There were 13 questions like the one above in this lab. To add to the agony of the programmer, the professors went ahead and setup a scorecard depicting the number of operators used by each solution for every student. Though added with noble intentions, it adds to the frustration of any C programmer. How? Read along.
1. You can see who has solved the lab exercise.
2. If a student solves a given problem in lesser number of operations than you, your conscience is not going to allow you to sit down and gape at the pretty girls. You wanna get that bloke (or lass) who outnumbered you!

This one lab exercise demonstrates why 15213 gives CMU its zip and what it takes to be a C programmer.
As I write this blog after completing “Data lab”, I can’t wait for the next exercise!

So then, we must ask ourselves, who will win? Again, must we? India Pakistan matches are not just about playing your game well. It is in fact, most unequivocally WAR disguised in the form of cricket. I can bet right here right now that even after his much debated poor form, Kamran Akmal will be highly vivacious behind the stumps. Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel (depending on who plays) will get the ball in the right places when required. All this might sound like hogwash, but this is what war does to you. It brings out the steroid injected monster within you. The outcome of war cannot be predicted, but then again, someone has rightly said this and I paraphrase the same: “War doesn’t determine who is right. It only determines who is left.” I suggest you take off from work on Wednesday and brace yourselves for an evening of high quality cricket ridden with tricks such as sledging, negative bowling, ball tampering and innovative shot selection.

Codswallop! Who will win?

Team India, having stood second in the group stages and fresh from a win against their arch nemesis, Australia in the QFs, is on all time high. They need to be wary of the fact that they have the worst bowling attack possible (with the exception of Zak) though the batsmen are doing their job fairly well. With Sachin’s class, Sehwag’s panache, Gambhir’s solidarity, Kohli’s form, Yuvraj’s confidence and Raina’s motivation, we have the batting to get us a place in the finals. Skipper Dhoni hasn’t really clicked with the bat so far, but has been quite successful in getting the field placing and bowling options right. If Zaheer and co. get their act together, the men in blue are a tough lot to beat. However, the mental pressure of playing in front of the home crowd and going into the tournament as favourites might actually be a dampener to the team spirit.

Pakistan has been on top of their game since the onset of the tournament. Afridi has proved his mettle with the ball and exhibited terrific leadership skills. The remarkable pace trio of Gul, Riaz and Razzaq is well complemented by their equally competent spin counterparts of Afridi, Hafeez and Ajmal. The batting department is no less with the likes of Hafeez, Younis, Misbah Akmal brothers and Afridi in the team. Pakistan’s defiance to team India’s success is sufficient impetus for them to perform and claim the title they’ve been seeking since the last 19 years.

Enough said! Cross your fingers, take off from work and enjoy a miraculous game of cricket on Wednesday.

Such gifts usually serve a very tacit purpose which is actually quite multi-fold:

1. You’re letting the person know that you cared to remember the occasion. (Be it a birthday, anniversary, congratulations, best of luck, wedding or whatever)
2. You’re telling them that you took the time out to go and purchase the gift.
3. You feel happy that you were able to do something for a loved one.
4. It’s a nice and inexpensive way to say that you care.
5. It’s a socially accepted tradition.

I happened to have picked a card from Archies a few days back, and immediately, I was awestruck at the inevitable predicament. I had to run to a courier shop to get it shipped. I’m pretty sure that all of you would’ve run into the same kind of problem. You’ve purchased the gift, but now you’ve to run down to a courier shop (or perhaps get it done from office the following day) to have it couriered. Has nobody cared to make things simpler? Have these folks not seen the solution yet? Or are we actually happy running from one shop to the other?

As you may have already guessed, there’s a simple solution to the problem. Gift shops (especially the ones which are operating on a scale as grand as Archies) should perhaps consider introducing a courier system. Such a system would attract a lot more customers, but as any other system would have it, there are various pros and cons to the same. Let’s take a minute to discuss and weigh out the options.

Pros:

1. It will make the customer’s life easy. Pay for the gift, and then get it couriered from the same place if you have to.
2. The gift shop can extract a commission on the courier charges and strike a deal with one of the private undertakings (such as DTDC/FF etc.) and make a neat profit on the scheme.
3. The reputation of the gift shop will be sufficient for the customers to trust the deal.
4. The brand value of the shop will sky rocket.

Cons:

1. It wouldn’t bode well for the customers who’d want to take the gift home, customize it (write poetry on the card if you will) and give it a personal touch. They’ll have to make 2 trips anyway.
2. Customers might not be willing to pay the extra charge for the courier service.
3. Customers might think that their preferred courier service (or speed post) would do a better job of delivering the gift.
4. It might be an additional burden on the shop to manage the logistics.

These qualifications can easily be overcome by putting in some thought. for e.g. The gift shop may still courier after the customer has personlized the gift item (maybe they can charge a little extra in these scenarios!). They could competitively price this service compared with other courier agencies. The gift shop could have a tie up with some agency which gives a discount on the production of the bill.

The potential benefits of this system are quite unequivocal, and in my opinion will attract a lot more customers.

I have to admit. I’m probably one of the most ardent Salman fans around, and I can warrant that by saying that I actually enjoyed films like “Hello Brother” and “Chal Mere Bhai”. (Note: you still have the option of not reading this post )
Eid it is and Salman’s out with Dabangg. Expect fireworks! Naturally, a bunch of us landed up at Fame to catch our beloved superstar in action.

The movie’s set in a small town in UP called Lalganj. The movie kicks off with a bunch of goons trying to run from the cops (rather..a cop ) whilst hanging on to their loot. There’s a typical warehouse where the goons are at the mercy of Chulbul Pandey a.k.a Robin Hood Pandey. Nothing but a water hose at his disposal (mark: Sunny Deol required a full hand pump), Sallu easily knocks ‘em out and makes the loot disappear. This slick (no really..they fight in oil) action sequence sets the stage for what’s going to be no less than a blockbuster in the history of bollywood entertainment.
The triumph sets the stage for the title track of the film, and Salman is at his best swinging his belt like a see-saw.

The movie continues to describe the various antics of Chulbul as he makes bad blood with the local politicians by stealing their loot (and keeping much of it for himself), and how his stepfather and stepbrother are discomfited by his acts.
Sonakshi Sinha’s quite a looker, and her demure and comely portrayal of a simple village girl will have you drooling throughout the film..Our hero is immediately smitten by her and couple of song and dance numbers later, she’s equally enamoured.

Be it the typical UP language, or Salman’s wit and penchant for delivering the dialogues with style, or Malaika’s item number “Munni Badnam Hui” which adds to the already smoldering starcast or even the minion photographer whose only line in the film is “Bhaiyaji Ismaile”, or the final sequence wherein Salman’s shirt rips open as his muscles flex, you’ll never lose your grip and constantly be dazzled by the superb art direction.

Sonu Sood and Arbaaz Khan have done a decent job, but this is a total Salman Khan film. Full paisa vasool. Hell I want to see it again!! Hudd Hudd Dabangg!!!

I love music. Wouldn’t say I had the best taste in it, but then again, that’s probably due to lack of awareness. I believe that people should share their taste on the fly, which will allow fellow music lovers aware of some good music.

So I asked myself. What’s the best way to share? And the answer sat right in front of me, when my regular twitter client buzzed me with a tweet (was that a pun?).

So here’s presenting “Nightingale”, my first attempt at a twitter desktop client.

Nightingale is a simple Java based client, which tweets your currently playing song.

It’s integrated with iTunes (as of now), and as soon as you switch tracks, the world will know. It’s currently a Windows CLI based client, which runs as a JAVA process. I will soon be adding a user interface to it. (P.S. I could do with a few images).

Being a JAVA application, I assume it will be supported on various other platforms as well.

Some future additions:

1. Mobile support – Port the app to your iPhone/iPad/iTouch.
2. Grooveshark support – The tweet can contain a link to the song at grooveshark.
3. Tweet customization.
And many more to follow. Too soon to discuss all of them here.

I do not know if such an app already exists or not, but frankly I don’t care either. It’s my first attempt, and I’ll always be proud that I developed it.

Since it’s still in the prototype stage (i.e. it lacks a UI), I’m not giving the source code/application link here.

If you’re interested in trying it out, shoot me an email, and I’ll have you setup in no time.

After getting onto the State highway, driving in low visibility was quite challenging and fun. We soon reached a fork and didn’t know which route to take. The map didn’t quite help us either. Luckily for us, 2 dudes on a Black Pulsar 150 showed up and were headed quite close to where we were headed, so they asked us to follow them. The highway opened up and we were driving at around 50kmph, which was a little less than what I’d expected.
The fog started clearing out, and we knew we could drive a little faster from here on. After a short break to enrich the soils with vital ingredients, we sped forward. Soon we overtook the Pulsar dudes and made our own way. The road really opened up now and we started experiencing relative velocities of over 225kmph with respect to the incoming vehicles.
We reached the border in no time. It was surprisingly unprotected, with only a bamboo stick lying on the ground to mark the demarcation. Our destination now lay just 40 km away.
The last 10 km was a hill top climb with approximately 25 hairpin curves through monkey infested lands.
Having read various blogs, we knew that there wasn’t much to do here. In fact some people mentioned this as the best place to do nothing! However, when we reached, we were informed that the resort provides for adventure sports along with zorbing, water walking and rappelling!

This came as a surprise and we all decided to go for a simple adventure sport. We were to climb up a spider web kind of thingy affixed in between a couple of trees.

After reaching on the top, we had to cross a flimsy bridge which had no side supports, with only a rope hanging from the top to stop you from falling. The bridge as if not flimsy enough, was occasionally jolted out of position by the folks to make things more fun, dangerous and exciting.
Shubham went in first, and managed it quite well. It didn’t look that difficult. But then, I was just a spectator then.
Vikram was up next. While crossing the bridge, his legs started trembling, which made me even more anxious. Vikram managed it the end, although the free fall at the end, did land him on the ground.
It was my turn in the end. I climbed up the web and reached up. It was time to cross the bridge. I took a couple of steps forward.

I won’t say it was easy, but it wasn’t tough either. Soon enough, my taste for theatrics got the best of me, and I started shouting. It was so much fun! Before setting out, I’d inquired and the folks had ensured that even if you let go of the feet, the rope would be strong enough to hold the weight. So I did what neither Vikram or Shubham did. I let go of my feet. I was suspended in mid-air, with only a rope to support me. I finished up soon enough, and all of us decided to call it a day and head back.

As none of us were keen on having a buffet at the resort’s restaurant, we decided to head back to Bangalore, and eat at some local dhaba. As we hit the National Highway, I spotted a decent looking dhaba (SLV dhaba) which was located right next to a petrol pump.
Having satisfied our ever growing apetite with some delicious and spicy food (nothing extravagant though..butter chicken for Vikram and Shubham and a simple Veg curry for me), we continued on course.
After navigating our way through a gang of GGW (goats gone wild), we soared on to the state highway and reached the outskirts of Bangalore by 2:30 PM. We could smell the city in the air and as the traffic limited our speeds, we touched base in another hour.

A very refreshing trip. Here’s hoping that we go there again (albeit with a larger group), to enjoy some of the activities we missed out on.

The treat being a combined one, shared between me and Deepti, had 2 acts.

Act – 1: Go Karting
Zahed had been quite pompous in admitting that he was a racer and challenged me to a race. Always willing to compete, I accepted his challenge. After waiting for nearly an hour for our turn, we signed our death warrants, and each of us got into our respective karts. All 7 (4 guys – Zahed, Rohit, Vignesh and Me and 3 girls – Anupriya, Deepti and Lavanya) of us were going to be in the track together. A race was quite imminent. Zahed, the selfish dog, went and took the very first kart. This way he’d get a head start. Shrewd! I on the other hand, being the host allowed everyone else to pick a kart. Needless to say, I was the last one on the grid. I had lost the race with Zahed even before it started! Engines started firing, and we sped off one after the other. I started off fast, after having analysed the track during the waiting period, I knew where to slow down, but it would take at least one lap to get used to the track and the kart. After the first lap, I drove fast…very fast. I overtook all of them, but catching Zahed wasn’t going to be easy. I soon lapped the others 2-3 times. It was the last lap, and I had Zahed in sight. Last corner…I shouldn’t brake..shouldn’t brake..this was it. Then it happened. I accelerated out of the apex of the turn, leaving Zahed behind to sniff the black smoke, and zoomed past the finish line into the pits. Zahed came second, Rohit 3^rd and the other 3 ladies..oh wait a minute..one of them was Vignesh..took their own sweet time. Deepti came 4^th, followed by Vignesh, and the karting session was wrapped up by Lavanya’s kart chugging across the finish line. It was fun, and everyone was thrilled. Surprisingly enough, no one banged into the wall of tires even once, and it was quite an enjoyable karting experience.

After getting the adrenaline pumping, there’s only one way to quench the hunger that follows. We decided to head to BBQ Nation for dinner. I called up Mayuresh, to inquire about their “merge” status. He said that he could make it to BBQ Nation. Time to eat.

Act -2: BBQ Nation
Friday night at BBQ Nation with no reservations. Bad idea! However, we were told that we should get a table by 9:30. We had 45 minutes to kill, and decided to click a couple of photographs. Surprise! No, yet again, we were not able to click pics. Not because we didn’t have a camera, but because the camera girl had forgotten to charge the batteries. I wasn’t going to let this happen. I ran to a nearby shop and picked up a couple of ordinary AA batteries. I thought they would suffice the night. As soon as the battery was installed, Deepti’s camera flashed a message, which I was horrified to see..”Battery exhausted”. I just installed new batteries! I wasn’t going to let this become another no photo night session. I ran to the nearby shop and purchased alkaline batteries. Thankfully they worked. We clicked a few photographs.

Everyone was starved! Finally our turn came. Deepti was handling the camera, and bore a confused look on her face. I peeked into the camera. I shouldn’t have (Don’t let your imagination run wild). It flashed the same message again. Something was definitely wrong. God alone knows. Everyone was hungry, and we attacked the food.

The food:

There’s not much to write about the food actually. It’s pretty much typical. They display and array of desserts as soon as you walk in, so you know how its gonna end. They start off with serving starters. Tons and tons of starters. The main course is located at the back, cuz no one ever bothers to reach that stage. One simply skips from starters to desserts. I was hungry, and I guess the only one who managed to eat food like it’s supposed to be had (translated that means..loads and loads of food). Most of the time was spent in discussing if the starters taste better with or without the respective sauces and oils. Dessert session was excellent, especially since they had the eggless chocolate mousse cake, and gulab jamuns with vanilla ice cream. After we were all done with at least 3 rounds of dessert, we got up. It was a good meal.

I bid adieu to all my friends for the night, and headed straight home, dropping off Lavanya on my way back (a little slow this time…He He..)

What an evening!

Dev Test guys: They are the test experts. They have the test cases written on their fingertips. Kudos to their effort! They helped me test out the changes be executing some of their test cases, and filed over 30 defects in the process. Minor as they may be (due to a couple of NPEs here and there), they needed to be fixed. Most of them were legacy defects, but they being raised for “Skin Changes” definitely started raising managerial eyebrows. Soon enough, it was realized that this effort is not enough. We need to execute more cases, but we don’t have the manpower to do so. What’s the solution? Call in the automation folks.

Automation Test Engineers: They are the automation gurus. They’ve automated the testing to such a great extent, that they can start the suite, and sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while the computer runs their test cases. (No offense, you guys are the experts!). The automation suites, however, have been failing for the “Skin Changes”. But of course they would! They’ve been designed to work with the older GUI, and for sure the “Skin Changes” would change the way the components are rendered. I should not be the one who’s remedying the code at this point in time to suit the automation suites. The suite itself should handle the changes, especially since the same cases are passing when tested manually.

The Verdict: Fireworks between the dev and test folks.

The company should be aware of the fact that making such drastic changes requires both time and effort (on both the dev and test fronts). And if they don’t have enough (or the right) resources to handle the situation, they should’ve planned better.

Having told at home that I’m arriving on 9th morning, my parents had no idea that I’d be showing up on the 8th instead. I knew my mom was taking a late night flight from Mumbai and if I played my cards well, I could possibly surprise her at the airport itself. I told Papa that I’d be coming by the evening flight, so he should come down to the airport an hour earlier.

Papa did that and came to pick me up on time. It was still an hour before mom’s flight was supposed to land, that meant we had enough time to squeeze in a trip to Nirulas. We managed to pick up a chocolate ice cream cake (good stuff..eggless too!) for Mom.

Mom was surprised to see me. We headed home after a little hug session at the airport.

We celebrated Mom’s birthday at 12, but truly missed Stuti. She was stuck at college due to her impending exams. Mom was thrilled nonetheless. I think it might have been a long time since she’d cut a cake at midnight..long enough that she even forgot that she was supposed to blow out the candles before cutting the cake! Soon, we all crashed, leaving the rest of the celebrations for the evening.

I ordered another cake (the cake at midnight was a bonus according to Ma), and Stuti also came back by the evening. I imagine she might have fed some cock n bull story to her warden to get an outpass for the night. The celebrations were in order..a simple evening with the four of us. That’s exactly what Mom had always wanted. (I being the spoilt sport, by not being there on her birthday in the previous few years)

For dinner we headed to DLF Promenade Mall, hoping to get a place at Vedas (I was informed that they were booked for the evening, when I tried to make a reservation by phone). Unfortunately for us, they weren’t bluffing. They were actually full. So we decided to try out this other restaurant, “Tamangang”, which specialised in Japanese and Chinese cuisine.

The ambiance was splendid, specially having got a place by the window. We called for Sushi as the apetiser, followed by other Chinese/Japanese dishes. Having never had Sushi, all of us were looking forward to the Japanese delicacy dipped in Wasabi sauce. I picked up my chopsticks and dug in. Sushi tasted a little sweet at first, but later on I realised that its just one of those things which requires an adaptation of taste. The dinner was quite spectacular, and we ended up having a ball. Mom thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and to no one’s surprise said that it was one of her best birthdays ever.

Love you Ma! Happy birthday!