What a day...

What a day! Today our 5^th semester started off. We are having our class from 7.30 am to 1 pm and for the best we had two hours of Java lab which we some how killed by shit-chat! The class was good part of the day. Actually my friend and I had planned to go out to town in evening... And we did...

Returning back to campus by 5.30, we headed straight to PAT (Placement And Training) centre to get updates of our friends who where appearing HCL Ltd’s interview... and to our surprise we got the news that results are out…! While moving to nearby computing centre my mind ran through the seq of writing exams and did a analysis of what I might get… and I got 8.76 GPA..

Here are my CGPAs for all the four semesters!

Semester	CGPA
I	8.78
II	8.86
III	8.93
IV	8.83

What Mustang offers...

Sun has released J2SE version 6 Beta 2. It’s code named Mustang. The sun web site states 10 things programmers need to know about Mustang.. Here they are:

1. Web Services : Developers are given good support for writing XML web service client applications. Mustang has new XML parser and XML to Java object-mapping APIs.

2. Scripting: Developers can now mix JavaScript technology with Java technology.

3. Database: Developers will have the JDBC 4.0 to work with! It will also co-bundle the All-Java JDBC database, Java DB.

4. Desktop APIs: Swing gets more features!

5. Monitoring and Management: Mustang has more diagnostic information and co-bundles Jhat tool.

6. Compiler Access: Now developers have access to the compiler API so that they can access javac for in-process compilation to generate dynamic java code.!

7. Pluggable Annotations : Developrs can now define their own annotations!

8. Desktop deployment : some of the features added are new looks and feel, LCD text rendering, and snappier GUI performance.

9. Security : Its one of the core feature that Java has really looked into. This time it is releasing better security features in Digital signatures, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and cryptography.

10. The -ilities: Quality, Compatibility, Stability : All the ilities followed to ensure that Java is the best programming platform!!!

Hand of God goal

June 22 of 1986, Maradona scored Hand of God goal against England during the quarter-final match of the FIFA world cup in Mexico. In the same match his second goal is named Goal of the century. Maradona used his left hand to score the goal and Argentines won 2-1, and the legacy of this event perhaps best symbolizes the rivalry between the two football teams.


After the match Maradona said "a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God" which is one of the most famous quotes in sport!

Maradona's site : http://www.diegomaradona.com/ingles/iindex.html

June 21: Summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere

Today is summer solstice! It is the day of the year with the longest daylight period and hence the shortest night. This day usually occurs on June 21/June 22 in the northern hemisphere and on December 21/December 22 in the southern hemisphere. This year it has fallen on june 21.
At the time of summer solstice, the earth's is in such a position that one hemisphere is most tilted towards the sun, causing the sun to appear at 23.45 degrees above the celestial equator, thus making its highest path across the sky.

During the summer solstice in nothern hemisphere the sun appears to be directly overhead at midday along an imaginary line on the Northern Hemisphere at latitude 23.45 degree north known as the Tropic of Cancer.Similarly during the summer solstice in southern hemisphere the sun appears to be directly overhead at midday along the imaginary line Tropic of Capricorn.

Thought for programmers

If your program isn’t worth documenting, it probably isn’t worth running. -[Nagler, 1995]

A great step down

16th of this month, Bill Gates announced that he will step down from his day-to-day role at Microsoft Corp. in July 2008. Yes! It’s shocking news both good and bad. Ray Ozzie will immediately assume Gates's job of chief software architect and Craig Mundie will become chief research and strategy officer.

The public reason for Gates to step down is to spend more time at the Gates Foundation. The big question is : “ Will Microsoft be able to handle its rivals without the GREAT man?”. Company’s like Google Inc is way ahead of Microsoft in many grounds. What about the new Windows? The next version of windows named “Vista” is yet to be released. Important point is it has been delayed several time. Will Microsoft survive without the great architect? We shall see…

Placement Statistics

Here is the placement statistics so far at Vellore Institute of Technology. Our placement season for 2007 batch students started on 12th june with TCS being the first company.

TCS : 525
CTS : 232
Infosys : 108

It took TCS three days to complete (12,13 and 14). CTS and Infosys completed in one day itself. To finish it in one day.. CTS and Infi conducted small interviews... So those who where smart to show their communication skills got through.
The next company in line is Wipro and the IBM. We have to wait and see how many they pick!

Relax Relax Relax!

My new policy… Relax! After being placed I have learned to relax. A better word will be “Sleep”. Guess the number of hours I am sleeping. The “No classes” day puts me into a very simple schedule mainly sitting on comp or sleep.. So I am either on net or sleeping! So… My time is slow and steady…

I see others preparing for their interviews or roaming around with question papers!
My next activity is to teach them some things.. I have a class on Linux tonight! And after that I will be back on net.

The Infi people (Infosys) are here to recruit and I will give the statistics at night once the results are published. Till then its happy hunting ghosts on net!

Canara bank's great service

I am tired of the service provided by Canara Bank!! They don't have any commitment nor any customer satisfaction program. What I am talking about is their ATM service through out the country. It’s simply the worst.
Canara bank’s great services are:
1. Non functioning ATM (Sorry ATM is closed. Please try later).
2. No security at ATM.
3. Unclean ATM box.

What customers will mostly worry about is the first one. Look what I got when I visited Vellore ATM today (photo).

The manager of Vellore main branch is too cool. He will say it’s not his problem and he doesn’t know about it and other silly things. Anybody will wonder who put him there! And the time I have to wait?? 2 to 3 hours. This has happened not once or twice, but many times. One day the ATM machine goes out 2 or 3 time that too at peek time like 10.00 am to 1.00 pm and 3.30pm to 6.00pm. I am wondering how they and go about with their punch line “serving to grow, growing to serve”.

Final Day

Morning turned out to be fast and horrible, but i did manage reach F block in time for the HR...
But for some funny reason... my HR turned out to be technical.. the panel asked me about the projects... made me explain the projects in detail... had to go into it and explain.. I ended up writing small codes too.. but it was over in 30 min!

The afternoon went slowly as i thought of the results... i couldn't sleep. The results where to be anounced at 7.30 and the event was delayed by 1 hour or so... finally the time arrived.. our placement dean along with the placement coordinators came to anounce the result...

And.... yes... My name was called...
I AM PLACED IN TCS !!!!!!

Technical Interview

Night was long... no questions about it... I managed to wake up at 6.00 and do some study. Started with Java,networking,OS then Software engineering and back to networking. Initially my interview slot was at 5.30pm.. so i was going at slow pace... around 11.00am things changed. The interview was prepond to 2.30. We where supposed to report at the F block (where the interview was going on) at 1.30. Goodness!!! things changed so quickly..
My technical interview had two people. Oae a lady... my guess is .. she is from kerala... so as i entered and wished them .. she asked if i was from kerala... !! but that question had no effect with the interview. They did manage to srew me little but by the end of the interview I could manage and brought the interview to my side. He he!!!
Now It's time for HR... yet another long wait of 3 hours and i came to know that it will be held tomorrow morning... yet another night of tension!

Campus Placement

Time has come for me... today was the starting for placements season for 2007 batch of VIT. With the first company being TCS you can guess what was going through all our minds. Auditorium was packed by 9.30, but the function called Pre - Placement Talk started off at 10.00 am.
This time TCS had changed their examination .. they have made it online..
After PPT ( Pre-palcement talk).. we where split into 5 batches for the online test, and I was in batch 3. This was supposed to be followed by the interview but due to large number of students.. they moved to for tomorow!