Sunday, December 28, 2008

ICICI Defaulters


Rajiv and Mona are flying to Australia for a two-week vacation to celebrate their 40th anniversary.

Suddenly, over the public address system, the Captain announces, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I am afraid I have some very bad news. Our engines have ceased functioning and we will attempt an emergency landing. Luckily, I see an uncharted island below us and we should be able to land on the beach. However, the odds are that we may never be rescued and will have to live on the island for the rest of our lives!'

Thanks to the skill of the flight crew, the plane lands safely on the island.

An hour later Rajiv turns to his wife and asks, 'Mona, did we pay our Rs 5lakh deposit cheque yet to ICICI Bank?'

'No, sweetheart,' she responds.

Rajiv, still shaken from the crash landing, then asks, 'Mona, did we pay our ICICI Bank Master Card balance yet?'

'Oh no! I'm sorry. I forgot to send the cheque,' she says.

'One last thing, Mona. Did you remember to send cheques for the ICICI auto loan to them this month?' he asks.

'Oh, forgive me, Rajiv,' begged Mona. 'I didn't send that one, either.'


Rajiv grabs her and gives her the biggest hug in 40 years. Mona pulls away and asks him, 'So, why did you hug me?'

Rajiv answers, 'They'll find us!'

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Rule 49 O of the Election Rules


If you exercise the option of not voting anyone by Rule 49 O, it simply means, you have not voted for anyone. The end result is same as voting for multiple people, which is done by many people who do not want to vote anyone.

Press Note of Election Commission of India


ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA
Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi-110001
No.ECI/PN/35/2008 Dated: 5tth December, 2008

Subject: Rule 49 O of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961- exercise of option by the voters – Impact on the election result.

It has been brought to the notice of the Commission that various misleading reports are being circulated though the Press, the electronic media, emails and through SMS to the effect that if the number of voters who choose to exercise their option not to vote for any contesting candidate as provided in Rule 49-O of Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, exceeds the margin of votes secured by the winning candidate over the runner up, this will invalidate the election and a repoll will be held. It is clarified that under Rule 49-O, the voter has an potion not to vote at the election after he has been identified at the polling station and his name has been registered in Registers of voters (Form -17A). The Presiding Officer shall thereupon make a note to that effect against the name of that voter and obtain his signature (thumb impression in the case of an illiterate ). In such case, the voters who exercise the option of not voting at the election under Rule 49-O would only be deemed to have abstained themselves from voting and under the law, the candidate who secures highest number of valid votes polled, irrespective of his winning margin, is declared elected.

(S. K. RUDOLA)
SECRETARY

Source: http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/current/pn051208.pdf

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Two Beggars

Parvinder and Habib are beggars. They beg in different areas of London.

Habib begs just as long as Parvinder but only collects £2 to £3 every day.

Parvinder brings home a suitcase FULL of £10 notes, drives a Mercedes, lives in a mortgage-free house and has a lot of money to spend.

Habib says to Parvinder 'I work just as long and hard as you do but how do you bring home a suitcase full of £10 notes every day?'

Parvinder says, 'Look at your sign, what does it say'?

Habib's sign reads 'I have no work, a wife and 6 kids to support'.

Parvinder says 'No wonder you only get £2- £3.'

Habib says... 'So what does your sign say'?

Parvinder shows Habib his sign....

It reads, 'I only need another £10 to move back to Pakistan'.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Why Software Projects Are Failing?


Project Manager: We got one big project. The customer is asking to develop that project in the latest technology XYZ. XYZ is a cool new technology, by which we can develop the applications very easily.

Tech Lead: I agree that XYZ is a good and cool technology. But, none of our team members have enough experience in this technology. It will take significant time for us to learn the new technology, and doing the implementation. Instead, Let's suggest the customer that, we will develop the same application for the same cost in the same time, but, with the standard old technologies.

Project Manager: If you agree that XYZ is a good and cool technology, why do you want to develop in the old technologies? If it is a good technology, it should take less time than developing the old technology. Are you saying that, you cannot learn that new technology? Or your team cannot learn it? Should I put a new requirement that, only who pass the certification for XYZ technology will get a promotion or salary hike?

Tech Lead: We can learn that new technology. But, if we want to develop a production application, then we need to have good depth in it. It will not be easy to develop an application of production quality, unless one expert is there in the team, and guides the entire project.

Project Manager: Shall I ask Mr.AdvXYZ, who is an expert in XYZ to advise you on this?

Tech Lead: We will not get that much by the advise of Mr.AdvXYZ. If you can make him as the tech lead or the developer of this project, then we can do this very well. Advisory role will not be of that much help.

Project Manager: I never thought, you are this much dumb.

Tech Lead: ..........

Project Manager: We are going with this new technology. If you want to do this, you can do it. Otherwise, you always have options. (to leave the company)

Tech Lead: I will do this project.

At the end of the project

The project takes double the time and cost.
Customer is unsatisfied with the project.
The Tech Lead becomes master of yet another technology.
The Project Manager is happy that, he has a team which has experience in the new technology.

After few days

In some other team, exactly the same discussion takes place. The only difference is, the Project Manager of that team refers to the above Tech Lead instead of Mr.AdvXYZ.

After a year or two

In the old team, the Project Manager changes, and the same story repeats. The only difference is, instead of the standard old technology XYZ, this new Project Manager wants to use good and new Technology ABC.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Ramoji Rao and Suman


For the last few days, there is very good debate in few TV channels and news papers about Ramoji Rao and Suman. Those who read only Eenadu, and watch ETV/ETV-2 (Companies of Ramoji Rao) will not know about this.

ETV is a telugu channel started by Ramoji Rao in 1995. Almost since the beginning, his second son Suman has been the Managing Director of ETV. For the last few years, he has been in multiple roles in ETV, and telecasting many serials. Few months back, suddenly almost all the serials of Suman were stopped in ETV. Few days back, Suman gave an interview with Sakshi (News paper of Y.S.Jagan, S/O Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy), a rival of Eenadu. Suman explained the reasons for separation from ETV and Ramoji Rao. He says, Ramoji Rao never gave any respect to him, and he never praised for any of his programs. When the program is in the middle, Ramoji Rao used to ask him to stop the program immediately. He was forced to move out of ETV, and Ramoji Rao was thinking like he can buy Art with money. He gave many reasons, and the entire interview can be read from yvsr2007 blog.

After reading the entire interview, I could not get any opinion as such. Ramoji Rao is one great entrepreneur, whom I have known since my childhood. He has so many companies. His companies are Eenadu, Margadarsi, Priya Foods, Dolphin Group of Hotels, Usha Kiran Movies, Usha Kiran Television, Kalanjali, Mayuri Film Distributors, Ramoji Film City, and 12 Television channels. Except Television channels, all are owned by his family. Even in Television channels also, he got partnership from outside recently only. After Tata Group, I think he is the biggest entrepreneur who has not gone public, even after making the companies very big and got very good reputation.

Because of his good reputation, I could not get any opinion from Suman's interview. Then I read the comments from others in GreatAndhra. After reading those, all my doubts got cleared.

Few comments in GreatAndhra about this. (All these are facts.)

For those who remember ETV programs in the last few years, it is very clear that, ETV has only serials. The serials are so bad that, people literally started hating Suman. There were many communities for hating Suman. There were no programs which one can watch in their free time. If you want to watch, you can watch only serials at prime time. Movies are telecasted only at odd times. There used to be good programs like Srimad Bhagavatham directed by Bapu. After some time, he took over all those programs and started directing them. He started acting in all the main roles. Soon, he started doing everything, including acting, directing, writing scripts/songs, singing, music directing, and anything one can think of. ETV literally became Suman's toy. Because of all those, TRP went down for ETV, and it started losing many viewers. Suman literally destroyed the reputation of ETV.

Eventhough ETV was completely owned by Ramoji Rao's family till some time back. Ramoji Rao has more than enough money, and he does not need more. But, still, thousands of employees depended on his companies. If ETV is closed, thousands of employees lose their jobs. When Ramoji Rao is in the role of Chairman, he always takes care of the company, and it's employees. He wants to do everything in the best interests of his companies. That's why, he asked Suman to leave, and he stopped all his serials.

If you are not convinced with this, I would advise to watch the serials of Suman for few days, and then come to an opinion on this.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Quality Certificate

A Quality Analysis Engineer marries an average girl.

After 24 months of tough life with her, finally the Engineer got angry and sent a note to his father-in-law stating that:

'YOUR PRODUCT IS NOT MEETING MY REQUIREMENTS'

The smart father-in-law replies,

'WARRANTY EXPIRED,

MANUFACTURER NOT RESPONSIBLE'

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Have your ever typed rm -rf * by mistake?


Have your typed rm -rf * in Unix/Linux by mistake? What did you do after typing it? I used to get suggestions like use alias rm='rm -i' which asks for confirmation after every rm command. But, for those who use rm command very frequently, it is very inconvenient to type y after every rm command. Even if we do that, for advanced users, after some time, even that will not serve the purpose. Because, for advanced users rm -rf * <CR> y is an atomic operation. i.e., After typing y for many rm commands, they would automatically type y for all rm commands. So, using alias rm='rm -i' is of no use.

I realized all these after typing rm -r * by mistake. After realizing, I created an executable file rm with contents mv $* /tmp, and put the file in a directory, which is in the path before /bin. Now, whenever I type rm something, it moves that file/directory to /tmp. The files would be automatically deleted after restarting the machine. Before restarting the machine, if I want to get back the files, I can get it. There are problems like, if I want to delete files with the same name, then it will fail. If the machine is not restarted regularly, then there will be too many files in /tmp. But, these are not big issues for me.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Banner In Mumbai




People hold a banner at a gathering of hundreds of people who chanted pro-India slogans and lit candles in memory of people killed in the recent terror attacks outside the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Where is Raj Thackeray?


Dear Mr. Raj Thackeray,

Where are you sir? We have been trying to reach you for the past 2 days ever since Mumbai has been attacked. I think it is the mobile network or your cable connection that must not be working. We miss you sir? We know how you love Mumbai and its people especially the Marathi Manoos.You must be collecting your brave Sena to come and help us. Like all the brave Marathi people who laid down their lives fighting this terror. I am sure you must be mourning the loss of brave Marathi policemen like Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte and various others, who risked their lives, so that you and I can sleep peacefully in this city.

Also sir, let me tell you the 200 Commandos, that have been sent in the last 2 days to fight terrorists are not Maharashtrians. They could not find a unit which had 80% reservation for Maharashtrians. Actually, they are a mix of people from all over India i.e.north, south, east and west. Infact one of them has lost his life fighting the terrorists. And he was a south Indian, I think.

I think the admirable courage that you and your Sena showed in fighting the poor immigrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will hopefully stand in good stead if and when you decide to fight these terrorists. Also I found many people from different communities coming together in JJ Hospital and GT Hospital to donate blood for the victims of this attack. And funnily they never asked if the blood is for Marathi Manoos or for everyone. I did not see anyone from your Sena though. Maybe they are busy somewhere else with more important work.

Sir you please take care as we need brave leaders like you to lead Maharashtra, as we enter this new age of terror.



Got as a forward

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Bomb blast dates in 2008

May 13 -------------- JAIPUR
June ----------------------
July 26 ------------- AHMEDABAD
August --------------------
September 13 ------ DELHI
October -------------------
November 26 ------ MUMBAI
December ------------------
January 13 --------- What Next?



Sent by Sobhana Rani Maharana

Quote Of The Day

Do not worry about those who have come thru boats...
Our forces can easily defeat them....

WORRY about those who have come thru votes....
Those are our REAL ENEMIES….

Monday, December 01, 2008

Showing full size image in blogger


When an image is added in blogger, if the size of the image is more than 400 pixels in width or height, it would be scaled down to 400 pixels. We can increase the size of the image by changing the URL.

When the image is added, it would look some thing like below



<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEBeG21-hOgAGK8-gBQ-g33Sc5lLS_-8HKXBUrAw1picXjaePC7B9glQQ_Cg3t4UMVDwnoOzcAEUyNHqFa3T6eyVz1uY2AkwnnlpWV4I6ygfiw9Qnr1BBsFXNfOZvovh5taSulg/s1600-h/krishna.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEBeG21-hOgAGK8-gBQ-g33Sc5lLS_-8HKXBUrAw1picXjaePC7B9glQQ_Cg3t4UMVDwnoOzcAEUyNHqFa3T6eyVz1uY2AkwnnlpWV4I6ygfiw9Qnr1BBsFXNfOZvovh5taSulg/s400/krishna.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274131737179731186" /></a>


To increase the size of the image, remove the first red part (width and height) in the above, and change the second part from s400 to s800 or s1600. I faced no problems with s800, but with s1600, there were few problems. Sometimes, the image do not get displayed with s1600. So, use s800.