Writing
Mumbai Photo Marathon 2007 - ready to shoot?
We are ready to shoot! The first ever Mumbai Photo Marathon will happen this Sunday. We have a little different style of doing things compared to other Photo…
Mumbai Photo Marathon - one week away - 22nd April
Taking on from the lead from Kapil, and my initial post, I am set for a full day of photography in Mumbai on the coming Sunday. A few friends have already shown…
In search of the best project management system
Over the last 8 years, we have used various systems to manage our software development projects. From paper sheets, to diaries, to home grown task and calendar…
Attention to detail
Attention to detail is what distinguishes an average performer from the best. I was sticking up address labels on some postcards yesterday, and a friend showed…
Make IRCTC Better
As promised, here's the post on IRCTC - India's largest ecommerce site. I tell you how it does not work, and how we can make it work! Last Thursday, I decided…
IT Engineer Skills are neither tested nor sufficient
Was going through my pending stack of magazines this Sunday and made a lot of interesting observations. RedHerring says India's IT industry keeps booming, and…
Getting your hair cut and getting your software done
I went to my regular hair salon last saturday. Went into the take the first chair on my way, but the hairdresser asked me to sit on the next one. This was a new…
Magnet HackFest01 Report
And it is over! We completed Magnet's first HackFest at 5pm today. A bunch of hackers came together on 23rd December at 5pm, and hacked internals of systems,…
The Asterisk Saga
We worked on an Asterisk setup project two weekends ago. It was a rocking experience. And Ameya, one of the heroes in the story, has written up a nice saga on…
Deliver Authentic Leadership
Listened to Robin Sharma's podcast two weeks ago, and I was amazed. I was inspired by the thoughts and the ideas in that four minute audio. I then had our…
Ethics and HR in large companies - mutually exclusive?
Two guys from our QA section broke their contract and joined L10NBridge last month. First, one guy disappeared (called up the morning and said I am not coming!)…
Comments before code
I used a very interesting technique in my college exams. I knew how long an answer should be for 10 marks (or whatever). After I got the question paper, I would…
Monthly Reviews - lessons from September
First Tuesday of every month, is a review day for us at Magnet. We meet individual teams, discuss about the previous month and set out goals for the current…
Simple Meditation technique
A very nice and simple meditation technique from "Simple Meditation & Relaxation" book by Joel Levey & Michelle Levey. As you sit here now, envision yourself…
./john demystified
I got an interesting problem to solve today! Top on a server was showing a process named "./john" under "nobody" owner and it was consuming most of the server…
Do you want to be a better programmer?
I have been thinking about this for about three months now. One of the major problems in software industry these days is to find good programmers. (retention…
Ego and Engineers
Excerpts from The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers: a) how smart they are, b) how many cool devices they own.…
Asterisk, Fax and more
Alright, I am spending too much time with Asterisk these days. It's fun to work with it, but it can be quite frustrating at other times. My latest problem is…
Thunderbird Addressbook with MySQL backend
We have a pammysql based centralized authentication. We used LDAP earlier but dropped it in favor of MySQL because we are much more familiar with it and we…
Reliance NetConnect on a Mac
Lot of posts related to Mac lately! Today, I wanted to get online from home and thought of hooking up my Reliance phone via the data cable. The rconnect…