The “Wow” starts now !

Finally, it’s here. Windows Vista has been released worldwide to the general public; It will start appearing in retail stores from today onwards.

For me, I am just counting the days when I will get a chance to really work on it. Unfortunately, my current Laptop won’t be supporting Windows Vista and I’ve no plan to buy new one for quite sometime. So Just wait and watch for now.

Thou, I am really impressed with GUI after seeing the screen shots of borderless windows and love that Segoe UI font.

Overpaid for Something ?

Sometime having a Real Cash is all that matters.

Today, I had cup of soup from the office cafeteria which was priced at $1.50 but as I was running out of cash and due to no credit card below $20 policy; I had to use another banks ATM to withdraw the real cash which charged me $1.95 as ATM fee. Now that’s what I call overpaying for something.

Thou being a smart guy I do keep some reserved cash in my wallet for such kind of emergency, but that too get spent after certain period; forcing you in a such situation where are just helpless.

Bangalore's New Tigers

It would be interesting to see how this graphs turns out in next 5 yrs or so. Will it look like a Skyscraper as it looks now or it will be different picture all together ?


This is graph of top 3 Indian IT companies recently know as Bangalore Tigers. I believe after certain point, It makes sense to split the company due to No of employees and area of expertise.

Snapple Real Fact #243

I got this real fact #243 on the cap of Snapple bottle which says:

"If you put all the streets in New York City in straight line, they would stretch to Japan"

If that’s true, then I might have completed half of the distance during my all years walking in NYC.

Following Best Practices

Most of the time, I do follow the "Best Practices" while coding and designing in the Oracle Database. But sometime you need to work on someone else’s design that’s when you find it very difficult to change.

Here is a situation, Someone has created table in the past without proper Constraint names and due to this Oracle has created constraints with system names for ex. SYS_XXXX.

Now the requirement is to modify the Constraint to include another column as part of Primary Key. The Problem is, As constraint name is different in all database environments i.e. DEV, INT, UAT and PROD. You can not execute same release Sql script in all environments.
For. Ex.
ALTER TABLE EMP DROP CONSTRAINT SYS_CXXXXXXXX;

This command can’t not be executed in all environments as every environment might have different constraint name. As matter of fact, accidentally It might delete another useful constraint.

Thankfully, This time I found alternate solution as It was Primary Key, So I could use following command Instead of using constraint name.

ALTER TABLE EMP DROP PRIMARY KEY;

That’s why The "Best Practices" are so Important in real life.

Taking an Interview

It feels different seating on the other side of table, while taking an Interview.
I’ve quite handful experience in attending ones. But this is the first time; I got an opportunity to interview few candidates for the openings in our project.

Speaking of truth, You need same kind of preparation while taking interview otherwise you soon run out of questions. To understand the candidate’s depth of knowledge you need to ask various questions followed by sub-questions.

Average/below average candidate can answer the question easily but good candidate is the one who can also answer sub-questions confidently. This certainly explains the difference between theoretical and practical experience.

Confident is also another important factor which Interviewer looks when he expects answer. Never say “I think or I guess” while answering, which questions your ability to perform.

Overall, 'Taking an Interview' experience has definitely helped me in preparing myself for the future Interviews.

Another season of 24 on FOX

Another year, Another season of "24" on the FOX. This will be the sixth season of “24” and claims to be the most compelling one. What I like watching about "24" is when one screen gets divided into 4 parts showing different events all together covering all the happening in parallel. Just to make you excited about Next episode.

iPhone

Its been over 3 yrs now that I bought my first iPod for $299; These days I rarely use it. Being an early adopter of iPod, I had invested more $$$ for less features in those early days.

Today comes the iPhone from apple, which has been marketed for $499. It combines Mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and so called Internet communications device with web browser.

This time I want to resist myself from spending the fortune for the iPhone before it gets cheaper.

Lucky Bamboo Plant

Its been long time that we wanted to have some houseplants in our apt to make it more lively and decorative. The first preference was Money Plant, but as we couldn't find exact one, we picked up this Lucky Bamboo plant from local grocery store as alternate option.

Lucky Bamboo plant has been recommended by Feng Shui masters and It is believed to bring good fortune and prosperity. At the present, Its has certainly made a difference in our living room corner for sure.

Tasting White Wine

After tasting red wine for quite sometime today I got opportunity to taste a white wine and this time I did feel the real difference between them. It was the Italian sparkling wine "Prosecco Villa Jolanda" . As they say White wines are usually a good place for beginners to start because they are initially more palatable to novices since they often tend to be sweeter.

The main difference between red and white wine is that grape juice used to make red wine contains skins, seeds, and stems. As a general rule of thumb, red wines are heavier and more complex than white wines