Video Games

A sort of pre-requisite for being in the technology world is that one should be addicted to video games. I just don't get it though. Why would one want to spend tons of time (urm and money) jumping over hurdles, killing alien bosses just to save the Princess...I think its fun playing Wario Moves on the Wii, but playing Final Fantasy for 75 hours sounds crazy!

Let me try and list my issues with playing video games.
1. Time : I tried playing Zelda. I did put in a few hours. After that, I just got irritated. Sure I am not the most patient person in the world, but why "waste" all this time to learn a few jumps, how to swing your sword and how to correctly press A and B together to shoot.

• I do understand that at least the gamer is using his brain and is not ideally sitting around and watching TV. But, if I want to use my brain, I will go work either on my own projects or on my day-job project. Either of them will be beneficial and no one can argue the useful-ness of using your time to "work".
• Of course the gamer could just be playing a game because he's taking a break and wants to get away from work. Fair enough: so why would you want to get deeply involved in something that will take 50 hours to finish! How is that a 30-minute break? Like I have seen, its really never 20-30 minutes, its about reaching the Save Point and then getting addicted to finishing the damn boss!

2. Money: I am sure people are aware that even if its not a ton ( and yeah right coz the XBox is sooo cheap) of money, you do spend $$ on various different gaming consoles and the games itself.
After Halo1, I want to see how they did Halo2, and oooo Halo3 is out....I played Zelda5 years ago and now they are releasing it for the Wii, I have got to buy it!
Common, you guys have heard this before. I rather spend money on cool sci-fi books or music( maybe ) or something cool!

3. Addiction: People spend hours upon hours just playing and playing and playing! They want to get to the next level, and specially for MMPOG, people get crazily addicted to it. Being this addicted to anything can't be healthy!

Ahh maybe its just me and my short attention span, but hey, we are talking about developers and software engineers too who are probably really impatient, and yet spend hours on their gaming console. Sometimes, I do like playing with my friends and having fun with the graphics and the remotes and the controllers. But, I wish I could get really excited about standing in line for hours for the next big game. I would love to use the Wii remote as a LightSabre just for the ooo factor, and that would last for exactly 20 minutes!

I Hate Documentation

According to dictionary.com, Documentation is defined as : Computers. manuals, listings, diagrams, and other hard- or soft-copy written and graphic materials that describe the use, operation, maintenance, or design of software or hardware. Alas, If only this was the true "definition" of documentation.......

In my company, I inherited a project - lets call it FBB for FooBarBaz. My work is fun ( yes even at a megacorp, work can be fun!). It gets tedious and boring and interesting and I spend long hours @ work, but I am not complaining about that ( at least right now)! What I would like to talk about is documentation on FBB. Documents are required for maintenance of a project, right. So when I come on board, and am expected to 1. start developing 2. fix bugs 3. and support the Support Team AND there is just no docs to make my life simple, I get frustrated. I volunteer to start documentation in order to help me, the next person, the system administrator, and the Support Team. Wonderful: I know exactly what another Software Developer wants to see in a document, and since I am so smart, this shouldn't be a problem. Right?

Nope.....In order for me to write up a document which is actually useful, I have to speak to the people who were involved in FBB since day 1. -> Problems!! Either they are busy, or in another country, or simply not available. So a Software Engineer with very less background in FBB and the system gets stuck with writing all sorts of document, only 'coz she wanted to make life easy!

This is not just one "How does FBB work" document, There are Operations documents ( futile for me to write them up on so many levels ), Delivery Stuff, blah blah blah. I waste my time in doing "work" that really should be done by someone else. And of course, this is a ASAP requirement, BUT I need to focus on content as well as the darn formatting.

Don't get me wrong - I think we need documents in order to plan, develop and maintain a system. But the problem here is that either we don't have enough docs or we have way tooooo many with so much redundant information, that people just get turned off by documents and documentation. Vicious circle...

log4j

It's not like I am new to this logging API. I am familiar with Appenders, Loggers, Layouts. I have used in a basic manner so when there is a need to dynamically ( on-the-fly) change logging settings.
The logging level is the easiest property to change. I am messing around with how to change the retention period ( maxBackupIndex ) and the MaxFileSize. I don't think it should be that hard - get an instance of the Appender using the logger. OR change the DOM tree - ewow, I don't wanna do that. If I had an external file, I could use ConfigureAndWatch, but I really want this to happen via a GUI Button.
Ideas, anyone?

Lotus Notes

One of my concerns at work is that I have to use Windoze on my development laptop. Of course, since my corporate laptop has MS stuff pre-installed and I don't have admin rights, dual booting into Linux is hardly an option. My thoughts of getting away from the MS environment was to bring in my personal laptop from home ( runs SuSe ). Since I work with Java, Eclipse, SQL and these are all readily available for Linux, it would solve my irritation. The only reason I would hang onto the corporate laptop is coz it runs Lotus Notes ( useful for emails, meeting notifications, calendar, travel request, etc.....) which was very legacy, closed source and only available for Windows.

But check this out: Free Lotus Notes !!! . Hopefully I can play around with my personal laptop and get Notes installed on it. I am excited! I have been waiting to develop on my *nix environment.

SITA it is

After a few weeks of interviewing, I chose to join SITA . I started last Wednesday and been busy getting introduced to lots of people. My team is really cool and I work with very smart people. I know I am gonna learn a ton from this group of engineers.
So the interview process started out with me being pretty nervous. This was the first time that I was officially interviewing with employers. I mean I know my stuff, but I don't really know how to sell my skills and sounding smart all the time :) But man, this was such fun. I didn't dread it one bit ( except for the driving ) after I started meeting the people, and seeing how exciting it is to talk about different technologies in different settings solving different problems. I got in touch with lots of cool companies, cool smart dudes who gave me a chance to present myself even though my "number of years of work experience" was less than theirs. I am glad that I gave myself plenty of time to look for a job that suits me.
At SITA, 4-5 people interviewed, all the way from my team members to the resident Java Guru to the Director of Software Products. I really like how in a megacorp, I am a somebody. Coming from Choices where I had the power of God to do anything, I wanted a job which gave me good amount of responsibility but also protected me from all the political BS. I also wanted to be in a place where I meant something, and where my views/opinions/thoughts matter. At SITA, I really feel that even the higher ups ( HCE : Highly Compensated Employee ) care about the developers and we aren't just code monkeys. I like that about SITA which is a mega corp but not really!
I am excited about working here ( other than traveling to the office ) and I hope this place keeps me motivated.

Time to move on

So I am looking for a new job. I have been in my current job (Choices Quilts) for around 3 years now, and I think I just need to move on to something else now. My feelings are along the lines of "I wanna do computer science full time" and not just as a hobby.
Don't get me wrong, my time here has been pretty great. I got to travel and represent my company at trade shows, interact with our customers and deal with our Indian business partner. At a small family business, one gets to wear many hats. My responsibilities have ranged from CTO ( hey I get to call myself what I want! ) to Marketing & Sales Manager to Quilt Designer! I definitely have learnt how a small business operates, the problems it faces, and that exponential success is sometimes a bad thing.
What I am looking for now is to be part of a team where I get to use cool new technology, and by helping the company grow, I get to step up the corporate ladder! What I really miss here is the team aspect I think, where by interacting and hanging out with geeky colleagues, you get to learn so much. Hrm, this is sounding like a cover letter now! " I would love to be part of your company, because what I will bring is going to be so unique!!"
I wonder how different it will be working in the big bad world. I joined Choices right after school, so this has been my only work experience. Here, we work real hard, we work harder if there is stuff to be done, we try and please our customers all the time, and of course, all of us share the profits. The incentive and motivation to work hard at your own business is different. Or is it? People have often told me that you work harder when you know the money is directly going into your pockets. Hence, family businesses get a lot of work done by their employees i.e. the family members. But how is this really different from working "outside": you work hard - you get rewarded, you put in more hours - you see a bonus, you deliver on schedule - you get a raise. Sure the profits might be different in terms of $$, but hard work pays everywhere and if you are smart, then people (should) recognize that.
Wish me luck!

Wordpress

Life got a little busy, hence, I wasn't really blogging. But here I am, still alive and kicking. I just finished upgrading my husband's Wordpress blog to 2.1.2. The older version 2.1.1 is pretty insecure, so hey, if there's anyone out there who hasn't upgraded yet, hurry up! The instructions sounded way too complicated, since basically you are supposed to remember every change you made to the wordpress files because you are going to be over-writing the directory with the new upgraded files. It's not too bad, since wp-config.php and the plugins and themes directory are really the only files/dirs that you would have modified. It's just a matter of backing that up, and replacing *all* other files with the upgraded version.

Nowadays, my project is to play around and customize Wordpress for our site. Codex has been my best friend in understanding how Wordpress does its magic. Sort of like Ruby on Rails, Wordpress presents you with a neat directory structure, organizing files the way they see fit! It comes with some default themes, and of course the Hello Dolly plugin! But just like ROR, Wordpress is very customizable, and you can find thousands of plugins to take care of your needs. I've also taken a shot at writing in php, and it's kinda fun!

My current quest is to find a plugin (or write one? ) that helps me put a thumbnail of an image (in a post) that replaces the "more" tag, so that when you click on it, you are taken to your post. There were a couple plugins out there that I tried out, but they aren't exactly what I want. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

ATLRUG

In an effort to network with computer people (like myself), I went to another of these computer meetings on Saturday. Every month, ATLRUG meets up for a programming session lasting around 5-6 hours. This event is planned out a little differently from the ones I have been to till now. Typically, all the members are divided into groups and work on a programming task/topic and produce actual working code. You either work on 1 main topic, or a bunch of topics. Everyone works in only Ruby, btw. Sometimes (or so I have heard) there are presentations too. Sounds cool! Yesterday, it wasn't just Ruby, it was ( oh yeah you guessed it ) Ruby On Rails! Everywhere I go, someone is talking about RoR. We were all "assigned" to work on a wiki web application.
Designing and programming in a group environment is so different from a solo project. Pros and cons for both styles of development. One of the definite advantages of working in a (small) group is combining everyone's ideas and effort into one big result. I was introduced to this style of programming @ Emory in one of my grad classes. I know I felt relieved that I wouldn't have to program all of it myself, but hey it's one way of learning something new!
On a side note, Atlanta is a small world: I ran into an ALE guy at this meeting, who is also a regular at the Python and Perl meetings! I just may check those out!

ATL Hack

Every Tuesday night, a group of geeks meet in a coffee shop near Tech. This week I went to check it out. It was raining and quite dreary outside, so it was a good night to drink coffee and code along with a bunch of cool tech people. ATL Hack is basically a community around "computer people, poet hackers of the cyber frontier". This week Rails was the hot topic, and I am all for programming on my RoR project. ( It is mostly done, but you can always tinker with it! ) This is a nice opportunity to program on your side projects, get feedback by talking to smart people and just hanging out with people with common interest. My husband( Tejus ) and I spent around 3-4 hours there, and we are probably going back.

Project #2: Hibernate

3 years ago, Tejus and I wrote a product, vendor, customer management tool for Choices. Our software works great, and it is certainly a big improvement over their legacy PowerBuilder dbms. We were a little wet behind the ears and we didn't really use a ORM tool, so we basically re-wrote all the ORM mapping tools. While we were programming, I did wonder why there wasn't a more efficient tool to use, but hey you don' always voice out your grievances. Anyway, my next mission is to move over to a Hibernate-based application.
My inspriation came from using Rails, and how effortless it is to do the CRUD operations. ( Of course Rails and scaffolding makes it almost too simple to retrieve/update data! ) The mapping tools are promising and I am looking forward to seeing what Hibernate can offer me.
Wish me luck!

Project #1: Work on the Retail Website

In my last post, I talked about working on my company's website. I am excited to say that I am done and the site looks awesome. Now only if I can get it online on the world wide web ( I am waiting for upper management to give me the go .)

SoCon07

Just got back from a social networking event in Atlanta, GA. It was very interesting to have discussions on topics ranging from Web 2.0, start-ups, venture capitalists, to cool new innovative technologies. It takes a considerable effort to get people (software and non-software based) to meet up and socialise in a conference - non-conference way (which btw was a pretty neat idea). A shout out to the SoCon team!

One discussion topic stuck with me: Entrepreneur 2.0, moderated by Jeff Haynie since my husband and I are planning to start our own company in the very near future. We talked about the different stages of a start up, what makes it successful and financing the whole deal. I heard (horror?) stories about how 12 years ago, if you wanted to start your own company, you were pretty much on your own. We are lucky to live in this time and age where there is a support system for start-ups: communities of already-made-it businessmen, venture capitalists who are willing to help out. There is talk about a Start-Up conference too ( in summer? ), organized by a few of the same guys involved in SoCon07. Should be fun to attend.

Blogging

Why is it so hard for me to blog? Its not like I don't have stuff to talk about, thoughts to share or views on the latest fad in technology. I think my concern is that I feel that I have to be extra careful about the topics I write about. Who knows who all are reading it! If I blog about the things close to my heart ( ie. family/work/money problems), then (potentially) the entire world is aware of these issues and I don't want that. You can obviously have a personal and private blog, but hey if you want your presence felt on the internet, your blogs will be linked back to you. Maybe I just need time to choose safe topics, and since there are a billion blogs out there, I'll get better at steering clear from the "emotional" posts.

Working with Rails and AJAX

My company website really needs a face lift. It has been 4 years and it is now my responsibility to get it up and working well with the Web 2.0 technologies. I am working with Ruby on Rails, CSS and a little AJAX thrown in to redesign our website, while also adding in the "shopping-online" feature. Rails is wonderful to work with. Just like so many others, I am also jumping on the Rails bandwagon, and I understand why: its so easy to just code and not worry about minor details. The website is looking good already, and the html is easily decipherable. Will keep you updated on the progress....

And the Colts Win!

I am a couple of days late in posting this but hey whatever The Colts won and thats that! I am really happy for Peyton that he finally won his ring. That guy deserves it. Their defense played well which was surprising looking at their previous performances. It truly amazes me that the Bears made it so far with Rex as their QB. Rex is quite awful, with his interceptions, slipping, and just plain bad passes. Peyton also had one interception but at least he rose up to the challenge of playing like a Superbowl QB. He made good play calls, completed his passes and scored touchdowns! The Bears defense was hardly that inspiring. They made one sack in the entire game, and really seeing how Peyton is Peyton, they should have blitzed him more. Urlacher tackled a few people, but nothing that stood out.
Ahh well I am delighted and my husband is miserable!

Hi there

So finally my blog is up! After reading through all my friend's blogs, I guess its time for me to dish out my opinions/views and thoughts on stuff that matters.
What better way to start a blog by congratulating myself: My Masters thesis "Normalizing XML schemas through relational databases " finally got published in the ACM journal. It was presented and published by my thesis advisor and professor Dr. James Lu. This is not technically news since the journal was published in 2005, but I just got to know about this! Its nice to know that there are research students out there who refer to my work!