Set ready to fight

Hero of the great tamil novel Ponniyin Selvan, dauntless Vanthiyathevan.

Set ready to fight

fly on the air

SMS game app on txtWeb

I've created a SMS based game named FLAMES on txtWeb platform. txtWeb is an innovative product which brings the internet on SMS. For all the feature phones or the other kind of phones which doesn't have internet connection can still use this txtWeb to browse most of the commonly used sites.
Click here to know more about the txtWeb.

FLAMES is an age old game which is used to indentify the relationship between a boy and a girl. It is a simple app, which when sent an SMS with the names it would identify the kind of relationship that exists between these two.
Click here to know more about FLAMES.

The game is a web based app developed with Java Servlet and JSP and hosted in Google App Engine (a cloud hosting of Google)

E-filing ITR1

I e-filed my ITR1 (SAHAJ) this assessment year (2011-2012) for the first time. It is totally an easy way to go about. All these years I payed to the intermediators to file returns on my behalf and now I feel bad that I spent unnecessarily for an activity I could do for free by myself.

All these years I stood away from e-filing because I get afraid-of by just looking at the Excel utility assuming that it would be more complicated for me to understand. This year I dared to look into the details and found it very easy. I think the utilities' look-and-feel should be improved as it scares us :-)

Listed below are the references which helped me to file online for free:
https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in (Need to have a login)
http://incometaxindia.gov.in
https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/downloads08-09/ITR_Guides_2008_09/ITR1_V1.1_User_Guide_2008_09.pdf (Excel step by step guide, it is old one, however there are no much changes)
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080706054659AAiwLv9
http://incometaxindia.gov.in/ao/firstlevel.asp (To find the Assessing Officer)

Consistency over heroism

I’m sure everyone would remember their full-night studies in college for the exams next day. Whats more more surprising is to see the results come out with flying colors by clearing the papers and even getting good scores. This would make us feel heroic on achieving a target with ease, while many others slog for the entire semester.

It makes us to wonder if the same technique could ever be possibly applied to our professional work too!!! Like, one full-night development a day before the deadline and bang, the application is released. A question that riddles me is that whether the application released like this is worth a release? Whats that make the exams and releases different? What is that evaluated in exams and that in applications?

Application does have different factors to be considered for evaluation. These factors are generally not unique for two different applications. This is because the desire differs from one customer to the other. What is considered obvious by one customer might not be even consider as a feature by the other. Of these many factors I see one factor common across all kinds of projects/service, yet very important one, the Communication Factor. Communication, I refer here is not a bullet-point in the feature list of the project; it is the one which directs the project.

Say a customer thinks a feature is as easier as graining a stone, however the actuals might be as hard as graining a mountain. If proper communication is established and by the deadline if the team has grained just 50% of the mountain would still keep the customer satisfied rather than with no proper communication and slogging many nights managing to grain 95% of the mountain would still dissatisfy the customer.

Being said that, would the heroic way of working would possibly ever satisfy a customer? Heroic way would give many last-minute surprises to the customers and it would definitly let them down. To satisfy, it is required to be consistent. Consistent in communication, consistent in delivery and consistent in everything for the entire project life cycle. This directly sets an example of a famous saying, "Results matters, efforts doesn't". We should learn to be smart enough to achieve results with less efforts.

P.S: All numbers mentioned here are to help understand and doesn't reflect actuals.

Cloud collection

One of the hottest trend in software industry is the Cloud Computing. When everyone is chasing it, I diverted the path to the real cloud and got to capture how the real cloud look like. Here is the collection of few snaps.

Boiler plate

I used to wonder how the term boiler-plate penetrated into software industries. Wikipedia explains it as the part of the code duplicated multiple times within the project. Well, what I perceive is bit different; It is not called as boiler-plate because the code is duplicated, however it might be the mental state of the programmer as if sitting over the boiler-plate  and fixing issues on this duplicated code.

The whole new cricket experience

The real thrill lies in watching India vs Pakistan cricket match on the grounds. That too a World Cup peak to its heights. 

We had nothing less than that in our TechPark with a fantabulous viewing experience. 16-feet screen, huge crowd and energetic screams. We were so excited yesterday. Thanks to EGL for this extraordinary show.

 

Wishing all the best to team INDIA for the finals, and take home the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.