic direction of IT mindshare)

May we all live in exciting times!

Our Tripadvisor Map

2009-04-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

For last few days we were busy creating our own travel map in http://www.tripadvisor.in/. Over the last 5 years we have traveled to so many places and it was nice to create a map of these visits.
The map provided below is a snapshot and we will keep updating it as and when we visit new places.

4 Movies to Dazzle Your Lazy Summer Holidays

2009-04-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

It’s a boring Summer. Nothing is Up in life? Too much hype about Elections leaving you cold ? Irritated by the IPL Cricket Mafia ? No new Movies @ the multiplexes? And you are bored of these Books .The Sensex is hiccupping every time we watch Left leaders in TV.

Even the TV is of no use when you are dieing of boredom on another lazy drizzling weekend holiday (190 channels and nothing to watch). So who can save your day from being a horrible on ?

Trust my old faithful Hollywood to lighten your anyday anytime with its dose of “movies , masti and magic”. Just in case you think it’s a good idea and want to get a DVD/VCD but cannot decide on some truly lovely movies which both you and your family can enjoy, here’s my potion of 4 ?Mini Gem? of movies (None are Block Busters and none have BIIIG Stars). If you are a movie lover you will love each one of these ?and for unique reason..

So go on and enjoy the world of my movies guaranteed to metamorphose the dull rainy day to one full of sunshine (in your heart) and rainbow (in your smile).

1) Gattaca:

Lets call this movie a "Fantastic Fantasy". I hate routine sci-fi movies unless they showcase human spirit and emotions. This movie startled and amazed me with its imagery and novel script merged with fantastic story telling. You have to learn the art of 'willing suspension of disbelief' to start with. Imagine a not-too-distant future, when DNA engineering makes perfect children to be born.

All natural born imperfect individuals (termed 'Invalids'.) are socially stigmatized, ostracized and differentiated against. In this realm the hero Vincent is born and Invalid -he struggles to grow up in the shadow of his 'Valid' brother , but nurtures only one passion - to break the rules and go on a space voyage (Reserved for 'Valids'). The rest is a saga of this methodically mad rebel who does incredible things to achieve his aim. (He is suspected of murder and even swaps identities with Jude Law ? Jerome-, a genetically elite fellow made paraplegic in an accident). Watch the movie for the story and suspense or just relish the stinging satire of writer-director Andrew Niccol against the world of genetics.

2) The Usual Suspects:

I personally believe that 'The Usual Suspects' along with 'Reservoir Dogs' are the most fascinating crime thrillers of our generation (Classics if you ask me). In between them, I rank The Usual Suspects higher because it has amazing performances from low profile actors like Gabriel Bryne and Kevin Spacey going hand-in-hand with a taut and tense screenplay. The movie by Bryan Singer is a labyrinthine drama pivoted on five career criminals who meet after being rounded up for a standard police line-up.

Upon their release, the men band together to pull off an intricate heist involving $3 million worth of emeralds. Their success brings them to the attention of the enigmatic Keyser Soze, an unseen, nefarious, and mythic underworld crime figure who coerces them into pulling off an important and highly dangerous job. The suspense starts when one by one each of them die in this job. Kevin Spacey plays a physically handicapped member who is the only one who is alive. And he narrates the whole story in a flashback to the cops. Watch it for the twist in the tail (oops ..Tale) and whatever you do?watch the last 5 minutes very very very minutely. Otherwise you will end up never understanding the beauty of the plot.

3) Groundhog Day

Imagine! It's 6th July. You have just spent a hell of a day at office. Your application failed to move to production. You got a harsh drubbing from your customer, your girlfriend walked out on you and added to it , India lost Asia Cup final to Pakistan by 10 wickets. So you curse everyone and pack of to sleep. You wake up next day ..go to freshen up and the watch says its again 6th July. You live that day again ? as a repeated chain of events for you but for everyone else it is as if the day is a new one. And the hell continues everyday after that.

What would you do? Pinch yourself to see if ur dreaming?. Cry out aloud? Scream? Try suicide? ..or look at it as an opportunity to live each day better again and again to resolve all your mistakes ..to improve each day slowly and slowly till it achieves perfection.

That’s Groundhog Day! The most quirky yet innovative movie I have ever seen. The hero (A TV Reporter - an amazing Bill Murray) is thrown into a time warp where he is forced to live the same day over and over until he gets it right -- and learns to appreciate life’s blessings in the process. He changes to a altruist and changes everyone’s life around. Eventually, a romance blossoms between Murray’s reformed cynic and his Boss (Andie MacDowell), who was initially repelled by his priggishness.
It’s the story of the indomitable human spirit that can overcome any hopeless situation to make it worthwhile.

4) The Truth About Cats And Dogs
This is my personal favorite since it was one of the first movies that built the concept of “virtual world” love (loving a person whom you have not met or seen just for her feelings and emotions and thoughts).
Janeane Garofalo plays Dr. Abby, a radio show host who unwittingly entices a listener over the radio with her soothing voice and personality. This listener, Brian, tries to meet the Abby from the radio, but Noelle (Uma Thurman - a gorgeous, tall and stunning blonde a Model and friend of Abby), is mistaken for the real thing when Brian comes to the studio.

Instead of clearing things up right away, the self-conscious Abby allows her best friend, Noelle, to take her place for a while. Abby takes on the made-up persona of Donna, while thinking Brian would never go for her, a short, cute, brunette, who thinks she’s unattractive. As the real Abby woos Brian over the phone and radio, Noelle, the pseudo-Abby, takes her place in the flesh. As time goes on, Abby feels more and more confident that Brian would rather have the beautiful Noelle than the simply attractive Abby. What happens next? Watch it for yourselves.

It’s a simple movie redefining what Love is ? Looking at an imperfect person in a perfect way and it will make you cozy up on the sofa and look at your “special one” with those moist dreamy eyes, which have always made your world the best to live on.

Here you are with the best medicine for bad mood and laziness? Just get up and rent these from your local VCD Wallah and you won’t lament the decision. That’s a promise!!

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi

2009-04-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

Hello jeeeee ..... my signature greeting, still people whom I've not talked in last 4 yrs can recognize me with these two words ... :) and I wud really love to be remembered by these words... khair kya faltu ki baatein likh rahi hoon .... ye blog maine create kiya hai so that i can keep a watch on what i did yesterday (basically to keep an eye on myself so that i don't indulge in eating chocolates ....
i always wanted to write a diary, as all the "intellectual" people say u shud but never got the time and god only knows how long will I be able to write this blog though i'm a very dedicated internet person .... and btw i wanted to do many more things but still haven't got the courage(like bungee jumping) or better to say the urge(like horse ridding) to really pursue them .....

and yes u got it right, since i'm discussing all my desires and wishes in this blog i've given it the name "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" one of my all time fav. song .... though i've lots of fav. songs but yaar ek blog me sab likh dungi to next time hee alvida kehna pad jayega .... so if you want to know more about me .... "Stay Tuned. I'll be back After the Break" :)

A Morning to start..with Neruda at heart

2009-04-15T01:13:00.001-07:00

This is one of my Favorites from Pablo Neruda's poems...Thought it would a good way to start the day

I do not love you...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

For the poet in your heart....

2009-04-15T01:11:00.000-07:00

This one is from someone called Bridget Walsh (read this somewhere in the www)...for all the aspiring poets (and those who asprired one day and have lost the soul in the forest of life)...a simple primer on the pleasure and pain of writing a poem

Creating a poem is difficult
Like anything worthwhile is
A new mother holds the result of her labour
In her arms as sweat cascades down her face
It is indefinitely worth the work, or so I have heard

Thinking is dangerous
Maybe I should stop
Humans only actively use ten percent of their total brain capacity
But despite the odds curiosity always gets me in the end
Just like the cat (how else did you think it died?)

This collaboration of my thoughts just may
Led to what some consider poetry
No rocket science here
Just three pounds of raw thought
Pensive, perplexed with a changing world

Too many comparisons based on entertainment
Everyone strives to be the social bufferfly
Replacing morals, Nintendo 64 and 275 cable channels become the new standard
Be an individual you say?
But that would require scrapping my pancake mind off the television
Perhaps moulding it into a into something 3-D
Something with substance

No prior recipe for success
No assured blue-print to happiness
I am the path cutter, the trendsetter, the future
I am important; or so they say
Yet what I think about world politics does not matter
Knowing you know that you know, can drive a person to the edge of insanity
When others are blind to everything but color

Stimulating, invigorating, intoxicating
Poetry is the air I drink
Life is the inspiration behind it
Here is my brain, an empty slate
Inspire me!

5 Must Reads...Before You Die

2009-04-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

They say there is a Novel inside all of us waiting to take birth someday... Everybody dreams about it through a protagonist (like a mirror to themselves) and look at the world through their eyes...Everyone writes a story ...a hundred times in their minds..(and only some of them see the light of the publishers day..but then thats a separate story)
As for me..I have a story too..But I don’t know how old would I be before I could write it...Someday...Someway..I will...I hope.Till then I will read..if not write.Thats my promise to myself.Yes I am a voracious reader...and as my friends will vouch for, I have a very bad habit of begging, borrowing and stealing books ( I steal only when denied).
But what if I was to select my favorite 5 books? Books which I would give my life for..Books which will fill my cloudy sundays full of sunshine...tough to think of...but then as Rahul’s email signature sometime used to say ’’When the going gets tough the tough get going’’..so here I am ..trying to figure out the best 5 books I ever read -
1) Whats the name of this Book - by Raymond Smullyan - If I have ever got a good thing from my roommate, its a sneak peak to this wonderfully provocative and insanely intelligent book on paradoxes and puzzles which can open the brains of a even a certified moron to the zanny world of Logic. Believe me ..just the first page of the book can hook you for a lifetime.
2) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Thanks Subbu for introducing me to Mr Douglas Adams . I have never ever felt like being taken for such a roller coaster ride - thru a world of imagination and satire...I bet you would never have thought of the universe and our green planet with such an eye .Pure 22 carat gold. Go for the Omnibus version which contains 5 volumes in 1.
3) The Alchemist - I always wondered how could a 100 page book make you think so much and feel so much. I have a bad habit of underlining lines in my books and when I ended this one...almost the whole book had pencil lines below it.I will never ever read any other book by Paulho Coelho ( It wont satisfy my expectations)
4) India Unbound - Some books change the world ( Das Capital)..some change civilizations (Arthashastra)..some make heroes ..But there is only one book which can make all the bunch of pessimistic indians of the universe change themselves and their view of their ’’wretched ’’ country called India and start believing in it .
5) You Must Be Joking Mr Feynman - If you hated the damn physicists you’ll love it....If you are crazy about physics you’ll love it..If you never knew the difference between physicists and physicians , you’ll love it...if you were the science topper in school you’ll love it...need I say more? - Summary : Richard Feynman makes his story the funniest one I have ever read which involved science...apart from those horrible science projects in school from which we used to copy every year.
So there they are..Be sure that you have read atleast 3 of them before you die..or else you won’t get entry pass to heaven