One of the things I learnt from my first job is, if you differ from your colleague(s) on anything, check if you are differing or your ego is. The "incident" that lead to this was an eye opener, it showed us(team) how different people could be and how pre-conceived false personal notions could be affecting communication. Also the things that lead after that "incident" proved that you don't lose anything by apologizing or offering a sorry for a mutual mistake. I know I am still not best at this. Also over the course of years I learned that an intern would have a better(uncorrupted) grasp of concepts than a guy who has worked on some technology for years.

Guys like Jeff Atwood, make me not blog. At any moment there are atleast 50 feeds that are waiting for me to read and If I am not working on something cool, the passion to blog is zero.

Having said this Jeff Atwood has compiled an awesome list of pointers that are worth a read for any programmer.  Let me try to give the links that I liked from his compilation, with my words and a couple of my rants. I know I am not perfect, but....

• Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. Never take things personal.
• Being Humble teaches you a lot than being head strong.
• Ask Questions.
• You are not your code. If someone judges you by your code, then GOD help him.
• Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience, even if they are juniors to you.
• The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position or years of experience.
• Don't try to dump your knowledge into someone who doesn't care. This is just an utter waste of time.
• Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat. There is no harm in saying "I was wrong" or "I am sorry"
• Share your knowledge whereever possible
• Don't be the guy in the room.
• Don't restrain yourself from raising red flags, you can never be a leader if you cannot speak your mind (this could be scope creep, staffing or lack of leadership/direction)
• Make hard problems look easy(I know this is tough, at times, but still)
• Dont over-analyze things, get your hands on.
• Your colleagues are your best teachers
• Some people are -------(add the adjective of your choice here).
• NEVER fake being nice, friendly, honest.
• NEVER EVER under estimate yourself. Everyone gets a chance to shine or to walk out of the door
• SMILE  - It can do wonders to people you work with.

Credits : Dare Obasanjo, Omar Shahine, Michael McDonough, Andres Taylor

3/25/2007 6:24:19 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

I sometimes get paranoid about deleting code/data or modifying them, especially if you are not sure about backup.(based on previous work experiences) But again time and time again you see people "accidentally" delete

3/22/2007 1:31:11 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

It has been a long time I posted anything here. Am not sure if this is a writers block or am not doing anything cool to post here. Anyways, I am sure I will be back, untill then ciao

3/4/2007 11:24:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

All of us hear about MySpace. It has become the site with the highest traffic. It now runs on ASP.Net and SQL 2005. You can read the story about how the folks at MySpace handled their exponential growth(40 billion page views a month), the problems they encountered and how the site architecture evolved from a few thousand users to a millions of users. It is an awesome read.

1/31/2007 4:15:55 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Anti-Team and Again

Design + Guidelines + Class Libraries + Framework

What I Wish Developers Knew About SQL Server

1/25/2007 2:17:54 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

You always want(to do) something, no matter what. I have tried to list it , though not specifically in that order

•  Wii/Xbox: It has been too long on my list. I have been out of the gaming zone little more than I expected.

•  Sports: Should join a league and play some real sport. Soccer should be cool. 

•  Reading: CodeComplete2 + cpl other books. It is high time.

•  Mp3Players: I have bought 3 mp3 players so far and always have given it to someone. This time I am going to buy 1 and own it. It will be cool to use while I work out.

•  Desktop: I need a machine to do whatever I want, without worrying about wrecking it/ formatting it , specially when I hear about all the new cool features of Vista.

•  Car: My civic is solid, but a Ferrari would be cool. Don't mind settling for a Jaguar.

•  %#@^&*-)% am not telling what this is.

1/24/2007 3:02:37 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Here is an awesome piece of fatherly advice from Chuck to all the programmers. Thru[Jeff Atwood]

1/24/2007 2:11:43 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

it has been an interesting journey so far. first, i had a very interesting person(thats gonna be a seperate story) sitting next to me all along 18 hour journey. It was probably one of the best journeys i've ever had. And i was dreading about the 6 hr layover here in mumbai. i opened my laptop to do some random things, and as usual in any airport got the wireless network found pop-up, i just thought of checking it out and opened my IE and WOW free wireless.. never seen this any where in the US.  also there are free cell phone charging outlets(various types) all around the airport . thats awesome too, u dont have to worry about carrying your charger everywhere...

12/26/2006 1:58:08 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

I am off to INDIA for the next three weeks. Would definitely post some pictures and experiences from there.

12/22/2006 11:07:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

There is an indian myth which says "you would never be happy by pursuing [objects] for happiness" It also add that "you are always pursuing same [objects] which comes in different forms - the real happiness is being peaceful with what you have". I am not a great believer in it. I always believed that is not for dreamers. But again but every now and then, you stop and

THINK ?

12/17/2006 11:35:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Scott Mitchell on Computing the First/Last Day of Month in SQL

http://sqljunkies.com/Article/6676BEAE-1967-402D-9578-9A1C7FD826E5.scuk  [thru Scott Mitchell]

12/11/2006 4:21:31 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

i just own one laptop and that is my only toy to play with software. This sucks ;) i need another one to play with Vista, games etc, i atleast need to multiple monitors.

Video/mp3/fm  player. so now it is official that Zune sucks, now what :)

A cool CamCorder - i have multiple ones in my mind

PS3 -

Time - lots of time to read

Warm Weather in Wisconsin ? nah this is gonna put me in naughty list.

and am not telling the last one ;)

12/11/2006 4:16:30 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Amazon Simple Storage Services(Backup Services ?) - thought this was yet another flash in the pan, dumb me. It looks pretty cool, nice pricing schemes, good API, free tools etc. Looks like I have found a place dump all my files i have been carrying around like for ever. I would follow up with once I get deep into it.

12/7/2006 6:11:48 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Please visit Kris's blog for detalied explanantion.

The brief summary 

First you'll need to open up SQL Server Configuration Manager. Navigate to that in the menu like Microsoft SQL Server 2005 > Configuration tools > SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Double click, or right click and choose Properties, of the selected line and you'll get the properties window

You'll need to make sure that the Local system is selected.

The second part of the solution's to delete the following folder on your hard drive: c:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server Data\SQLEXPRESS⁽¹⁾. This folder's used to store information and apparently it messes up the proper working of SQL Express.

11/18/2006 8:19:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

There is so much buzz about Ajax that literally it is used everywhere over the web. But people often forget the price we pay for using Ajax literally everywhere. It makes the sites to load slow, respond slow but the features are too coool. Classic example being the new yahoo mail.

Take a look at this article from Jeff. It is amazing to see what a 0.5 delay in a site response time could do to customer satisfaction

11/12/2006 5:36:59 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

one would assume that it is easy to use ASP.Net Site Configuration tool. i had to spend around 2 hrs to get this straight. I apparently had every problem you could encounter..

ASP.Net Site Configuration on a server

Steps to follow

Extablish mixed authentication mode

10/27/2006 5:17:30 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

was in seattle, vancouver for my visa. hence the break.

10/26/2006 4:23:40 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Yahoo is warming up to .Net programmers. Now any one can access yahoo resources through their API's upon authetication through a browser. This is an awesome move in so many ways. this would help the users in accessing all their resources at yahoo,etc(standalone or through API's)  through a common single application. Talking about single point access, Netvibes and pageflakes are creating a lot of buzz these days.

10/9/2006 5:10:12 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Microsoft is offering free E-learning courses This should be a pretty cool deal for all the newbies.

10/5/2006 2:29:42 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

there is so much ignorance among the so called "tech savvy" guys. I was at an electronic retail shop recently and came across this interesting conversation between the sales guy and a middle aged customer. The sales guys basically told his customer that he needs the best(expensive) IPOD to be able to listen to Podcasts. Normally, I would not venture into some private conversation but this time I had to barge in..

Is there a moral in this story?

10/4/2006 5:29:15 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

QA testing of software application is always a boring task for programmers. what is fun in it, when you know how to make it work correctly. The real fun begins when the tester or worse the client lets you know about a bug. no matter how much you test it, if you are the developer of what you are testing you are bound to miss it. 

Take a look at this long list of "Did i Remember to?" from Michael Hunter.   

It is an extensive list of things to check before shipping/deploying something to production.

9/29/2006 4:31:53 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

work has been pretty busy lately. so couldn't find time to do any pet projects. hence no bloggin.  this is one of unintentional/unavoidable breaks i had to take. i hope to be back soon..

9/29/2006 3:56:36 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

[Pic Src= Tim Knight]

I took a trip to Seattle during the past labor day long weekend. Meeting friends is always a good thing, but seeing new places, doing new things is always fun. Above all, we had the perfect weather. No rains at all. Though hailing from the midwest, I was still awed by the "evergreen" state. We also spent some time on the pacific coasts of Portland. The whole place was pretty scenic. I think Seattle has a lot of options if you are the person who wants to try different things, and that doesnt stop with the cuisines. Kudos to Guru for making plans for this trip.

9/11/2006 2:54:59 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

In a land dominated by NASCAR news like this goes unnoticed.Michael Schumacher has announced his decision to retire from Formula-1 racing. He is a legend. I would rate him more than Tiger Woods. Nascar is so popular in U.S that F-1 has only limited fan following in US.

In another realated news Martina Navaratilova retires after winning her 59th grand slam. Martina was the one of the first female atheletes I watched growing up. I still remember those days of watching tennis rooting for Steffi Graf, Gabriala Sabatini.
Years later, I have seen tennis pros' come and go, but Martina just played year after year winning games. Salute' to her passion.

What a way to announce the retirement, after winning the championships. I wish Agassi could have done this.

9/11/2006 2:40:49 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Federer beats Roddick, became the US Open champion.He also became the first person in history to win 3 consecutive Wimbledon and U.S open titles. Roddick to everyone's surprise has risen his game to a good next level, but still came short.
It is a pity that there is no one in sight, to challenge Roger. I still cherish those days when Sampras, Agassi, Ivanisevic, Stich, Courier played their best and were contemporaries. The only man in sight to challenge this guy is injured.

9/11/2006 2:24:46 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

google has just launched its free word processor- Writley. it is pretty cool, allows collaborative editing, assists in blogging, saves documents in PDF even as RSS feeds.

8/25/2006 3:32:07 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

 Here is a list of cool FireFox  add-ons/extensions for Web Professionals. I like the server switcher extension, which lets you jump back and forth betweek development server and production servers.

7/29/2006 7:26:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

http://www.dotnetkicks.com/ is a community based news site for .Net Technology. If you wanna experience something like digg but totally on .Net technologies, this is the place to be.

7/29/2006 7:19:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Microsoft has made MSDN library freely available for downloads. MSDN library was previously available only for MSDN subscribers. MSDN library is a neat place to look for syntaxs' and definitions. Though the number of people referring to it has been greatly diminished by blogs, online groups etc. Neverthless this is step forward by Microsoft.

7/29/2006 7:15:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

I find it very funny how people non-native(is that the word) english speakers(sometimes native speakers too) get involved in an agitated english conversation. There are many instances where I have laughed at myself for pronouncing things the way no one else in the world has ever did. I can see Chris nodding his head. I take no offense at this(hope no one else does) and what's life without being able to laugh at yourself eh?

I can still remember, how i cracked up the gal sitting next to me in the flight on my first trip to Wisconsin, when she asked me to pronoucne some cities of Wisconsin. By the way what's up with these names(and why cannot I type short statements)

I came across one such thing, Take a look at this telephone prank. Kinda reminds me about similar prank calls we did when I was a kid...

7/10/2006 5:43:27 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Federer won his 4th consecutive Wimbledon. The so called "is the greatest ever" is finding tough these days from Nadal.  Men's tennis had been pretty lame for the last 2 years with no one posing any serious threat to Federer's dominance. Now, the Spaniard has arrived. The rivalry is pretty good for the game, something to look forward in the upcoming US open. By the way, what are the rest of the players doing?

News of the year would be Italy winning the World Cup[through penalty kicks]. Both teams were equally good and deserve to win. Zidane would have gone as a legend in the record books, if he had not have proved everyone that he does not deserve such a credit. I am not sure how he is gonna live rest of his life explaining why behaved like such an idiot. It is beyond regrettable.

With NBA season not until November, I think the curtains are down for this years sports.-for me.

7/10/2006 5:09:36 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

I came across this top 10 strangest gadgets from Japan. Japanese as ever are interesting people from the legends of Samurais', Zen(Though Zen originated in India), Kaizen etc.

It makes it more inteteresting when I have a handful of friends living there.

6/26/2006 2:32:23 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

WinFX becomes .Net 3.0. I am not sure if they are going to have all the LINQ features with this release.

The much hyped WinFS is DEAD?

6/26/2006 2:23:17 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

Bill Gates has announced that he is going to gradually relinquish his position in Microsoft and become the Chairman + Part time employee by 2008. I have always admired him. He was rich but never pompous. It is great to see a man keeping up his words and joining forces to create a better world.

I landed on How BillG does his review meetings. It is a pretty goood write up take a look at it.

6/25/2006 3:12:46 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

French Open is underway - expecting another Nadal Vs Federer showdown.
NBA Finals are On. Miami Vs Dallas, should be an interesting finals. I cant wait to see Wade come out of the shadows
of "The King" and Kobe and become "Da Man". Also, awaiting FIFA(the real football) worldcup to begin.

Office 2007 UI rocks.(period). I guess there might take a little time for adjustment to everyone to get used to it. but i think it would be worth it.

Web Parts, Atlas , AJAX, SQL 2005 Integration services all are cool, but need a alot of time to get to know. I am not sure which is gonna stand the test of time.

As with everything in life, it just looks stunning from a distance but the questions is do you want to get closer or pretend you dont care?

6/6/2006 3:55:43 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

after a brief hiatus, am back.

have been spreading my attention on a lot of "objects". the trick is to choose which is possible to attain, and pursue it.

Design Patterns, Clientcallbackscripts, AJAX.NET, ATLAS and etc. are some of the things that i am trying to get to know lately.

i will blog in detail about them shortly. in between these days, i have enjoyed seeing Nash become the MVP again, as expected Nadal beats Federer(again in Clay).

In the mean time, am awaiting  for the real football to begin.

5/15/2006 3:45:56 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

BBC was always one of my favorite channels. It does not sensationalize news, its news coverage is the best. From the Americas to Africas, it covers news from every corner of the world. Its sports coverage is the best. Its coverage of the First Iraq war, Milosevic's trial, Bush-Gore Elections were showpieces of journalism. Though there is CNN, FOX & MSNBC, they do not come anywhere near BBC. BBC's web site is one among the best online for news and etc. etc. Check out their article on the rivalry between great Scientists of our times.

4/27/2006 5:05:39 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0] 

I attended the Deeper in .NET 2006   organized by the Wisconsin.Net User's Group. I have attended similar tech events before, but this one was different. It was different from many aspects. First, I have never attended tech events where the presenters are so populars one as this one had. Second, I would always be bored(should say restless) out of mind by listening to the same speaker for more than 3 hours. Third and the best, this had Scott Hanselman. I have been a huge fan of him, and he has immensely helped me during my initial days of .Net development(years back). Back then, he was not as popular as he is now. His presentation was awesome, I was surprised to know that he is gonnna talk about DasBlog, instead of his popular tool list. One of the best part of this whole event was that opportunity to talk with him one on one for about 15 minutes. Without going too far, I can say I was inspired by him. Thanks to Chris, for taking me there. Chris was thrilled to know that Scott H was aware of his URL Mapping(with RegX on 2.00) . As a whole, it was an awesome opportunity to feel the pulse of whole .Net community. I would recommend everyone to attend if they can.

4/26/2006 4:55:38 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]