Stairway To Heaven

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed
With a word she can get what she came for

Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
And you know sometimes words have two meanings
In the tree by the brook there's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven

Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking

Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forest will echo with laughter

And it makes me wonder

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May Queen

Yes there are two paths you can go by
but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on

Your head is humming and it won't go because you don't know
The piper's calling you to join him
Dear lady can't you hear the wind blow and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our souls
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll
Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed
With a word she can get what she came for

And she's buying a stairway to heaven, uh uh uh.

Yahoo Mail Beta !

Try it without an invitation !

1. Login to your Yahoo account.
2. Click on Options.
3. Now go to Account Information (located on left-hand side pane) -at this point, you will be probably again prompted for password.
4. In this page, click the Edit button of Member Information.
5. Under General Preferences you will see Preferred Content. Click on it to change it.
6. Select Yahoo United Kingdom as your preferred content.
7. Click Finished.
8. Now load Yahoo Mail.
9. You will see this message It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited.
10. Click on Try Beta Now.
11. Logout and relogin.

After this, you can revert to your old preferred content again. You will still be able to continue using Yahoo Mail Beta.

Source : http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=129142&tid=2466110293685097675&start=1

Sarfaroshi ki tammana

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.
Dekhna hai zor kitna baazuay qaatil mein hai


Karta nahin kyun doosra kuch baat cheet,
Dekhta hun main jise voh chup teri mehfil mein hai

Aye shaheed-e-mulk-o-millat main tere oopar nisaar,
Ab teri himmat ka charcha ghair ki mehfil mein hai

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.


Waqt aanay dey bata denge tujhe aye aasman,
Hum abhi se kya batayen kya hamare dil mein hai

Khainch kar layee hai sab ko qatl hone ki ummeed,
Aashiqon ka aaj jumghat koocha-e-qaatil mein hai

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.


Hai liye hathiyaar dushman taak mein baitha udhar,
Aur hum taiyyaar hain seena liye apna idhar.

Khoon se khelenge holi gar vatan muskhil mein hai,
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.


Haath jin mein ho junoon katt te nahi talvaar se,
Sar jo uth jaate hain voh jhukte nahi lalkaar se.

Haath jin mein ho junoon katt te nahi talvaar se,
Sar jo uth jaate hain voh jhukte nahi lalkaar se.

Aur bhadkega jo shola-sa humaare dil mein hai,
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.


Hum to ghar se nikle hi the baandhkar sar pe qafan,
Chaahatein liin bhar liye lo bhar chale hain ye qadam.

Zindagi to apni mehmaan maut ki mehfil mein hai,
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.


Dil mein tuufaanon ki toli aur nason mein inquilaab,
Hosh dushman ke udaa denge humein roko na aaj.

Duur reh paaye jo humse dam kahaan manzil mein hai,
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai.

Dekhna hai zor kitna baazuay qaatil mein hai.

- Ramprasad 'Bismil '

kashish

sleepy sleepy in the office, ek sher yaad aaya ;)

kya kashish hai aap mein ,
k hum aap ke hee khyalon mein khoye rahte hein...
yeh soch kar k aap khwabon mein aaogey ,
hum din mein bhee soye rahte hein .......
- Unknown

world music day

today is world music day and I found there is nothing that excites me about than any other "day" what am I supposed to do, listen to music ? I do that all the times :))

futility of celebration !

worldcup trivia

Did you notice , the last round of league matches in worldcup are played simultaneously ?

The two matches from the same group are played simultaneously to avoid any "fixing" of matches. In 1982, West Germany and Austria played out a 1-0 win to West Germany to keep out Algeria. Since then the final round of matches are always played simultaneously.

small email attachment size ?

k , time to forget size restriction while sending email attachments .... well almost ...how does a cap of 100 M sounds for a single upload ?

goto : http://rapidshare.de/

whoever said goto was bad ;)

laziest thing you did recently ?

well I have installed three web browser so that each of my gmail accounts can have three saved user sessions at the same time ....beat that

How RADIUS works

A sneak peak on how RADIUS works client creates an "Access-Request" containing such Attributes as the user's name, the user's password, the ID of the client and the Port ID which the user is accessing. When a password is present, it is hidden using a method based on the RSA Message Digest Algorithm MD5 If no response is returned within a length of time, the request is re-sent a number of times, Once the RADIUS server receives the request, it validates the sending client. A request from a client for which the RADIUS server does not have a shared secret MUST be silently discarded If the client is valid, the RADIUS server consults a database of users to find the user whose name matches the request The user entry in the database contains a list of requirements which must be met to allow access for the user. This always includes verification of the password, but can also specify the client(s) or port(s) to which the user is allowed access. The RADIUS server MAY make requests of other servers in order to satisfy the request, in which case it acts as a client. If any Proxy-State attributes were present in the Access-Request, they MUST be copied unmodified and in order into the response packet. Other Attributes can be placed before, after, or even between the Proxy-State attributes. If any condition is not met, the RADIUS server sends an "Access-Reject" response indicating that this user request is invalid. If all conditions are met and the RADIUS server wishes to issue a challenge to which the user must respond, the RADIUS server sends an "Access-Challenge" response. It MAY include a text message to be displayed by the client to the user prompting for a response to the challenge, and MAY include a State attribute. If the client receives an Access-Challenge and supports challenge/response it MAY display the text message, if any, to the user, and then prompt the user for a response. The client then re- submits its original Access-Request with a new request ID, with the User-Password Attribute replaced by the response (encrypted) If all conditions are met, the list of configuration values for the user are placed into an "Access-Accept" response. These values include the type of service (for example: SLIP, PPP, Login User) and all necessary values to deliver the desired service. Reference http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2865.html

w.w.w.g.m.a.i.l.c.o.m

whats your email id sandeepsinghal@gmail.com ? or sandeep.singhal@gmail.com ? Both ! gmail does not care where you put a . in your email id. hence s.a.n.d.e.e.p.s.i.n.g.h.a.l@gmail.com is as valid as the other two !

Character

Mr Wolf : You see that young lady, respect. Respect for one's elder shows character.

Raquel (the lady) : I have character

Mr Wolf: Because you are a character, doesn't mean you have character

Wrooooooooooooom - the car(Acura NSX) goes away with noise and dust !

Trivia :
When Winston Wolf departs in his Acura, he takes a hard corner, but the sound indicates continuous acceleration in a straight line. While the acceleration is possible, it would sound different going around a corner.

Devil's Advocate

6/6/6 - 6th June 2006 ! I guess it doesn't happen too frequently. Hail the devil in you !

Calvin on Principles

SSL and S-HTTP

What is SSL?
SSL, Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL uses a cryptographic system that uses two keys to encrypt data - a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only to the recipient of the message.
It is a low level encryption scheme used to encrypt transactions in higher-level protocols. It can work with multiple higher level protocols such as such as HTTP, NNTP and FTP. The SSL protocol includes provisions for server authentication (verifying the server's identity to the client), encryption of data in transit, and optional client authentication (verifying the client's identity to the server).

What is S-HTTP?
S-HTTP (Secure HTTP) is the scheme proposed by CommerceNet, a coalition of businesses interested in developing the Internet for commercial uses. It is a higher level protocol that only works with the HTTP protocol, but is potentially more extensible than SSL.

What is the difference between them?

• SSL creates a secure connection between a client and a server, over which any amount of data can be sent securely

• S-HTTP is designed to transmit individual messages securely.
  

So, are S-HTTP and HTTPS similar ?
Nope, "https" is normal "http" over SSL. By convention, URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http: . S-HTTP is a protocol as discussed earlier.

What is SSL used for ?
SSL is the de facto standard for e-commerce transaction security and many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers.

You talked about SSL encryption. What are the key lengths of the certificates ?
SSL certificates come in 40-bit and 128-bit varieties, though 40-bit encryption has been hacked. As such, you definitely should be looking at getting a 128-bit certificate.

So how does it (SSL) work ?

Phew ! You asked for it. Here goes :

1. A browser requests a secure page (usually https://).
2. The web server sends its public key, with its certificate, to the browser.
3. The browser checks the certificate was issued by a trusted party (a trusted CA such as Thawte), that the certificate is still valid and that the certificate is related to the site contacted.
4. The browser then uses the public key to generate an encryption key and sends it to the server along with the URL required - encrypted.
5. The web server decrypts the encryption key using its private key, and then uses the key to decrypt the browser's request.
6. The web server sends back the requested data, encrypted with the key.
7. The browser then decrypts the data sent using the key, and displays the information.
8. The encryption using a private key/public key pair ensures that the data can encrypted by one key can only be decrypted by the other key.
9. The keys are similar in nature and each is based on prime numbers.
10. Their length in terms of bits ensures the difficulty in decrypting the messages.
11. It is necessary to keep one key secret (the private key) and to distribute the other key (the public key) to everybody. This ensures that anybody can send you an encrypted message that only you will be able to decrypt - you are the only one to have the other key pair.
12. In the opposite situation, others can certify that a message is only coming from you, because you have encrypted it with you private key, and only the associated public key will decrypt it correctly.

You talked so much about SSL but so little about S-HTTP?
Author's prerogative :p

References:
Webopedia
W3 Security FAQs
SSL-Specification
S-HTTP RFC
How does SSL work ?

Weekend Calvin

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.

Introduction Line from movies

some of my fav ones.... drop a comment if you rememer any !

• kallu, kallan, kaliya - log dete hain mujhe gaaliyan
• main ek chota sa, nanha sa, pyaara sa, baccha hoon
• crime master gogo, aankhen nikal ke gotiyaan khelta hoon
• main nandu , sabka bandhu
  

No wonder most of them are shakti kapoor's :p

Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na karo

Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Yunhi pehloo mein baithe raho
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo

Haay mar jaayenge, hum to lut jaayenge
Aisi baatein kiya na karo
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Haay mar jaayenge, hum to lut jaayenge
Aisi baatein kiya na karo

Aaj jaane ki zid na karo

Tum hi socho zara, kyun na roke tumhe
Jaan jaati hai jab uth ke jaate ho tum

Tumko apni qasam jaan-e-jaan
Baat itni meri maan lo

Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Yunhi pehloo mein baithe raho
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Haay mar jaayenge, hum to lut jaayenge
Aisi baatein kiya na karo
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo

Waqt ki qaid mein zindagi hai magar
Chand ghadiyan yehi hain jo aazad hain

Inko khokar mere jaan-e-jaan
Umr bhar na taraste raho

Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Haay mar jaayenge, hum to lut jaayenge
Aisi baatein kiya na karo
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo

Kitna maasoom rangeen hai yeh sama
Husn aur ishq ki aaj mein raaj hai
Kal ki kisko khabar jaan-e-jaan
Rok lo aaj ki raat ko

Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Yunhi pehloo mein baithe raho
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo
Haay mar jaayenge, hum to lut jaayenge
Aisi baatein kiya na karo
Aaj jaane ki zid na karo

Calvin - Again

Monday makes me feel absolutely like calvin


That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

... Reality continues to ruin my life.

Ganging-up for gangster

Tell someone a movie is good (when it is pathetic) , so that they suffer the same trauma that you did.

I have done this so many times in the past and have no intention of stopping. But a phenomenon which I saw for gangster, when the entire world ganged up against me - and I ended up watching Gangster !

The culprits are :

• Good reviews in papers - the same ones that gives kabhi kushi kabhi gham 5 stars, and yet I listen to them - what a sucker :o)
• Good reviews on websites (read rediff) - am not going trust the website for anything related to a "view" - facts are ok, but views - noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. (do not read reviews on indiatimes as well)
  
• Almost everyone I met and spoke to them about how the movie is. They said they have not seen the movie but "heard" it is good - am going to follow advice of all thriller movies "trust noone"

Saving grace in the movie

• Nice songs
• While you are in theatre, the 'audience' - read US

My Advice ? (remember trust noone)

• Mahesh Bhatt - bad ( i really like some of his old movies , hum hain rahi pyaar ke ! but as they say, people change. This one has changed for good - turned bad)
  
• Emran hashmi - pathetic (this was the first movie of his I could muster the courage to watch. Yes i did not go to see murder)
  
• Together - Help , mars attacks ! god save the world
  

Trivia - Internationalization

why is Internationalization referred to as i18n in short ?

There are 18 letters between the first and last letter ( i and n) of the word internationalization - talk about mnemonic lovers in computer science !

Divine Comedy - Gin Soaked Boy

Im the darkness in the light
Im the leftness in the right
Im the rightness in the wrong
Im the shortness in the long
Im the goodness in the bad
Im the saneness in the mad
Im the sadness in the joy
Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy

Im the ghost in the machine
Im the genius in the gene
Im the beauty in the beast
Im the sunset in the east
Im the ruby in the dust
Im the trust in the mistrust
Im the trojan horse in troy
Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy

Im the tigers empty cage
Im the mysterys final page
Im the strangers lonely glance
Im the heros only chance
Im the undiscovered land
Im the single grain of sand
Im the christmas morning toy
Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy

Im the world youll never see
Im the slave youll never free
Im the truth youll never know
Im the place youll never go
Im the sound youll never hear
Im the course youll never steer
Im the will youll not destroy
Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy

Im the half-truth in the lie
Im the why not in the why
Im the last roll of the die
Im the old school in the tie
Im the spirit in the sky
Im the catcher in the rye
Im the twinkle in her eye
Im the jeff goldblum in the fly

Who am i?

My Interpretation: I am quintessential !

More-on Life

How does it feel to suddenly reduce your quota of sleep by 3 hours (specially in the world where people are hell bent on increasing quota.)

I feel good - another reason why we should reduce quota!

Sick of having a dreadful and lazy lifestlye, I have started playing badminton again - In a club called city-nest close to my plance.

Hard it might be, to believe (even myself) that I can get up at 5 am in the morning !

you talkin' to me ?

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here."

Robert De Niro - Taxi Driver

Michael Schumacher

you either love him or you hate him - one thing you have to hand out to him - his desire to win. I would imagine after having 86 wins under his belt, he would take it easy, but just to look at him celebrate each one of his victories makes you think otherwise.
They say it's not whether you won or lost , its how you played the game. Well, I think otherwise and If you need a role model for that, watch the next formula-1 race.

Road to Coorg

Finally ! Got some of the photos uploaded. More at Katty's Page.

Ok, let me first introduce the entity's in the following picture. Standing from the left is a tall tree ( I do not know it's name), then there is a small tree ( this one's called praveer), followed by your's truly and then vipul. The thing sitting is called katty (gourav to some).
Hokay, this was the first leak break that we took on our way from Bangalore to Coorg. On the Mysore Road, just before it, from srirangapatnam, we took a right for a bumpy ride leading us to coorg. First site of tree and wala, here we stop. Just before this, we stopped at a Place called Kamath ( sometimes I wonder whether I know more udupi's or more kamath's and I am not talking about people here) Anyway that was our sandwich/tea break where we switched wheels. vipul took over them while I got down to do what I do best - plan ;). I was worried we will miss the right turn near srirangapatnam. which we did, and took a U turn to find in relief that the right turn was still there. We took it and celebrated that with another stop on a road side chai shop where the tea (again ? how much tea do you guys drink !) and that leads us to the photo below.

Lost in translation would be the words here as I have skipped putting the I zillion photos that we took between the one above and the one that follows. We changed wheels again and the 2nd tree that we met in the first picture took it over. As you can guess there was not enough room for it in the driver's seat and hence the driver's seat was moved backwards to the delight of person sitting behind him (read me).

So we continue with praveer on wheel and the rest of us on edge. Take a cocunut break, pose with cocunuts for yapp ( yet another photograph photograph) . The road to coorg from here on was pretty much of a nomenclature. The roadside was really beautiful. We passed a garden where beetle leaves were grown and then finally made it to coorg and to our "hotel". The quotes surrounding the hotel should say all that needs to be spoken about it. Hence I would not dwell on it any more. We took the keys and moved on to our first spot - the abbi falls

It was a short walk from where we are standing above and where we are fishing below. There was a bridge which took us over to the other side. We christened it shatrughan jhoola, as it appeared to be younger brother of laxman jhoola.

The feet that took me all across the treacherous terrain - yes , I still can take pictures of my feet without my tummy blocking the way.

After a relaxing time under the falls water, we were headed towards to somwarpeth and this time not only the surroundings were great, the road was terrific ( as best they can be in ghats ). The "turns" and "corners" could easily rival some on the formula 1 curcuit :D. we did stick to the racing line and never crossed the pit speed.

k, the photo that you see below is completely fake. I appear to be calm and relaxed and having fun. Truth is that it was just after a long trudge in sun from talacauvery base to the highest point in coorg. the least people can do is put some beach chairs and overhead umberellas there ! it was HOT.

long time since I climbed anywhere ! A machan at nisarga dhamajourney back home. My energy level was following the same graph as the graph which can be drawn against the number of words over each photographs now. I look verrrrrrrrry different without specs ... should I go for contact lenses ?

A hell of a time I had !

Agnipath - The Poem

Vruksh ho bade bhale,
ho ghane ho bhale,
Ek Patra chhah bhi mang mat, mang mat, mang mat,
Agnipath, Agnipath Agnipath;

Tu na thamega kabhi tu na mudega kabhi tu na rukega kabhi,
Kar shapath, Kar shapath, Kar shapath,
Agnipath, Agnipath, Agnipath.
Ye Mahan Drushya hain,
Chal raha Manushya hain,
Ashru, Sweth, Rakta se Latpat Latpat Latpat..
Agnipath, Agnipath, Agnipath.

Guess the poem needs no introduction - I heard it first in the movie Agnipath

Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman - Super Blooper

Caught a scene from "Raju Ban Gaya gentleman" sometime back ...

Scene : SRK has just entered the interview room with Three panelist and a geeky looking computer operator.
Problem : SRK has diploma in civil engineering and is required to prove his brains as claimed by him "Degree se akal nahi milti "
Argument : There is an uptown posh project undertaken by the firm where the interview is being held - Project manager of which is present in the panel. SRK throws some crap about not using RCC and hence saving around 5 crores.

BLOOPER : Not only the argument which he presented was gibberish, the event that follows is hilarious.... The panel leader asks the computer geek if the computer confirms to the claims made by SRK. The geek eagerly presses few buttons and there is a huge amount of text that scrolls the screen and then comes back to the command prompt. The operator says, "Eureka, he is right". The command that is typed by our dude was none other than the dos equivalent of "ls". The scrolling text was the directory listing.

PS : only thing that was cool about the scene was the colors on the computer terminal .. my fav green on black.

Monday to Friday of Music

Monday no clues , all red with the (monday) blues

Tuesday am on a Dock, friday's far, hence the alternative rock

Wednesdays nowhere in the week, time to settle and for some heavy metal

Thursday's punky, makes me jumpy, I listen to that chap, doing gangsta rap

Friday's jazz, I pull up my sock and listen to the rock


Important Note : Saturday, Sunday I am in trance

Geoffrey's Bangalore

From left to right : Me, Jon, Rajeshwar, Ambar and Rob

No Kidding

Australia batting first - 434 for 4 in 50 overs

South Africa - 438 for 8 in 49.5 overs

South Africa Win by 1 wicket with 1 ball to spare !

Test Driven Development

Test Driven Development is a technique for writing the test cases first and then doing incremental coding for each case. This has to be coupled with regression testing after each module for a test case is written. An automated testing environment is a desired requirement for this paradigm.

Inadvertently , we might have done this in past for one or more of our projects. I have done something similar in one of my projects without following the regression testing rule exhaustively.

The way it works - several iterations of the following steps:

• Write a test case for a small feature: use the requirement and the use cases to write test cases.
• Make sure that the test case fails (you haven't written the code for this feature) : There might be a "bug" in your program which gives you this "feature". This requirement basically means "start with a clean slate".
• Write the code necessary to pass the current test case.
• Refractor code - making sure that the code for the new feature fits in the design or the other parts of the code are adjusted to make it the simplest design.
• Regressing testing - run all the test cases written so far

Advantages

• Due to regression testing requirement , the modules are written in a modular way which can be tested individually and hence aids object oriented design.
• Takes out a huge amount of time from a manual regression testing process
• Coding is always done an incremental fashion which makes a loosely coupled system
• Testing for each feature is NOT done as an afterthought
• The initial test case document provides a good document for system capabilities

Limitations and challenges :

• A sound automated testing environment is required to ensure regression testing - hence additional effort required initially. (JUnit is an example of automated testing infrastructure for java and boost test for c++).
• Distributed objects in an environment - can write "mock" objects to support this
• A test driven environment is as good as the test cases, since they are the key design driver.

References :
http://www.objectmentor.com/writeUps/TestDrivenDevelopment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_driven_development

tar -zcvf oc4j

A tar command only with the source folder( I missed out on specifying the tar name)

[root@ssinghal home]# tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive
Try `tar --help' for more information.

Sirsi

After frenzied head banging and dancing at the tull concert, came a peaceful weekend at sirsi- a small town north of Bangalore.
The journey by bus took about 8 hours and was pretty painful as I got a seat right over the Bus tire and was on the receiving end of bus driver's ire . ( man ! embedded poetry !)
Anyway, it was a fun trip because it was the wedding of one the members of my engineering gang and all my old frieds were supposed to be there. I was met with one of my friends at 6 AM in the morning and he in true sense of our "friendship" was really excited about waking him up in the morning ( he reached there the previous evening) so far so good, I got the pleasure of waking him up.
It was a BIG wedding as it was a small place Arati's( whose wedding we were there to attend) father is pretty well knows around the parts. But the real fun was visiting Arati's estate. They have plantations of Supari, Kali-Mirch, Vanilla, elaichi and many others.


We quickly managed to take a break from the wedding hall ( it was a two day affair, hence we had some time in hand) and go there. The leading road is pretty striking too , there was a simple turn from the main road which looked like heading to one of those small colonies that you see around the main roads in a small town. For a while, I seemed to be right. Going about a 100 meters inside, we found ourself on a mud road with a valley on one side with us driving to climb at a regular incline on the other side.
At the plantation, it was the most soothing thins that I heard - silence ! I used to be a small town kid myself and was pretty used to small and quiet surrounding during my childhood. but nothing like that in the recent past.There was a small stream of water flowing all across the plantation in a criss cross pattern to make sure that it reaches every where within the plantation.
Majority of the tress were tall, almost like coconut tress and they made sure that the sultry weather of sirsi was replaced by a serene shade and cool breeze blowing. Then there were creepers and small shrubs. It reminded me of my childhood days and was really tempted to stay back for more time.



Then I met all my friends , opened a bottle of champagne during the night , chatted away that night, felt grumpy the next day during the wedding due to lack of sleep and managed to get the last seat on a bus to bangalore ( it was worse than sitting on the tire , I was right at the back and it was worse than being in a sack , what a talent)
Now I am comfortable back in bangalore in a familiar temperature controlled environment. Sirsi was a good break

Jethro Tull Concert

3rd Feb 2006 - IIM Grounds - Unmaad Fest

As rightly put by katty who was with me in the convert "It was a concert and not a show". I would say I was a fan of JT before the concert and now I am a follower !

The energy in the show was unbelievable. The pieces that they played, you will never hear on any CD. I guess this was the real difference between this and any other show I have gone to. They really played out of the bag and with lots of variety and ingenuity.

The dry and sarcastic humour of Ian Anderson was pretty much the icing on the cake. They did a piece dedicated to Mozart which anderson called "Moz" "Art" and how Mr. Mozart would (dis)approve had he been there.

They planned to finish off with their all time hit "Aqualung" but we got them back on the stage yelling for more. Then they perfomed Locomotive Breath as the last number.

Anderson tossed two huge balloons towards the crowd. I got a piece of if it !

Coding Vs Poetry

Coding is like poetry - You cannot force yourself to do it and you would always find critics for it.

Rang de basanti

26th January , I saw Rang de basanti with couple of my "friends". What RDB suggests is what Bhagat Singh believed in - you have to fight for your right, cause it is the might that is heard not the pleas. Fear is probably the only thing that can drive people to do miraculous things. You think getting rid of corruption in India would be magic ? Message was sutle ( maybe because of censorship ) ... If morality is not a criteria for accountability - maybe fear is ?

Pigs Can Fly

(More at http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1925.html)

(2) No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority,
you can't increase the speed of light.

(2a) (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can't make a
baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up
*might* make it slower, but it won't make it happen any
quicker.
(3) With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is
not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they
are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them
as they fly overhead.

Firefox Success

I was a die hard Internet Explorer user - not becuase it was a great browser, simply because that is how I started browsing the internet. Being a creature of habit that I am, I felt it was impossible for me to make the switch ( I used to be pained while browsing on Linux during redhat 6 days ) Now I would not even look at IE. What did firefox do which allowed me to switch.

• Got rid of the primitive look and feel the earlier Non-IE browsers had
• Aligned with most of the IE shortcuts - like F5 for refresh, CTRL+D for bookmarks.
• Tabbed Browsing !! - An essential feature IE is now waking up to in the IE 7 release.
• Nifty Plugings - Like Google Suggest, integrated search engines. IE integrates with few, but the number of plugins that firefox provides ... amazing
  
• There are about a zillion vulnerabilities in IE which most users are unaware. If firefox does not fix them, it atleast do not expose them.
  

Scrum

Introduced to the concept in my office.

Scrum is a daily short meeting between team members to discuss issues, plans and status.

What it does -

• You get to meet all your team mates atleast once a day and talk to them
• Problems that are troubling an individual gets a wider audience and invariably someone has a solution
• Keeps you on your toes when the previous days work is reviewed
• Keeps the manager/team leads informed about the pain points, the status and the issues - problems can be escalated sooner this way

For me , the most important is point one ;) - It definitely makes the day fun (You don't have to talk work every scrum)

New Year - Dumb Charades

From Left,
Didi, Bhanu, Ashwani, Vitta (Dumb) and swati

Sufi Art Gallery

This is a hadwoven Carpet!
Food might not be the best at Sufi's , it is certainly a great place to go for the ambience. You get those huge sofa like furnitures where you sit with your legs up and have food the persian style. It is pretty roomy and open, hence you do not get a cramped feeling you get at most eating joints in bangalore.
The art gallery is a nice drop by if you are in sufi - Aishwarya carpet did impress me ;)