Umashankar's Way - U' r Way

World Cup 2011 so far..

2011-03-05T15:05:00.002Z

Its been yet another slow start to a long World cup format. Now (March 4th) it has started to enter the dramatic phase. So far, with confusion around tickets sale for semis & final, a tied match with a score of 338, and an a great upset of Irish beating the English. Well what else could you ask for and it is not even half way mark in the Group stage.

The sides that are impressive at this point includes South Africa, well I should say they looked solid in their bowling than their batting, which is not bad either. Though, I believe they are yet to be tested by a strong side. First one will be the English on Sunday 5th March. Still they have got a bowling attach which can get the 10 wickets on sub continental flat tracks.

Next, I would put Pakistan, unpredictable yes, but at this point they have got a nice momentum going, their batting is still shaky at times, scoring 180 and odd against Canada, mmm need to get their acts together and keep it that way through the distance, its any one's guess how it will go.

Then the dark horses, Australians, I thought I would not get to say this so early, hot favorites in the last 4-5 World cups now not any more. But don't rule them out yet. They are the only side packed only with the quicks and do not rely on the spinners. Well it could backfire if any side goes on rampage as they are all more monotonous. Will be eager to watch Aus vs SL, Aus vs Pak.

Last but not the least India, though they are by far the strongest batting team in the tournament and who on paper can get / topple any score or set any target, their bowling and fielding a big worry. Especially if it is a flat bed of a track. Not sure if Piyush will be more relaxed in his initial overs and bhaji will get the first wicket quickly to get his confidence on the high in a match. Well there are quite a few ifs and there is the history that none of the hosting teams of final have won a world cup.

Anyways, nice to have a world cup where there are no clear favorite. I am enjoying thoroughly, though from US with odd timing to watch crucial matches, but happy that at least I get to watch.

Final word on this article to the Cricket administrators in the subcontinent, they should start thinking and building more sporting wickets with something also for the bowlers. I agree every one wants to see a 50-50 over matches and not one sided or 180 allout contests, but that does not mean that 320's -4 to be toppled again with 321's -3. It is not interesting is it?

Windows 7 My First experience

2010-02-20T16:33:00.001Z

I was wondering if I got my laptop a bit too early to miss the Windows 7. Luckily I noticed that it has a upgrade. I requested the upgrade. I had to wait for more than 6 months to get he update. But it was worth waiting.. My first experience is amazing.. and Wow.. not sure if it is because of the Vista experience being so bad. This one is good definitely good. You can feel that the system responds to you.

I usually switch to classic settings and avoid all the gizmos and gadgets, but with Windows 7, it make sense to enable them. The performance is amazing, I could not believe that I am using Windows. Probably the best performance I have ever seen since Windows 95 days. At last I feel I have a OS from Windows which you feel like using the add ons. Lets see how it spans over days. The initial verdict is a thumbs up for Windows 7. Go for the upgrade if you are eligible for it..

Astrology - Astronomy

2009-03-14T20:36:00.000Z

A bit of Indian history
In the Indian Astrology which according to historians, has been practiced even from BC times, a person's life could be analysed as soon as he is born by merely knowing the date time & place of birth. Well is that statement that could go well in today's scientific world.

If I have to say this in the western world, or ever for that matter in India among the scientific community, how many takers would be there? Well even how many would continue to listen / read this article if I continue to explain the same.

Eventhough it is not practical today for the astrology practitioners, I have a theory, whereby we can explain both Astrology and Astronomy(Science) together.

Hyposthesis

This is my hypothesis based on various concepts that I have come across and some reasoning that I did.

In Astrology
Let me first explain what Astrology says:

Everything (Living non living) is influenced by Planetary motion (4 planets excl. earth, + notional planets Rahu and ketu along with then sun + moon). This causes the Good and the Bad deeds. Happiness and Sorrow. Life and Death.

For the Living ones by knowing the positions of the above heavenly bodies we can predict overall major happenings and its impact upfront.

Like, what impact this new born will have on the family, what education level he/she can attain, how many marriages :-), how many children, travel abroad, ill health and even possibility death and near misses.

Thats to put a few things. Does this sound too much? Well it is and it does, but not all can be laid aside all together. There are few which can be explained by science and maths, also explains how it could have been possible if at all.

In Astronomy

In parallel if you look through the prism of science for a possible explanation, then this what I see.

Energy produced during the big bang is being reflected back and forth in the Universe as MicroWaves (the white and black dots you get when you switch on your tv with out tuning to a channel). These are photos gettting bounced all over the place with varying energy levels. There energy changes based on the reflection and refraction. These are part of the cosmic rays that reaches earth.

Now, so what how could they decide whether I am happy or sad on a day. All our emotions and we ourselves are into existence due to various chemical reactions that take place with in our biology. Meaning, assuming we have probe in our body and monitors various reactions, then we can predict our emotions at any given point of time without having to look for our typical exterior reactions like the ones through the face and tears. So, all our good deeds, emotions are nothing but a set of chemical reactions induced and influenced by some of virtual triggers like social interaction, goals, efforts and results. End of Day everthing are set of chemical reactions.

These reactions are affected / impacted like any other by the high energy photons that hits us, the probability of some high energy photons hitting us from those reflected from the near by planets are higher than those far away.

This holds good not just for planets since sun due to its huge size in the proximity and moon by its sheer proximity also plays a big hand on those photos getting to us. Since, it is the position of these planets when we came into direct contact with the photos from them (during birth) which determines the first configuration. Any subsequent reactions seems can be predicted if you know the first and then the time ellapsed since, by mear use of Mathematics and Patterns of reactions as against planetary arrangement for a specific pattern of birth Star positions.

Astrology vs Astronomy - Why getting difficult to correlate today?

If thats the case why are we not able to predict today?

Possible reasons:
a) On those days in BC the pollution was literally non existent and these photons interaction with the current polution levels have brought in additional variables on to the equation which were earlier almost constant and now giving enough deviation to throw the earlier math of the track.

b) The math was not taught or understood the same way over the generations and in ability to adapt the equations to the new variables that have started to cause effect. Had we compensated to these new entrants on the stage then the predictions could have been much more accurate.

Conclusion
Not sure whether this was worth a read, but it was my wife who inspired me to put this. Any comments would be welcome.

Vantage Point - Understand how it would be from other Key persons point of view

2009-03-09T04:04:00.001Z

I had recently watched the movie 'Vantage Point'. I felt that the movie was not creating the expected excitement, atleast to more than half of the crowd in the theater. That's not the point which I am intended to discuss. This movie is based out of the concept that same incident in the view point of different individuals with varying knowledge creates different impression and conclusion.

Now that is our topic of interest. Any individual when they join the stream of work, is more likely to b one dimensional in this aspect. Meaning mostly thinking about, how things have to span out in their career and what they need to get as they grow and achieve.

But the point here is unless you understand how your actions evoke reactions from various by-standers it is difficult to grow up in the career. Many a times you wanted to convey something but you end up conveying something else.

That is you need to evoke very predictable and desirable reactions. Desirable does not always mean positive and sometimes a negative response is what we wanted to evoke.

Those who start becoming multi dimensional in understanding others point of view before an action and its consequences would have higher probability of growth. Ofcourse how you use it your advantage is based on your Emotional Quotient. Nevertheless a word of caution some people think so deep about the reactions that it leads to 'Inaction'.

Think before you act, but definetly you have to decide sooner than later to act.

You Hurd it right. - About a top CEO

2009-03-06T09:28:00.019Z

Nice quote I happened to read about one of the smart CEO's Mark Hurd (CEO, HP). This was the remark made during Hurd's earlier assignment, where he grew from an ordinary sales man to a CEO.

"Our theory on people was that you give them responsibility," says Gilbert Williamson, a CEO of NCR during Hurd's rise. "To my knowledge, every time we threw Mark out the window he landed on his feet. So we moved him up a floor, and he landed on his feet again."

This should be a motivation for any one who aims to grow vertically at a good pace with lots of learning without hopping jobs.

Responsibility

2008-07-10T07:52:00.003+01:00

Responsibility is a word which most of us use very commonly. This comes up mostly during the discussion on any new upcoming task or during a post-mortem of a task. So, have we ever wondered what is responsibility and what makes us being 'Responsible'.

Every action we make leads to consequences. It always leads to a Desirable and Undesirable outcome. Key to note here is that the very same outcome which we might think as desirable to one could be undesirable to another. For instance, helping a colleague on his work is desirable as well undesirable. It gets the work done quickly probably and saves time, which is desirable. On the other hand it prevents them from being creative or learning from mistakes (that is undesirable).

Without taking any more time, and being 'Responsible' person, let me get on with the point of Responsibility.

'It is to understand the desirable and the undesirable consequences of any of your actions before it is actually being done and decide whether it is appropriate to take such an action'

Meaning, understanding the positive and negative impacts of your actions and weighing them before we actually proceed with the action.

Do we understand the consequences every time before we act?? Well there is the point, most times especially in our work setting we tend to execute (Act) instructions from our boss. If it leads to mostly undesirable consequence, then who is responsible. Lets make it more interesting assuming my boss has just translated my Super boss instruction, now who is responsible for all the negative effects?

Super Boss? Boss? or ..... thank god we have this on the list 'You'/'Me'/'Us'.

Any Guess? If you have said any one of the above its not correct, it is actually all of the above.

Don't agree?, lets look at the scenario again. Before giving instruction, my Super boss made a decision to do so. Meaning he had a Yolk in front of him, to go left or right was the decision point. Lets assume in this case he decided to travel right and that was the decision. Now that came to the boss, again he has a Yolk to decide, again he took a right and it comes to you you also did a right in your Yolk, which led to Undesirable effect.

If any of them in the Action, have been responsible then they should have travelled up the Yolk and explained the impact to the superior and could have lead to corrective action. Since none of them did it led to the effect. Hence they all were not acting Responsible.

For any Organisation or Team to succeed quickly it needs to practise 'Collective' responsibility. Meaning every individual should understand the impact of action they take or part of and make sure the if any undesirable impact is foreseen the same is highlighted to higher up the Yolk and the same is corrected.

Google Opens OpenSocial Site And Provides Orkut Support

2007-12-23T16:00:00.001Z

The Google OpenSocial site is now live (here). The video above comes from the Google OpenSocial Campfire held Thursday night and is featured on the front of the new page.

The site includes the complete OpenSocial API Documentation, FAQ and Group area.

Also now live is OpenSocial support for Google’s big in Brazil social networking site Orkut (here). According to Google, the OpenSocial implementation on Orkut has the following benefits:

* Building both showcase and canvas views, with Apps having the ability to create multi-page experiences in the full page canvas view.

* Foster communication among friends by allowing access a user’s profile information, friend list, and an update feed so that people can see what their friends are up to.

* Learn once, write everywhere as apps written for Orkut under OpenSocial can be used to build social apps for other websites.

The OpenSocial team also has a blog here.

Orkut joins Plaxo, and possibly tonight Ning as being the first sites with OpenSocial support.

Dual Core - Dual Processor !!! Getting confused here we go..

2006-07-17T08:44:00.000+01:00

Here is a very easy and good article to explain the Dual core. It explians when it make sense to go dual core and how it is implemented by various chip makers and what is the difference. Atleast it help me to make out what it means..

Blasts that could just rock Mumbai, but not break..

2006-07-15T10:26:00.000+01:00

Its very disheartening to hear such incidents... Be it in London or in Mumbai, its one of the worst news you would want to hear where ever you live. I was just back from work and switched on the tv sets to see the horrible news of the blasts.

It was deadly scenes and any traveller's worst nightmare, that is seriel blast on crowded trains. What could be the major motive behind such attacks.. What could just have been gained by killing so many common people who would not even have ever met these bombers in their life before, leave alone doing any harm to them.

The only conclusion you can come up with is, that they want to create fear and insecurity among people. If at all the bombers stood there to watch the aftermaths I am sure they would have realised that they failed miserably. People did not flee the place in fear.. they stayed there to help the others. they did not feel insecured that there could be more devices but stayed to help to carry the injured and dead to the hospitals and away.

That alone is good enough to show these cowards that they have lost and have not and cannot acheive what they aimed for this time and hopefuly anytime.

Hats off to those who stood and helped, even if few did so instinctively..

Lets hope our policy makers get it right here on and can avoid future incidents.

BSNL in Chennai vs BT in London: What a Service !!

2006-06-26T07:40:00.000+01:00

In my recent visit to my home town (Chennai aka Madras in India), I was taken by pleasant surprise by the speed of service from BSNL.

To tell you why I need to tell you another story, Just a few months back one of my friend in London (South West), moved into a new rented house as he was getting married. He ordered for a new telephone BT line and was told

* it would take 7 - 10 working days for connection
* Engineer would visit only during working hours
* Engineer would give a call in the morning, 8-9 am (the time you would be either traveling by tube to office or getting ready to do so)

He atlast managed to find a time with this engineer on his second attempt on the 8th day and found to his bad luck that the line had some wiring problem and finally it all got done and he was linked on the 16th day(working day).

Eventhough it can be generalised that all the cases are handled by BT like this but thats just a sample showing such things do happen in with BT.

Now coming to Chennai, it is a semi state run org called BSNL. When I went to the office along with my friend for application of new connection, it looked more like any other Govt. Org in India. Then I happen to notice that it was Saturday afternoon and still staff at counter is brisk collecting forms and friendly in explaining to things to the customer.

It was our turn we asked a we questions which he happend to explain and finally accepted our application. We also found that we could apply for Broadband as well for about 500Rs., @ 256 Kbps 1 GB ( Now we also have plans like 900Rs. @ 256 kbps - Unlimited download).

Then on the Monday evening my friend called up saying that they a linked and a new physical connection has been given at around 7:00pm after my friend returned home. It was surpising they hardly took 1 working day, it was less than 1 working day elapsed.

To add to this surprise by Wednessday evening my friend was online, surfing the net. Its amazing how much things can improve in country like India, given a litle bit of competition and privatisation, where paying an electricity bill or phone bill and getting a connection is always tougher than building a house.

Hope this spreads to other areas like Electricity Boards, House Tax & Metro Water, any other Government / Semi Government Organisations.

Its a very good start indeed..

IBM's new vision for Lotus: Yellow is the new black

2006-03-25T12:00:00.000Z

To many who had a chance to goto to Lotusphere or the new Lotusphere comes to you, would have had a very distinctive satisfaction this time..

It was not the same confused IBM, which was yet to decide what to do with Lotus Domino/Notes, whether to have a separate Java engine capabilites with Domino?, should there be Notes users? asking users to move to Websphere and eventhough nothing similar between Domino / Websphere other than that they are Web Technologies.

Its a very distinctively clear IBM, which has heard its customers and for a change accepted some of their views and concerns, the one which understood that Nothing in this World could the Domino users and developers (for that matter) are going to be threatened. Definetly not just by saying Java as future. Rather they understood that the need to have a path laid down to move along and may be over next 5-10 years bridge the gap so that may be there exists a code to inter convert or coexist.

Not only that the IBM has also understood the power of Blog and the reach it has among the communities / customers and made a distinctive intiative to push for their own employees and some loyal developers to have a good network that would stand a chance to compete the Propoganda War with that of Microsoft. Some of them are here and more to come

Its very heartning to know that IBM is thinking atlast with a fully customizable (atleast by Experienced developers) client and the one which could not just embbed a passive interent browser rather to have an active Click 2 Action based system. This would make a new way to think forward for the solution providers. Its also interesting technolory preview on SOA ( Service oriented architecture) and Activity Managed System and Composite Application Interface.

It was very happy customers who were able to have a sneak preview of the Hannover Notes client & Sametime 7.5. Especialy the Sametiem 7.5 which could compete with any mordern IM and could give a run for its money. Some features i doubt even the mordern famous IMs have. Though performance and stability is something we need to look at a bit apprehensively at this stage.

But out and out this Lotusphere is something that definetly brought some smile to just sneak through the corner of the customers' / developers' / administrators' faces.

Hope we have the golden days ahead..

Please register before you proceed. Its Free!Oh no.. I just want to read this article..

2006-01-10T07:18:00.000Z

How many times have you been to a website (nytimes.com, ft.com, vikatan.com etc...) and asked for registration, and to your frustration would ask you for a email id for verification or password confirmation.

I am sure every one of us would have faced this, at least once.

Don’t worry, there are couple of ways to elude:
1. Bugmenot
2. Mailinator

The first one is fighting for its existence, as it is being thrown of the web quite often, but has come out with huge support from web surfing community for its survival. Based on public contribution provides username / password for most news site. Quite useful if you want to access for just reading a couple of articles.

The second one is useful too. Incase you did not find a successful username / password for the site, then make your own by registering using the email id provided by this site, which remains valid to get the confirmation mail and password information.

I am sure this two would remain and more will come up to aid the browsing community to get the required information with less web harassment. :-)

Here we go, the Sample House Rent Agreement (India)

2006-01-10T06:47:00.002Z

As promised, this is what I prepared as the Rental Agreement . This should be a good template to start.

This one was prepared for a unfurnished apartment. You may remove or add any clause as it might suite the specific needs.

To Google for a House Renting Agreement

2006-01-09T07:23:00.000Z

Hello All,
Long time since I had been around here.. If am right its just about a year since I have been here. Now then I was trying to Google for House Renting Agreement. I could not find one simple sample document for India (Google Result). Its no surprise to me, people have just now started this practise. I am planning to post one soon.

With my limited renting experience in both UK & Singapore, along with the things I have seen of Indian Tenants, I am planning to prepare one. Would sure will post it here and I believe that will be a good starting point for those who search for in future..

Finally thanks to Kailash who reminded me of my blog with his own blog intiative. I wish him all the best for the same.

Who is Santa?

2004-12-18T13:08:00.000Z

Hello Mate,
Here I am with yet another Christmas based Bedtime stories.. I just wondered how did Santa Claus (one of the several names given to the icon.., this one is from US, oops basically Dutch.."Sinter Klaas" it was) the famous Father Chirstmas came into being.. The story dates back to 500 - 600 AD, in a small place which is part of current world Turkey.

There was once a good man by name Nicholas, who came to know that a poor father had 3 daughters. He was almost ready to sell them as he did not have enough money to arrange for their marriage.. (Dowry system.. its was not just in India!!). Nicholas planned to help them, but without any once knowledge he dropped a bag of gold into their house through the chimney..(Guys itsa smoke ventilator, quite common in Cold countries, I know you all know this but still :-)) He did the same for two nights and third night the girls daughter got a doubt and caught Nicholas on the act.

Nicholas requested not to disclose to any one.. but you know. these things dont stay in the castle.. Nicholas thus became very popular and any one, gets any anonymous gifts are said receive them from Nicholas.. Thus he was called in time as St. Nicholas.. Sad end to is story is that they say he died on 6th December which is celebrated in some part of the work as St. Nicholas Day(In Holland Kids get gift on that day not on Christmas eve).

So now you all know who Santa is, and by the way his current figure of Red and white plumpy appearence is the work of Coca-Cola, yes thats right a marketing strategy to make their drink sell in Winter.. it worked so well that he permanently became red & white..

If interested to learn more on christmas and various forms of Father christmas check this link..
Why Christmas?

By the way I had good christmas lunch yesterday @ Honda UK. and tasted the turkey for the first time.. mmmm.. boy it was good.. :-))

Think U r a Geek !! Then try this...

2004-12-12T14:56:00.000Z

You guys think your are real geek.. Give it a try.. its just a simple situation Dont worry .. It aint ARITHMETICS :-))

There are 5 houses in 5 different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage. The question is “Who owns the fish?’

Facts:

The Brit lives in the red house
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea
The green house is on the left of the white house
The green house’s owner drinks coffee
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
The man living in the center house drinks milk
The Norwegian lives in the first house
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
The man who keeps the horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill
The owner who smokes Bluesmasters drinks Beer
The German smokes Prince
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water

Einstein wrote this riddle this century(Not so sure!! It was part of the question u c :-)). He said 98% of the world could not solve it. It can be done! Be part of the 2% that COULD

For your info I am part of the 2% (Real proud u c....)

St. Thomas in Chennai ! A Myth or reality?

2004-12-12T09:09:00.000Z

All those who are from Chennai(a city in southern India) are pretty sure have known about St. Thomas.. Does not matter whether u r a christian or not.. St. Thomas mount, Santhome Church, Santhome Beach (St. Thomas should have become Santhome :-)). Yes you are right we all know mostly to that level, but do we know that St. Thomas is considered as one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus(remember last supper) and is called as Twin of Jesus. (May be because he looks like that.. or may be he is born to Mother Mary, not very clear in the sources I found).Check this here

He questioned Jesus on his resurection and said only when he is able to see him again he will believe in him.. But do you all know that his visit to India is still under lot of questions.. Even though widely accepted that he came to Malabar coast(Western Coust of india), to have reached as far as Chennai is still a question, as per this book. Hey guys, that book does have very outrageous views.. especially it states something on temples at Mylapore, which currently we can neither agree or disagree.. but for a view you can go through..

if you want to know more about St. Thomas in Chennai refer this article which was published in The Hindu some time ago..

Birmingham ka Biryani

2004-12-10T13:14:00.000Z

I am currently in Bescot (the so called "Outskirts" of Birmingham).. staying in the hotel.. For few days did try the food in the hotel for the dinner. My my its horrible.. dont want to name the hotel.. either too salty or none at all..

To my surprise there I found a indian(British indian) restaurent. I was wondering to see the menu. but the smell.. that was good enough to suggest that I have hit a jackpot. Oh well I saw the Indian menu there and of all the first and the best I got to see was Biryani and that too Chicken Tikka Biryani.. mm I could not resist myself..

I went on ordering and took it to the hotel.. (was even not sure whether I can take outside food to room.. never mind who cares.. biryani it is :-)) Once in my room.. opened it with a wack..Wow!! it was hot and spicy.. and with cucumber and tomato on top and along with the so called vegetable sauce and not to forget the mint sauce..

It got over in just minutes.. :-(( but still had a good taste of indian food.. after a long time indeed.

Its Friday.. & am fighting with WIN Api to print....

2004-12-10T11:29:00.000Z

Strange day, I am having a funny behaviour dont know who is the culprit.. Either Lotus Notes 4.6 / Lotus Script or Win NT or the crazy PRINT Spool API or may be ME :-).. But something is driving me crazyyy..

when I remove a single piece of DIM statment it the OpenPrinter of WINAPI does not respond.. I have never had such a problem with WIN API before.. but few things are unique this time.

I am not using my machine :-))(all my useful tools and settings) I dont have admin access to this machine.. Its NT nt nt nt.. and above all notes 4.6.. Ooops I am doing lot of what we call my native "Polambification".. Never mind it works.. let me get on with it..

Its My Way & may be U' r Way too..

2004-12-10T10:30:00.000Z

Guys,
Just thought why not share my experience of travelling around places, the good and bad, the better and worst, my likes and dislikes could be shared... May be the same could be your views and could here more from you all..

Put up your comments and arguements.. lets start from this day..

U'r U