Koshish Karne Walon Ki

Career Objectives

A few years back a cousin of mine was planning to give a MBA entrance exam. He was asked to pen down the reasons why he would like to join the institute. I tried to help him to pen down the things. Below is the stuff we wrote in the entrance form:

I want to be part of the elite group of the organization which helps in shaping employees lives. I believe that FMS would help me in developing all the necessary skills required to make a rationale decision about issues that wuold have an overall imapct on the lives of the employees. Someone had right said 'Life is too short to learn everything through experiece, so try and learn through the experience of others'. I hope that FMS, through its esteemed faculty, would be able to mould my experiences so that I can help people who come in my vicinity to make the right decisions. Ten years from now, I see myself heading a group of people whose future might be dependent on the decisions made by the top management. I hope that FMS would provide me with a framework that would help me in deciding what is the BEST for all and make that essential difference between the good, the better and THE BEST.

Painless Software Schedules

Some excerpts from the Article on Joel On Software

So, you have to make a schedule. This is something almost no programmer wants to do. In my experience, the vast majority just try to get away with not making a schedule at all. Of the few that make a schedule, most are only doing it because their boss made them do it, halfheartedly, and nobody actually believes the schedule except for upper management, which simultaneously believes that "no software project is ever on time" and in the existence of UFOs.

So why doesn't anybody make a schedule? Two key reasons. One, it's a real pain. Two, nobody believes that it's worth anything. Why go to all the trouble working on a schedule if it's not going to be right? There is a perception that schedules are consistently wrong, and only get worse as time goes on, so why suffer for naught?

Programmers are not interchangeable. It takes seven times longer for John to fix Rita's bug than for Rita to fix Rita's bug.

When you have to pick fine grained tasks, you are forcing yourself to actually figure out what steps you are going to have to take.

And when you haven't thought about what you're going to do, you just can't know how long it will take.

If you have to figure out what subroutines you're going to write, you are forced to pin down the feature. By being forced to plan ahead at this level, you eliminate a lot of the instability in a software project.

Most programmers have no idea how to guess how long things will take. That's okay. As long as you are continuously learning and continuously updating the schedule as you learn, the schedule will work.

Updating your schedule daily should only take about two minutes. That's why this is the Painless Schedule Method -- it's quick and easy.

A programmer should never, ever work on new code if they could instead be fixing bugs.

The schedule is not the place to play psychological games.

You might be able to get 20% more raw code out of people by begging everybody to work super hard, no matter how tired they get. Boom, debugging time doubles.

But you can never get 3n from n, ever, and if you think you can, please email me the stock ticker of your company so I can short it.

Not many of them are running business what-if scenarios... these are programmers, here

Ghar ke one liners

Jeetey raho, sukhi raho. Ishwar vidya de, bal de, budhi de, tandrusti de. Vidwan bano, maan-baap ka naam roshan karne wale bano.

Cha peesen, roti khaansen

Chottey.......

Guddo.......

Motto.......

Ved.......

Mammi, tun badi nikammi. Teri jaan nu bachen rovan, tun khele rammi.

DON

Director: Farhan Akhtar

Theatre: Waves, Noida

Date: 24th October, 2006

Dialogues:

Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai

Log Don ko nahin, duniya ko chod ke jaate hai

Don ke peeche 11 deshon ki police padi hui hai

Tumhen maloom hai ki is pistol mein goli nahin hai, mujhe maloom hai ki is pistol mein goli nahin hai, lekin police ko to nahin maloom ki is pistol mein goli nahin hai

Why is execution so important?

Almost anybody can tell you what is theoretically right. I know it, you know it and almost everyone in the world knows it. BUT, who ensures that what is theoretically right is executed right. In the professional world, every day we have lots of meetings and everyday we take lots of decisions. YES, all those are right, BUT who ensures that they are executed. Planning takes 30 minutes and its execution 30 hours :)

Below is an E-Mail which I had sent on 7th Feb, 2004 to one of my Ex-Managers. Two and a half years down the lane, we are still trying to execute it. Had I led it to a proper closure that day and at that time, the cost now would have been too low and we would already have reaped the benefits.

Hopefully I would learn something from it and be careful the next time :)

Hi

I have tried to work on a framework with the help of which the automation of the testing of wireless STAs can be done (with the help of WirelessConfigurationTool package). It will require add ons to the code we have for PrismServer and PrismProfileChanged and implementation of test cases. I am giving a brief overview of the idea I have in mind:

There will be test suites and test cases within suites. Test suites are a group of test cases for which the settings of the AP will remain the same. Each test case will have some configuration information in the form of XML going to the PrismPCtl running on the DUT (depending on the test case being executed). The Wireless STA settings will be changed accordingly and the expected result noted.

Before triggering a new test suite, the user will be prompted for permission. This is required because before executing each test suite, the settings of the AP need to be changed accordingly. The prompt would give the user time to change the settings of the AP. This also can be automated by synchronization between the changing of settings in the AP and the transmission of new profiles to the STA.

The framework I have tried to make has the concept of test suites and test cases built in. It prompts the user before starting the test cases within a test suite. The full automation (i.e. automatic setting of AP after each test suite) is not yet done, but theoretically speaking it should not be a tough task.

The ADVANTAGES of automating the test cases are:

a) I think that after a fair deal of automation, only one day should be required per DUT for testing purposes. Thus it should save *lots of time*.

b) There is no need to *repeat the monotonous activity* of running the test cases reading a test case document, after we have considerable faith in the automation of test cases and they start giving the desired results.

c) It should *save lots of firmware dependent bugs* because it is not feasible to run the whole bunch of test cases manually after each firmware / UMAC revision is released (which have been quite frequent going by past experiences).

d) It should be *quite easy to append* new test cases to the test suite as more and more features become available (WPA, WPA-PSK).

e) The test suites test the wireless features and thus they *should be independent* of the type of DUT we are working on. For ex. the same bunch of test cases should work with a USB Cohiba or a PCI device attached to the laptop.

Thanks
Vaibhav

Good things I have learnt from my past managers

Change the circumstances and the same people will behave differently.

It is not the people but the circumstances which create the problem.

Separate the people from the problem.

What would I do if I am a chef of a restaurant and I have customers who are waiting eagerly for a meal? I would put some onion and start frying it. The smell would tell the customers that something is cooking and their patience level would rise. This would give me time to prepare what they want.

I can show you the path, but I cannot walk for you.

Why do I reject lots of resumes?

Some time back, I have been assigned the responsiblity to scan resumes for Linux requirements in our BU. The Human Resource team sends me a list of resumes which they believe should suit the profile, I go through them and then give my feedback to them. In the feedback, I am supposed to suggest to them about the candidates with whom we should go in for a telephonic interview. A thing which I had not been noticing and was brought to my notice by an E-Mail was that I was rejecting a lot of resumes at the initial scanning stage itself. Now that makes the job of the HR more tough because it means they need to get even more resumes. I was asked the reason on why I reject so many of the resumes. That made me think about what we are focused on.

I am working for the Wireless BU of a semiconductor company which is responsible for delivering sample network drivers for different BUS interfaces in Linux kernel and also other Embedded Operating Systems.

The above line summarizes the logic on the basis of which I shortlist candidates for telephonic interviews:

1. Wireless
2. Network Drivers
   
3. BUS Interfaces
4. Linux Kernel
5. Embedded Experience
6. Operating Systems

If the resume matches 6 out of 6 criteria, then he / she is my first priority. If the resumes matches 5 out of 6, I still shortlist them. Anything lesser would not do.

I am very much inspired by the following excerpt while shortlisting people (and I would be even more choosy if I had to run my own company):

An important thing to remember about interviewing is this: it is much better to reject a good candidate than to accept a bad candidate. A bad candidate will cost a lot of money and effort and waste other people's time fixing all their bugs. If you have any doubts whatsoever, No Hire.

For more details about the article, refer to The Guerilla Guide To Interviewing

And I Quote :)

How many times have you heard this quote doing the office rounds?

"Please do not tell it to anybody"

The end result of the rumour mills working overtime is that

"Everyone knows everything but no one knows anything"

Someone resigns and no one knows it
Someone does not resign, still everyone believes he / she has
Someone is promoted and no one knows it
Someone gets a new job responsibility and no one knows it

Did the Google Guys listen to me?

In my post "This is not fair" I had raised a question on Googles ability to search my posts properly. I had started adding a Category to each of my posts to make the search of the posts easier, but unfortunately the keyword search wasn't working properly. In the post, I had requested Google team (hmmmm, do they read all these posts or is it just sheer co-incidence) to check why it wasn't working? Now, they have introduced the CATEGORY FEATURE in the Beta version of Blogger. THANKS GOOGLE :)

Lage Raho Munnabhai

Director: Rajkumar Hirani

Theatre: Liberty, New Delhi

Date: 2nd September, 2006

Khosla Ka Ghosla

Director: Dibakar Banerjee

Theatre: PVR Spice, Noida

Date: 7th October, 2006

Dialogue: Jaisi bimaari waisa ilaaj

DOR


Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

Theatre: Shakuntalam

Date: 8th October, 2006

What is required to get a business running?

[Lee Iacocca: Talking Straight]

Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them if they perform. If you do all these things effectively, you can't miss.

My thoughts

I think if you get good people, then most of the other things follow because Good People are Good :)

Why are rules important?

They make the game predictable and help you to understand where you are moving as a team.

Why is communication important?

My Ex-Manager used to say: Change the circumstances and the same people will behave differently. Communication is important to keep things in motion, to let the team know where its moving.

Why is motivation required?

Because I have seen N number of times that people refuse to work (directly or indirectly) because there is no motivation for them to do a thing. Motivation is required to make the positives clear to the team. Whats amazing about human nature is that sometimes even a negative thing is motivating if the general belief is that it helps the team? For ex. I have seen many people do a thing very efficiently (even though they may not like it) if they believe that they are doing it for a good cause (which in a team means for the betterment of the team).

Why is reward required?

Have you ever heard about a free lunch :)? I never have.

ARZ Kiya Hai

Din mein chein nahin
Raat ko neend nahin
Ji na lage kahin
Khuda, kya yahi pyaar hai?

Khuda: Nahin beta, private job walon ka yahi haal hai.......

A logical followup question: Am I tired today?

How dates were in the earlier days?

When is my mausis marriage anniversary?
It was at some date of September when it was neither too hot nor too cold.

What is my grandmothers age?
She is around 16 years (hmmmm, maybe 15 on the days she is feeling younger :)) bigger to her eldest daughter.

What is my grandmothers date of birth?
The worlds best kept secret

How do my relatives remember moments when I was born?
There was a song being sung on the radio in the background: Yashomati mayia se pooche nand lala..... (For a change, this date is well remembered :))

Even more amazing

My grandmother, around 76, knows English and she does not even know that :) The penetration which English words have made into the Hindi language is really amazing and my grandmother is an example of it. She knows that if a landlord asks his servant to do something, its an order. Two generations elder to her, one of our relatives was a Civil Surgeon (She knows who is a Civil Surgeon and the hindi for it is Bade Wala Doctor). She knows that if she eats something really oily, her whole digestive system becomes heavy (she understands what heavy feels like but doesn't know heavy is a gift from the English world to Hindi). The hottest discussion (and we had to involve my mother also in it, which hasn't been concluded yet even after her involvement) that came up was whether Ice Cream is a Hindi or English word. Now my grandmother and mother are pretty much convinced that its Hindi, but somehow I tend to disagree. The final conclusion of the debate was that we all agree to disagree :)

Its Amazing

I am reading "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" these days. The book is all about positive thinking and the changes you can bring in your life if you want to. One of the things mentioned in the book is that for a change to become a habit, it takes 30 days. Now the amazing thing which I felt going through by blog today was that in the piece I wrote some time back on Change, my attempt at inducing a change in some of my habits also took around 30 days. I had not read the book when I attemped to make changes in some of my habits, but the fact that the numbers of days it took me to change the habit comes out to be the same as those mentioned in the book is simply amazing.

Brand Value

In the all-hands meeting, there was a discussion on how to develop the brand value of a company in India. My thoughts on it:

When I joined my first company in 2000, I did not have an idea about the professional world. I knew all the tid-bits like C, Networking, OS fundamentals and stuff you can think off, but I did not know how to apply it. I still remember the first assignment I was given in Wipro was to find out the changes in code that would be required if we make a variable from 16 bit to 32 bit. I spent days to figure that out, but the days I spent figuring that out, I had mentors beside me who spent minutes everyday to help me figure that out. Those minutes were PRECIOUS for them on that day and for me today. But the reason they had those minutes for me was that Wipro culture was built that way. You help young people out and mentor them towards the right path. It was what I wanted as a fresher and it was what they gave me. That was the BRAND VALUE any fresher willing to learn should be looking out for.

When I joined my current company in 2002, I wanted to break the boundaries I had started to feel in my first company. My first company, being a big company, had a little buerocratic culture built in. Moreover, being a services company, it had the dis-advantages of not focusing on innovation and products. I had always wanted to get the system perspective and see products taking shape. It was something that would have been difficult to materialize there, and so I came to my current company. A small company focused on product development was the BRAND VALUE a two year experience guy was looking at.

When I had five years experience, I suddenly started thinking about my long term goals. A great amount of debate focused on what I wanted to be – An architect or a manager. A parallel ladder (with equal opportunities to grow in both ladders) was the BRAND VALUE a five year experience guy was looking at.

When I will have eight years experience, I think forming a world class team would be my prime goal. A team which works like a team, is devoid of politics, is ready to be there for others, does not think about boundaries (definitely not the yeh tera kaam tha kinds). A company which gives me the liberty to do this is the BRAND VALUE I would be looking at.

Beyond that, I think its too early to talk. But if we come back to the topic of the debate, I think a single company can very well provide the BRAND VALUES which people look for at different point of their careers. Mentoring the freshers was something that was missing in my current organization till now. I would not have recommended it to a fresher when I joined here in 2002, but with the effort being spent on the topic (freshers training) over the last year, it is one of the better companies to be at this moment of time. It is a product company and if you are the kind of person who wants to learn everything, it is encouraged here. With the All-Hands, I think there would (should) be focus on getting equality between the two ladders. It is certainly the BRAND VALUE all techies want in their company and I hope we get it in my current organization.

Quote: Iski smile meri smile se badi kaisi

Question: Who in the below picture is saying this to whom?
Is it Didi to bhabhi or bhabhi to Didi?

Kitne Mahine / Saal

Thats me when I was around 2 years old. There is a custom in our family to cut the new borns hair only after the second Dusshera (Yup, I came to know about it couple of days back). I was born on 7th November and the family custom gave my hair two years security before anyone could touch them.

Now coming to the heading of the blog: Kitne Mahine / Saal. I came upon this whacky thought of re-doing the past once again. Earlier, the family custom made me look like that and 27 years down, I would like to do it for my pleasure. But, I have absolutely no idea on how much time it would take to do it. Following are the estimates I got till now:

Papa: 4 months
Saurabh: 6 months
Mine: 5 months (Chose the average till now, thats called BEING SMART)

Get the brains working overtime and tell me how much time you think it would take to get there!

The final plan is to TAKE A SNAP when I reach there in the same pose as above, thats what I call a perfect PLAN :)

Category: Personality

Birthday Card from Mamu on my 9th birthday

This is not FAIR

http://search.blogger.com is not returning proper results. I might be jumping the gun (maybe I might be missing something), but the search I have been doing for the past 10 minutes has led me to shoot the gun.

For ex.

Typing VaibhavMadan in http://search.blogger.com results all the posts I have made till date, which is FAIR.

BUT

Typing VaibhavMadan Category in http://search.blogger.com does not return all the posts which have those two keywords in them, which should be almost the same result as the previous one because I have added the Category Keyword to all my blogs just now.

I DO NOT LIKE THIS because this is NOT FAIR :(

Google guys, help me out on this one!

Category: Official

My 50th BLOG

This one happens to be my 50th Blog.

Three cheers for it

Hip Hip Hurray
Hip Hip Hurray
Hip Hip Hurray

15th November: My first Blog

50 blogs in around 85 days

This means that there haven't been lots of writing and some of them even have been the Happy Republic Day, Movie review kinds (have nothing special about them but are just blog fillers :))

There are still lots of experiences everyday that I miss everyday to write, intentionally skip to write. Some of them have been written but are not in a position to be posted and are still in draft stage.

The next step is to try and group the blogs into some categories that can be linked together logically. For ex.

1. Entertainment
2. Wishes
3. Philosophy
4. Official
5. Personality
6. Creativity
7. Sports
8. Humour

The reason I am trying to do this is that this will enable me / others to do the following:

1. Go to http://search.blogger.com/
2. Type "vaibhavmadan Humour"
3. Voila. The results will show me the things I have been writing in those categories.
4. You may call it Getting Organized or The Curses Of Being An Engineer
   
5. Depending on the mood you are in the day, you can get the blogs from the corresponding category
6. Maybe it will help you in getting cheered up, take quizzes on your personality, check out how creative I am.

Category: Creativity

The reason why I am putting this blog under the Creativity category is that I think the idea of organizing the blogs in different categories is itself creative :)

Purse, Papers, Handkerchief, Keys, Mobile, Watch

Guess what! Very soon, coming only on Shahji De Puttar Da Blog

Fundooooo attempt to raise the hits of my blog site :) Atlease, Shahjis khaandaan would hit the blog sometimes in the coming weeks and anyways they are the only members who know of this site right now.

CHANGE

Some famous Churchill quotes on change:

• To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
• There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.
  

My small efforts on changing myself. Must admit that even these two small changes in my habits took me around a month to break (almost consistently). I do not think it was important on what I tried to change in myself, but the involved process was much more interesting. For ex. I managed to get the G-Mail change done by writing this note on G-Mail. I think my memory is related to my writing skills :). I managed to get the second change done by placing the Deodrant just next to the mirror in front of which I comb everyday. Now combing is one thing which I do not think I will forget every morning till the time I become a ganja / hippi (which I bet isn't going to happen soon) and by that time the habit would be inculcated in me.

a) Atlast I have managed to get used to the "Two Tick Delete" interface provided by G-Mail with consistency. Now the annoyance feeling is gone.
b) Put lots of Deodrant in the morning. For a person used to take baths on every Holi and Diwali, Deodrant is a gift sent straight from the GOD.

Category: Personality

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Color Coding:

Red: Truth
Bold Red: How can they be so true?
Green: False

Always in control, you are a great leader, deligator, and diplomat. These qualities attract people to you, and this sometimes annoys you.

Aloof, introspective, and philosophical; you enjoy quiet time in solitude.

Take the Star Trek Quiz

Category: Personality

Statistics of my site for the past week

Nothing much to go hu hullah on, as most of the clicks I am sure would be mine :)

Blah Blah and more of it

                     (s22vaibhav)                     

                 -- Site Summary ---                  
       Visits

         Total ............................ 8         
         Average per Day .................. 4         
         Average Visit Length .......... 2:16         
         This Week ........................ 8         

       Page Views

         Total ........................... 16         
         Average per Day .................. 8         
         Average per Visit .............. 2.0         
         This Week ....................... 16         

 http://s22.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s22vaibhav   


               --- Visits this Week ---               
    Day
Hour  1/28   1/29   1/30   1/31    2/1    2/2    2/3   Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
2       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
3       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
4       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
5       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
6       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
7       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
8       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
9       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
10       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
11       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
12       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
13       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
14       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
15       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
16       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
17       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
18       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
19       0      0      0      0      0      0      3       3
20       0      0      0      0      0      0      3       3
21       0      0      0      0      0      0      1       1
22       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
23       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
24       0      0      0      0      0      0      1       1
 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
      0      0      0      0      0      0      8       8


             --- Page Views this Week ---             
    Day
Hour  1/28   1/29   1/30   1/31    2/1    2/2    2/3   Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
2       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
3       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
4       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
5       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
6       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
7       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
8       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
9       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
10       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
11       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
12       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
13       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
14       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
15       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
16       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
17       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
18       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
19       0      0      0      0      0      0      4       4
20       0      0      0      0      0      0      7       7
21       0      0      0      0      0      0      1       1
22       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
23       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
24       0      0      0      0      0      0      4       4
 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
      0      0      0      0      0      0     16      16

Category: Official

Self Analysis of my life based on the feedback I received:

Life:

Satisfied: Yes, I am with the occasional dips
Successful: Yes, but there is a long way to go.
Balanced: Yes, I am but then there are occassions....
Capable: Sky is the limit
Valuable: Immensely, to all people whom I love
Happy: Definition keeps on changing

Mind:

Absolutely True. I agree to every word of it.

Body:

True.

Spirit:

I am all confused on this one.

Friends / Family:

Family - Absolutely absurd. I am lucky to have so many loving people around me in my family. Friends - Somewhat true. I am very choosy in selecting my best friends, but once I select them, they ARE THE BEST.

Finance:

The comment "You have a rather good financial score, which is not all that common these days" is somewhat wrong. WELCOME TO THE NEW AND EMERGING INDIA.

Category: Philosophy, Personality

This was a third person analysis of my life based on the feedback I provided.

Your Life Analysis:

Life: Your life rating is a score of the sum total of your life, and accounts for how satisfied, successful, balanced, capable, valuable, and happy you are. The quiz attempts to put a number on the summation of all of these things, based on your answers. Your life score is reasonably high. This means that you are on a good path. Continue doing what is working and set about to improve in areas which continue to lag. Do this starting today and you will begin to reap the benefits immediately. (Read more on improving your life)

Mind: Your mind rating is a score of your mind's clarity, ability, and health. Higher scores indicate an advancement in knowledge, clear and capable thinking, high mental health, and pure thought free of interference. Your mind score is not bad, but could be improved upon. Your mental health is not weak, but you are not achieving full mental clarity and function. Learn how to unclutter your mind. Keep learning, keep improving, continue moving forward. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving the mind.

Body: Your body rating measures your body's health, fitness, and general wellness. A healthy body contributes to a happy life, however many of us are lacking in this area. You have a rather good body score, which is an indication that you take care of yourself. There is room for improvement, however. Please keep doing what works. Eat right, exercise, reduce your stress, treat any illness. Doing these things will help ensure your body will be in good working order for a long time to come. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving the body.

Spirit: Your spirit rating seeks to capture in a number that elusive quality which is found in your faith, your attitude, and your philosophy on life. A higher score indicates a greater sense of inner peace and balance. Your spirit score leaves room for improvement. Consider making a concerted effort to redefine your attitudes and focus your beliefs. Boosting your spirit will lead to greater life satisfaction. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving the spirit.

Friends/Family: Your friends and family rating measures your relationships with those around you, and is based on how large, healthy, and dependable your social network is. Your friends and family score suffers, yet it does not need to be this way. Strengthen your social network by reaffirming old bonds. Seek out new friendships, and they will provide you the reward you need. Try using MeetUp.com to find people near you who share your interests.

Love: Your love rating is a measure of your current romantic situation. Sharing your heart with another person is one of life's most glorious, terrifying, rewarding experiences. Your love score is in good shape, meaning that things are going well. Do all you can to maintain it, and continue to grow and move ahead. Read advice from other quiz-takers on finding and maintaining love.

Finance: Your finance rating is a score that rates your current financial health and stability. You have a rather good financial score, which is not all that common these days. Keep doing what works. Avoid common pitfalls and save for the future. You will be glad you did. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving your finances.

Category: Philosophy, Personality

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.1
Mind:	6.2
Body:	8.2
Spirit:	6.3
Friends/Family:	3.2
Love:	6.9
Finance:	7.7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

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For the past month, I had visited blog of lots of people. Many of them had statistics on how many people have visited them over the past, how much time they spent on the site and usual mathematics. Statistics and numbers have somehow always fascinated me, as I believe that they represent a sign of progress. For ex. The amount of pay hike I get during a year is an indicator of my performance. The willingness to add the site meter to my blogsite had been at the back of my mind for quite some time. I decided to implement it. Following are the steps to do it:

a) Go to Sitemeter
b) Follow the instructions given on the site. They are more or less complete in information. You need to have the blogsite to add to the sitemeter.
c) The "Your Current Time" on one the sign up pages was disappointing, as it is at a granularity of 1 hour. My statisitics would now be shifted by half an hour, not that it makes a huge difference, but it was a thing which you will note very easily.
d) After having done all the usual stuff, you need to confirm that the information you have entered is correct.
e) After having accepted that "Jo kuch bhi likhunga, sab sach likhunga aur sach ke siva kuch nahin likhunga", it is time to add the Site Meter to your website.
f) Select "Add html for your counter to your web pages" in one of the followup pages after you have signed up. This will help you to add the SiteMeter to your blog site and you are through.

HAPPY MARRIAGE ANNIVERSARY TO
MAMA AND PAPA
1st February, 2006

Category: Wishes

How do I go about paying my ICICI Prudential life insurance premium the second time around?

The first step involves getting the Customer Care number of the ICICI Prudential people. This would be available commonly across any website or on the policy that you would have received when you would have taken the policy the first time.

Call the customer care centre. It would be better if you have your policy number with you when you place the call.

There are normally lots of options available when you dial into the customer care centre of any customer oriented company. It is very important to listen to the multitude of available options, otherwise it becomes a Jantar Mantar riddle. I normally prefer to go in for "Press to speak to the customer care executive" if such an option exists. It is much easier to deal with humans than with machines. If the company prefers the other way round i.e. if they want you to deal with machines, then I need to stretch the muscles of my brain. Being an engineer helps me in doing that and I do not mind doing that once a while during the year.

Coming back to the topic, the customer care executive told me the way to go about it.

Executive: Sir, will you pay by cash or cheque?

Me: Cheque

Executive: You need to prepare the cheque in favour of "ICICI Prulife Policy No. " and behind the cheque you need to write the Policy Holders FullName and Contact number.

Me: Where do I need to drop the cheque?

Executive: Where are you calling from - Delhi?

Me: No, I am calling from Noida.

Executive: You can go to "Plot No. 3, Fifth Floor, Brahma Dutt Tower, Sector 18 - 201301" The office is open from 9.30 a.m. till 5.30 p.m. on working days and 10 a.m. till 1.00 p.m. on Saturday.

Me: Thats cool.

Executive: Anything else I can do to help you out sir.

Me: Yes. I also need access to my internet account. I do not remember receiving it.

Executive: Please go to www.iciciprulife.com. There is a link to "Forgot Username / Password" at the top right corner. Press the link. It will take you to a form where you need to fill in the policy number, policy holders name and E-Mail id. The account name and password will be E-Mailed to you.

Me: Thats even cooler.

Executive: Anything else sir.

Me: Thats it.

So, it was short, sweet and simple. Let us see if it works as explained to me.

Category: Official

How do you tell a person you are not interested in the offer?

Background: An AVIVA Life Insurance agent visits me in the office and wants to sell an offer from Aviva. He is one of the countless agents who suddenly become active (or rather hyper-active) at this time of the year as the financial year closes. He explains me the PROS of the scheme (There are absolutely NO CONS in this scheme SIR. I did not think I look like a moron by face value ;)) Anyways, after the PROS without any CONS were over, I told him I will get back to him. I received around 3 calls (within a 2 week duration) from him reminding me that the date of 8th Feb (the time by which we need to give the investment proofs to the Finance Department) was fast approaching and I needed to take a decision (thats what I call social service). Even after having read lots of articles on "How to say NO?", the brainy part in me told me that "I will get back to you" would be sufficient in sending the message across to the agent that I am not interested.

Finally the climax

Transcript between a person trying to sell Aviva Life Insurance and me (30th January, 2006)

Note: All the comments within the () are the thoughts of my brain.

Agent: Hello Sir, I am Mr Agent calling from Aviva

Me: Hi, How are you?

Agent: Fine, Sir. Sir, I wanted to remind you about our talk. You said that you would be taking a decision. (Oops, I did not say that buddy. I said that when I take a decision (which may be never in this case), I will get back to you)

Me: I haven't decided yet.

Agent: Can I do anything to help you out? (Wow, the social service has begun.)

Me: Not really. (I am a trained anti-social element who accepts help only when requested for :))

Agent: Maybe we can talk about some other plan.

Me: Not now, maybe if I need to, I will get back to you.

Agent: Sir, please be assured that I am not trying to sell Aviva to you.

Me: Yes, I understand. (Do I? That was not TRUE, unless he agrees that he is really doing social service, in which case I would really appreciate his wastage of time on a moron like me)

Agent: 8th Feb is the last date. I need a week to get the proofs, so that you can show it to your Finance Department (Now, IS HE or IS HE NOT selling Aviva?)

Me: Thats True, but actually my investment of 1,00,000 is almost over. I have taken a House Loan and the principal part is added to 1,00,000. (Time to speak the truth.)

Agent: Sir, maybe we can meet tomorrow.

Me: I will get back to you. I have your phone number.

Agent: Sir, do you want to take the insurance? (Atlast, he has set the gun in the right direction)

Me: No (I could not get more blunt than that. Sighhhhh)

Agent: That was what I wanted to hear, so that I do not disturb you any more. (It is the time to fire the bullets. Am I supposed to be grateful now?)

Me: Okie, so now that you have managed to test my "How to say NO?" skills, I really appreciate if you do not disturb me any more.

Agent: Bye, bye (If the phone lines could be used as a mode to carry heat waves, then the BYE would have been sufficient for me to cook a cup of tea :))

Me: Bye (Maybe, this one BYE would cook his cup of tea also :). What do they call it - Tit for Tat?)

Of course, this is only my part of the story. If the agent has his own blog, he would be equally bewildered by my attitude and he would be writing his version somewhere. Anyways, this brings back me to the question:

"How do you tell a person that you are not interested in the offer?"

Anyone with any interested tricks to do that can E-Mail me at

vaibhav.madan@gmail.com

Category: Creativity

Lyrics of Rubaroo from Rang De Basanti

Ae Saala, Abhi Abhi, Hua Yakeen
Ki Aag hai, mujhme kahin
Hui Subah, main jal gaya
Suraj ko main nigal gaya
Rubaroo, roshni
Rubaroo, roshni hai

Rang De Basanti

*ing: Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor, Madhavan, Atul Kulkarni, Sharman Joshi, Soha Ali Khan

Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Music: A.R.Rehman

Hall: DT Mega Mall in Gurgaon

Date: 26th January



Category: Entertainment

Is changing the User Interface of your E-Mail website a good idea?

For all the early users of GMail, they will remember that to delete an E-Mail, there was a "Move to trash" link in the "More Actions" drop down list. Thus the process to delete the E-Mail consisted of three ticks:

• First tick on checking the box of the E-Mail that you want to delete
  
• Second tick on the "More Actions" tab
• Third tick on the "Move to trash" option

For people who got used to it (and those people includes me), it is quite annoying when I have to delete an E-Mail now considering the fact that the option has been removed from the drop down list. Now, instead a TAB for Delete has been added to the left of the "More Actions" tab. Though if I were a new user of GMail, I would have appreciated this considering that it just takes two clicks to delete the E-Mail.

But, unfortunately, I also suffer from the age-old problem of "Old habits die hard". Instead of getting used to deleting E-Mail through a single click, it now takes me three clicks and a feeling of annoyance to delete the E-Mail. Thus the process to delete the E-Mail with the changed User Interface has now become:

• First tick on checking the box of the E-Mail that you want to delete
• Second tick on the "More Actions" tab
• A fraction of a second feeling of annoyance that I once again FORGOT that the Interface has changed
• Third tick on the "Delete" tab

Maybe after writing this particular piece, my instincts would tell me not to hate myself for forgetting that Google has changed the experience of the user and customize my actions to the two-click offer that G-Mail has provided.

Training on improving your presentation skills

Venue: Hero Mindmine in South Extension, New Delhi

Day: January 20 and 21, 2006

Attendees: Some un-suspecting individuals from Conexant

Facilitator: God bless him

What do you expect to achieve if you are planning to attend a training on a presentation skill program?

• How to win a girlfriend in 5 days? (You bet)
  
• How to get rid of a girlfriend in 10 days? (And the moron in me thought that destruction was much easier than construction)
  
• How to become a millionaire in 10 days? (Why take 10 days to do something when with KBC, it just takes an hour?)
  
• What women want? (No second guesses on this one)
  

If just after reading this you are shocked, then imagine the plight of the un-suspecting individuals who went through the ordeal.

God forgive the facilitator and bless the un-suspecting individuals. If God had not taught me to be a decent individual who respects the individual in front of him, then the session on 20th January would never have completed. Of course 21st January for Conexant at Hero Mindmine premises never came.

Positives

Yes, there were some. Afterall it was fun, maybe not for the reasons we had gone there for, but certainly for all the funny incidents.

Some comments of the day

• Why are you looking at me?
• Bhupendra has two feathers and he loves to fly
  

Some new stuff learnt

• KOPSA technique
• Park
• Reflect-Deflect
• Throw the monkey off your back

Category: Official

Category: Wishes

Planning to launch a new product - Use this template to come upon the vision statement for it

Courtesy: Joel On Software

The product vision model helps team members pass the elevator test -- the ability to explain the project to someone within two minutes. It comes from Geoffrey Moore's book Crossing the Chasm. It follows the form:

• For (target customer)
• Who (statement of the need or opportunity)
• The (product name) is a (product category)
• That (key benefit, compelling reason to buy)
• Unlike (primary competitive alternative)
• Our product (statement of primary differentiation)

For example,

For embedded customers who require high performance and low cost wireless functionality, the MixMAC is a new architecture that uses “Minimum MIPS on the host and Minimum Memory on the NIC”. Unlike SoftMAC or BigMAC, MixMAC maximizes the performance by maximizing the utilization of available resources.

Sunder Mundariya (in English)

This piece is only possible because of the extra-ordinary Punjabi to English translation skills of gullidanda@hotmail.com :)

The 'ho's are in chorus
Who do you have
The groom with the tandoor
The groom’s daughter got married
He gave 1 kg sugar!
The girl is wearing a red suit!
But her shawl is torn!
Who will stitch her shawl?!
The uncle made choori!
The landlords ate it!
He made the landlords eat a lot!
Lots of innocent guys came
One innocent boy got left behind
The police arrested him!
The policeman hit him with a brick!
Cry or howl!
Give us lohri ..long live your jodi!

Category: Creativity

HAPPY LOHRI

Category: Wishes

Whats the difference between a Functional Lead and a Core Team Lead?

First the basics:

Functional Lead is someone who is responsible for a particular function within the organization.

Core Team Lead is someone who takes the output from a Functional Team as the input and gives the organization a product that makes mooooney :)

The best analogy I can find that matches the role of a Functional Lead and a Core Team is that of a parent vs the married life. Let us see the main roles to be performed by:

Functional Lead:

He is like a parent figure to the Functional Team.

• Train the individuals to enable them to meet the demands of the world
• Spoon feed them when they are young
• Teach them how to walk
• Mature enough to deal with youngsters and mature people alike
• Reduce his intervention in the life of an individual to the bare minimum once the individual has grown up and learn to walk BUT
  
• Be there when the individual needs him
• Plan the future of the team
  

Core Team Lead:

• Get a trained individual who knows how to live life in this world
• Tell them what needs to be eaten, how they eat is none of his / her business
• Walk along with them and teach them how to run
  
• Mature enough to deal with other mature people
• What the individual does daily is a matter of great concern to him!
• Be there when the individual needs him (something common between a Functional Lead and a Core Team Lead)
• Use his current talents to the best possible extent

The only difference between Core Teams and marriages is that Core Teams can keep on changing for individuals but marriages can't :)

Category: Official

Just to confirm how much my thoughts wander over a period of 2 days :)

Good news: They do not wander much (except for a few percentages, I am still a HULK)

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 75% Superman 70% Robin 65% Spider-Man 60% Supergirl 60% The Flash 60% Batman 40% Wonder Woman 35% Green Lantern 30% Iron Man 30% Catwoman 15%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Category: Personality

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 65% The Flash 65% Robin 60% Spider-Man 50% Superman 45% Wonder Woman 40% Iron Man 40% Supergirl 40% Batman 35% Green Lantern 25% Catwoman 20%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

My first attempt at the family tree on my Moms Side. I promise to come up with a much cleaner version, till then try and decode how much information you can from this one :)

Conexant Invitation to the new year bash

Hello All,

Let’s WELCOME NEW YEAR with a “BANG”

For that RecCom is back with more FUN…..Long awaited New Year Party is around the corner….

Well, the party is a FAMILY Party….

You all are cordially invited with your families to the New Year Party on 14^th January…at Radisson Hotel, Noida.

Party begins at 7:00 p.m. It’s a Saturday….

Party Must:

a) Everyone should bring their business cards along… (Reason LEFT as a SURPRISE….but do not forget one…else you’ll miss the SURPRISE)

b) Everyone should wear sunglasses and scarf while coming to the party….(DRESS CODE)

Important part:

There will be a FANATASTIC DJ to swing your mood…

So, please send your song requests by tomorrow morning (Friday 06 Jan’2006) at the following mail address (only) [Mail-id deleted here :)]

On the spot Prizes………………..

So, be prepared to ROCK ‘n’ ROLL…with good FOOD, MUSIC and of course DRINKS ;-)

P.S. 1) No Transport shall be provided…so NO mails for that….

2) Family includes spouse and Kids….so NO mails for that either….

Thanks and Regards,

RecCom

Category: Official