Don't break the silence.

Meetings are part of daily life in a software engineer's life. Thinks to be noted before and during the meeting are

1) Due respect has to be given to meetings as they consume productive hours of the participants. Meetings should be scheduled iff it is required.
2) The purpose and the participants has to identified well in advance.
3) Agenda for the meeting has to be published at least a day before to give enough time for the participants/host to prepare.
4) Should start on time.
5) Should not deviate from the Agenda.
6) Summarize the action item and decision taken at the end.
7) Share the minutes of the meeting later.

The meeting will become a kiosk when the host and participants are not well prepared. Inexperienced individuals will talk just to break the silence that would lead to deviate from the topic or others would ignore the individual.

To me personally, running a meeting is an art that can be learnt by practice.

Cricket World Cup - The Extreme

Within just two weeks into the world cup, lot of thinks happened. No-one expected this kind of start.

1) Starting with Bob Woolmer being murdered.
2) 2 power houses of international cricket (India & Pakistan) were eliminated from the cup competition.
3) The debutant (Ireland) enters super 8.

The organiser are facing a huge threat on revenue loss due to the fact that India and Pakistan are not playing anymore on this edition of world cup. Lot of revenue being generated from this part of the world. Not just organiser, the TV channels that brought the broadcasting rights, tourism, travel agencies etc. are also running into losses...

This world cup is a disasters not just to the team & game.

No so easy!!!

During shopping

1) It can be easy to choose the first dress. How about selecting the second one?

2) Your wife asks your opinion on the dress material that she selected for her sisters. How do you want to comment without getting into problems? :)

3) You accompany your wife to a silk house and are at a ladies counter. How do you want to maintain your dignity when so many good looking girls around? :) Anyway you have nothing to do there.

....

Out for a while ...

I was on vacation last week and didn't get a chance to post a blog for more than 10 days. A good break from work. Most of the time I was doing baby sitting.

Lot of things happened during my day off. Let me try to recollect and dedicate a blog for each.

IT Returns refund

Our office deducted more money from my salary towards Income Tax during the Financial year '03 - '04. So, the only option left to me was to claim the amount by filing the returns. IT department was suppose to pay me back over Rs. 7900.

After three long years of frustration, the amount finally got dispatched to me with some added interest (Rs. 8420).

If you don't want your money to be with IT department for such a longtime, I advise

1) Plan your investments
2) Make your declaration more wisely in the begin of the year.

'Son'nie Walker....

It is only two months since he started crawling. We can't resist our self watching him on a walker.

On the weekend, we had the walker cleaned and washed for his use. After completing all her work in the morning, Hema put him on the walker. Since, it was his first experience with a walker, Hema took an extra care. To her surprise, he started moving around as if he used to it with no fear. After tasting the first blood, he was not ready to come out. He had his lunch sitting on the walker.

Unfortunately, I was in office when all these lovely thinks happened. Luckily, Hema recorded all these on our digi cam.

Social responsibility

Whenever the budget was submitted in our house of Parliament, we used to closely follow the session to understand how are we getting benefited. If one budget fails to deliver the goods for us, we blame the budget.

Post budget interview with our Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram, is an interesting read.

Self Mastery

I have got a chance to have a look at the PowerPoint presentation "The Pillars of Self-Mastery" prepared by Robin S. Sharma. Mr. Sharma has tried list all the dos and don'ts for becoming a world leader.

Out of several items he discussed I'm impressed with the list below.

1) To enhance your concentration and power of focus, count your steps when you walk.

2) Enhance your will power. When you are hungry, wait another hour before you meal.

3) Be careful about reputation. Never do anything you won't be proud to tell your mom about.

4) Become your spouse's number 1 supporter.

5) Empty your cup. A full cup can't accept anything more. Even teachers have teachers.

6) Never argue with the person who you work for. You will lose more than just the argument.

7) When you can't make up your mind for two evenly balanced courses of action, take chances. Take smart risks and you will meet the success beyond your dreams.

8) Each day, do two things that you don't like doing. Your personal power will increase and your productivity will sour.

Letz enjoy the sports

Less than a week away for the beginning of yet another Cricket World Cup. As few experts predict, India is one of the front-runners to win the Mega Event in Cricket.

India can win or lose. Be prepared for a strong reaction back home. Our fans will reach the extremes in either case.

Interesting read in today's edition of The Hindu.

The Search Begins...

We have been asked to vacate our current rented house at Velacherry as the owner is planning to renovate the house for higher rent.

We have been staying at this house for more than 2 1/2 years now. It is big enough to accommodate any of number of guests (For your surprise, once we had 14 guests staying with us for about a week). But it has its own problem. Whenever it rains heavily, water used to get stagnated on the road and couple of time water entered into the house itself.

Now, it is time for me to look for another house at decent location and reason rent.

WiMax - Broadband Wireless

We were watching 'Gadget Guru' in NDTV yesterday and learnt few thinks about WiMax, the broadband wireless technology.

As I understand, it is going to be more useful for executives and laptop users. They can access the net even when on a running car. The base station can be installed at home/office. A small wimax card, like SIM card in mobile, should be inserted into our laptop. The communication happens between the laptop and base station thru' this card. This enable us to the access to net at a decent speed.

This product is in pilot phase and would take another 4 - 6 months to launch to public users.

AXN is back... :)

The ban AXN has been relaxed and is now on air. I can watch my favorite reality shows on AXN.

Enjoy the programs until someone wakes up suddenly and find his own logic to ban a channel.

Calypso Fever.

With just 9 days left for the beginning of yet another world cup, the expectations are high. Every participants, at least all test playing nations, are claiming that they are well prepared for bringing home the cup.

West Indies, the two time champion '75 & '79, is the host for this ninth edition. The dominant force in cricket during 70s & 80s and the winner of first two editions is hosting the mega event for the first time!!!

Leaving the warm-up games, the fight begins on March 13th and will continue till April 28th to know who is well prepared.

Here in India, Cricket is another religion. As always, our teams leaving for Caribbean carrying their kits and the huge expectations from the billion people. Letz wish the team to redo the Kapil & company's magic to bring back the cup after 24 long years.

Holi...

Holi, the festival of color, is generally celebrated in northern part of the country. The habit of celebrating this festival is also spreading to south.

In fact, I have started playing holi starting my PG days at Coimbatore, thanks to our own Sudheer. He usually bring in colors to our AH (Hostel) on Holi evening and we all squirt colored water/powder on each others.

Then I moved to Nagpur in the central India for my job and was the for a holi. Beginning an Madrassi, I am not fully aware of how to celebrate Holi. So, I was just watching some program on TV. Few of my colleagues came to the guest house. At first, I didn't realise who they are. They colored me fully and took me with them for the celebration for rest of the day. Even after a week, people come to office with colors on them. It take time to complete wash them.

Last year, it was a declared holiday at office. We have decided for a team outing. And celebrated holi in a beach resort. Since, the composition of my team was heterogeneous, we have the right mixture of people to have a high intensity.

This year, it was celebrated at office cafeteria. To maintain a level of discipline, they restrict coloring and have more games. Just another fun day but nothing so specific for holi.

Budget Mar - Apr '07

When I was doing my schooling, we used to go to work part-time during our summer vacation. My dad used to sent us to work in a printing press just to teach us how hard to earn single penny. My first salary was Rs 75. I was 14 when I received this. I can't find a world to explain how I felt when I held the notes.

In Feb '07, Income tax has already eaten more than 75% of my Feb. salary. I have talked about the government's budget in my previous blog. It is time for me to come-up with a budget to run my family for next two months. :(

Budgets '07 - '08

The much anticipated budget for '07-'08 was submitted by our Finance Minister, P. Chidamparam, yesterday at the Parliament house.

I didn't follow the budget fully. The review on news media suggest that the budget was not as expected.

I really admire the way our Railway Budget submitted by our Lallu on Monday. Surprised to hear that almost all the praises/taxes were reduced and more facilities were introduced. How is it possible when our railway was running in losses couple of years back?

Lallu was able to bring the railways out of deficit and more importantly, was able to make profit of about 20K crores. Impressive, indeed.