Locked-in by a 2-year old

3rd Feb 2019

To look back, it may become a funny memory or a embarrassing one...but today, for the momemt when i realized what had just happpened...i was actually frightened. Not for myself but for the little one standing outside the door..unaware of the various probabillities.

So, i live close by to my sister and it was my play day with my nephew. I had heard such stories and have been warned that dont teach kids how to lock doors etc. until they are little older. But we humans learn by our own mistakes right, so I have also, in critical situations, used doors and locks at times as items of distraction or innovative playing options. And finally paid the price of such impromptu decisions today.

In the middle of a role play game, i felt the need to use the loo and told my nephew to please wait and that mausi will be back in 2 mins. But he followed me and pushed the door open in fun. So, i locked it from the inside and quickly went on with my business.  I am not sure what went through his mind, if  he thought it was part of the game and that i need to be locked up or quite possibly, he just wanted to explore the latch n locked it in his innocent curiosity.

He kept talking n I kept replying. Then when i quickly wanted to open the door n get back to my game...it took me few looks at the inner latch to realize that i did open it, still door is not opening. Then within next few seconds, after getting flashes of my infinite future in that small room, imagining trying to shout from the bathroom window trying to get attention of some neighbors, then realizing that my side of neighbouring building has no living beings. Scolding myself for not carrying my phone to the bathroom. Then realizing that even if call someone, they would neef to break open the gates as all entries to my house are bolted from inside and have metal cage in balcony. I finally came back to my senses and realized my nephew was still talking non stop that means he is still waiting for me to say something back. I felt relieved and tried to pursuade him to open the latch. But how do you explain a two, almost going to be three year old, what a latch (chitkani, as we call in hindi) is? With the small hole that was present just near the latch, for a reason unknown to me, as it was there when i rented the house, I tried pointing to him that open this thing. Pull it back or in opp direction of whatever he did. But again, the kiddo wont know what "opposite" is right. Finally, i tried blackmailing him that i will stay inside only and he wont be able  to continue the game. Alas...as if that could ever work. He also gave up and said you only open the door. Then i could hear him playing with other things far away from door. 

At last after few minutes being locked, the responsible person awakened (better way of saying, i had no other option left), i started pulling the door towards me with jerks, and given the weak plastic nature of door, after 4-5 good pulls, the latch screws came out and i was relieved to come out of that room and come face to face to a mischievously (or maybe not), but a  smiling   nephew. 

First thing i did was to hug him tightly and then trying to be the adult, asked him does he know what he did. He had locked mausi inside and that he would be all alone if i could not come out. Had to tell him that he could get scolding for this, but thinking in my head that it would be me who would get scolding really for locking the door in the first place. After few such lecturing statements...he finally made his  serious face and probably got scared, thinking of his father's scolding may be. So to change the temperature of the room, I distracted him with his favorite game of imitating aminal howls n barks. Within 15-20 minutes, he was tired and wanted to sleep.

All in all, it was a scary experience and in  probably few minutes, I got a learning lesson and added this to my list of "what not to do" when you are around young curious minds. Never under estimate the possibility of the unknown.   

Why I miss Airtel and hate BSNL...

When will BSNL overcome its shortcomings and come at par with its competitors like Airtel, Tata, or Reliance in providing broadband connection? Well let’s just leave reliance too, since they are equally bad.

Pros – BSNL has most widespread area coverage and feasibility

Cons – Poor service quality, Costly plans, Corrupt Linemen who only work if they get paid some amount, and sometimes even then they will not work.

The only reason I switched to BSNL was because Airtel was not available in my new locality.
Since I have mainly used Airtel (used for 3 years, then changed house in an area where feasibility was not there), I would like to compare all the Cons of BSNL which are actually strengths of Airtel.

Comparison point	Airtel	BSNL
New Connection process	Getting a new connection was so easy with Airtel; everything was done from home. All I had to do was raise a request on their website and next day I got a call and same day my documents were collected. And I got net within 3 days.	Even after 20 days, net has not been provided and getting landline connection was no easy process either. Even though they have built a website and provided features like online lead request for new connection etc., these requests are not attended quickly. The webpages have JavaScript issues which cause failure in form submission multiple times. Finally, I had to visit a CSC and fill the form all over again. Then also, no one called for 1 week and only after going to CSC again some person was sent after 3-4 days to give the connection. That fellow only did the wiring and took money stating wire cost and work done by two people. Even then I had to call him multiple times to start the landline and net have not yet been activated.
Lineman / Service Quality	Trained Professionals. The service people would always stick to their SLAs, spoke politely and NEVER ask for bribes. They were even ready to visit to rectify problems on times which suit the customers but were after their office hours. Biggest advantage is that all this service is free of cost from Airtel. No hidden cost.	Totally un-professional behavior. First they will work only from 10-5 from Mon-Sat, so most of us have to either take off or wait for Sat to let them in. Then also they need money just because they visited your place, irrespective of if the problem is rectified or not. (I am thinking about filing a written complaint against them)
Lodging a Complaint for dead phone	You can raise request from Airtel mobile or any other mobile by calling customer care.	There are no customer care numbers which can be dialed from mobile. All numbers are given which can only be dialed from another BSNL landline phone.
Costly Plans	Since plans keep changing, so I will not quote any plan here. But Airtel provides same speed in almost half or three-fourth of the cost, compared to BSNL.

 

 

All in all…I just want to say that I miss you …my Airtel broadband. Next time when I switch house, I need to check the Airtel feasibility first.

Unit Testing tips for developers

Whose responsibility is it to test the code you write?
I get this question in my mind so frequently these days. Having been part of various projects, I got a chance to interact with many senior developers. Without commenting on their knowledge level, all of them had one thing in common – they did not know how to or did not want to test the code they write.

Is it too difficult to perform basic unit testing? No, it is not. People simply verify the happy path testing and release their code for testing team. They forget to include some small but crucial negative scenario, which if encountered can generate high priority defects. Then follows the meetings and several mails from managers and clients as to why code failed in Production.

So, I just thought of putting down some scenarios that should also be verified before releasing the code, especially if your code might be accessed in different browsers.

1.  Testing input fields on the form

a.  What happens when only spaces or value with leading & trailing spaces are entered – to check if you need to code the trim() logic.

b.  What happens when special symbols having special meanings for browsers are entered? Example: hash (#), apostrophe ('), ampersend (&) etc. – These become even more crucial, when these input values are used as querystring and sent through the URL. Some Browsers like Firefox will consider their special meanings and break the URL flow.

c.  When user enters the value with caps lock ON? – Sometimes, the values entered are correct, but only because their case is different than what you have coded, your logic fails.

d.  Input fields having regular expression validation like Email, must also be tested for above combinations, although these are relatively safer and less prone to bad input values.

2. Testing navigation related scenarios
If your form allows user to select some values and then navigate away and return, it becomes important that your code retains the user-selected values on return. For example: You have an online shopping website and user has selected to view items in descending order of price, from a particular city and in a given price range. When user moves from one page to other, you need to retain those preferences.

3.  Database and Screen field length Testing
Most fields on an input form are mapped to a database column. In many projects with large teams, these are coded by different individuals. Chances of a mismatch in coded values are more. Thus each field should be validated for its maxlength (maximum allowed character limit).

Now, do you think these should not be part of Unit level testing and it should be a developer’s responsibility to validate at least such scenarios instead of waiting for a Testing resource, who may have more than one project to handle, to identify such flaws in your coding.

India: Think before you speak or go to Jail

India may be called a free country but we Indians are not free. We are still denied our basic rights – mainly the Freedom of speech.

There was a time when British Army would put people in jail just because they spoke against them or put forward their views against the wrong doings by the soldiers. That was the era before India’s Independence in 1947.

Now, after 65 years we are again denied the right, this time by our own fellow Indians and government is either supporting the denial or sitting and watching as mute spectator. For the people and their families who become the victim just because they decided to speak their mind, life changes overnight. On the other end, the rest of us are forced to live our lives in fear of those with money and power.

With the social media becoming accessible in every household, people tend to share their thoughts with their friends and family sitting across states on the internet. Everyone comments on what is happening across the country and if they support it or not. But putting someone in jail just because they made a comment is not at all acceptable.

This is once again a true example and proof of Corruption seeped so deep in roots of India. People cannot have faith on any of the political parties, nor can they trust the Police department. The common man has become a mere toy being thrown from one hand to the other.

The world famous 'Like' button

People went crazy with the introduction of facebook like button. Its plugin was being used on most websites and users all over the world continued clicking it and are still at it. I am not against it, duh!...honestly, I use it too. But, I cannot forget that You tube had the rating system much before it. Moreover, it still is ahead of facebook, since it allows us to both like and dislike a video. So, I was about to credit them for it.
But what's this? Another article says that there were others who thought about these thumbs up and thumbs down icons much before YouTube or Facebook. Yeah! even I had no idea about that...those sites were Stumble upon and Urban dictionary.
Anyways, that is not why I started writing this today. What I wanted to say is (although it has been said before), that I dont like the Google's +1 icon. Firstly, it doesn't come even close to the like button. Secondly, it some how doesn't have a familiar appeal...haan, if google gives it a companion -1 icon, then maybe I will use those links, but right now...nah! They dont lure me. Its just like the unwanted preview icon (magnifying glass) at the end of each search result...clobbering the google results page. Someone make them as an add-on instead of forcing these new icons on users. By doing this, google is slowly following into Microsoft's path who change everything in their subsequent product releases leaving the users lost.

Gmail: New look

Official Gmail Blog: A preview of Gmail’s new look

Although being a google product fan and permanent user, I am not really looking forward for the newer and cleaner Gmail. I liked it and was more comfortable using it when it was newly introduced. It was very stable before facebook and twitter came into picture and google guys started making quick enhancements to keep people on their site.
Now, it is getting clobbered day by day with all the new features. Maybe there are people out there who like change but moi is just not one of 'em. Oh, I really hope they dont change it too much just to be in the competition. Its not even a competition, all the social networking sites are the new thing now, they may fade away in the coming years. But people will still need a fast working mail system. That is where Gmail stands out. And, it should be maintained that way.

Encounter with Gmail Attachment pop up

Have you ever sent an important mail when you forgot to attach the document and then resent the mail again with attachment? Sounds familiar right!!!
Gmail has this excellent feature where, once the user clicks on the send button, the system will verify your mail for wordings like 'I am attaching...' or 'I have attached...' or 'Please find attachment...' etc. and check if you have actually attached any document or not. If not, it gives you a pop up (see image), warning you that you are about to send a mail without attachment. Now that's what I call an intelligent system.


Gmail 'No-attachment' pop up

Although it is not a new feature from Google. It has been there since 2008, but I had several recent encounters where I would have been doomed and appeared unprofessional if I had sent those job applications without my profile. But thanks to google team, it saved my day once again.
So go ahead, use Gmail without any fear of being forgetful of attachments. :)

Movie - Videsh:Heaven on Earth - Disappointed

Just finished watching the movie ‘Videsh : Heaven on Earth’. I am very disappointed from Deepa Mehta and Preity Zinta. I am not saying their direction or acting has any flaws, but the concept of bringing in a snake, that too, a snake that can take up human form and fool people, ease the tension for the poor wife who gets beating by the real- husband first and then given first-aid by the snake who appears before her in form of her husband. Bah!

Already the world think India is full of superstitious foolish people and now a renowned director goes and gives the impression to the world that what they think is absolutely right. Why?

Everything else is still believable, that the mother-in-law acts as a witch, always causing problems in between husband and wife, and the crackpot husband just know one way to react to any confusion in the house – i.e. to beat up his wife as if she was the boxing pad, made available to him to take out his anger. These things still happen in several families. Even though all are educated in the family, but no one has the guts to stand up to the high-headed fool and make him realize that the women he brought into his house deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Things like these simply add to my hatred towards this whole concept of marriage.

Jackie Chan Adventures

There are so many disney shows that are never shown on disney channel or disney XD - the one being telecast in India.
Now, I being a regular viewer of several animated series was under the impression that I have seen them all, atleast the good ones. But, until now (year 2011), I was not even aware that there is a show inpired by 'Jackie Chan'(JC) that was first made and telecast on the american disney channel in 2000 itself and continued till 2005. I came across the name first time while visiting JC's website. In this series, Jackie is shown as an archeologist who gets involved in fighting criminals and magical ancient evil forces. The fighting moves and humor is inspired by Jackie's real life story and reel life stunts.
I am quite sure that uptill now also, the show is not been telecast in India. I feel it is unfair with the Indian audiances. Although, there is one fact about the show that might upset the audiances here, that in some of its episodes when jackie and gang visit India, they have still shown our country as land of snake charmers and poor people. But, I hope the image of India might have changed in last 5-7 years in eyes of American writers.
Anyways, for those who have not yet seen the show, its episodes are available on you tube, uploaded by several fans of JC. Also, you may get the details about its episodes in Wikipedia. At the end of every episode, you will get to listen to the man (Jackie) himself answering questions from his younger fans, telling about his life, likes and dislikes, his hobbies etc. Most of them are good advices that all should follow.

Kerela Road Trip - Visit to God's own country!!!

Last year in December, I got a chance to visit Kerela, widely known as "God's own country".
This was one of our first big family vacation and so a lot of planning went through between an uncle who organised our trip mainly, my father and myself. I would like to share my experience here.
Initially we were thinking about opting for some tour packages, but thankfully we dropped that idea. Firstly, most of them are very costly and secondly, we would have been bound to follow their timings and schedules always. It could have become bugging after some time and our vacation might have turned into a school picninc. By the way, I am not at all against these tour packages. They are one of the big employers of the tourism industry. But mainly because we selected most of the places in our schedule after looking into their schedules given on various websites. :) So, they were a big help.

Now, let me share about the places that we visited in this trip and my opinion about them:

Ernakulam - The first thing we did here was to take the boat ferry ride. As Ernakulam(Kochi) is built around water body, so a boat ferry is the fastest mean to visit many places in less time span. There were two options available - either to take the less costly shared ride (where minimum of 20 people are required and we were just 5 of us) or the little costly private ferry (Rs. 600/- per hour). After waiting for about half and hour for more people to join, we decided to take the private ferry for 2 hours.

It was a refreshing change, far away from the city pollution and the view was good. We visited the mattencherry palace, saw the port cochin coast guard, chinese nets (pic below), but had to miss the Jewish Synagogue due to their lunch time.

Chinese Nets

Thrissur - It is about 100km from Ernakulam and took us about 3 hours from our hotel to reach our destination "Athirapally waterfalls". Some people also refer to them as 'Indian Niagara falls'. Now, people there is a point of caution here: Do NOT take any food items with you. There monkeys here are very experienced in snatching things.

Though the climate was hot and humid but the view was simply beautiful. From one side, we could see the water dividing into four main streams, while from the road-side, you get to see the frontal view of other two streams. A coconut water seller can be found sitting on this side of the road as many tourists stop here to take front view of the falls. I must say, intelligent business strategy. While returning from the falls, we took lunch at a KTDC restaurant. Though there are not many employees here, but the lunch was good.

Cherai beach - While returning from Thrissur, we visited the Cherai beach, 30 kms before kochi. It closes at 6:30 p.m. so we got only about 30-40 mins here. But it was fun as for most of us it was the first beach experience. When water comes splashing at your feet with the low tide, it is heavenly experience. Take a barefeet walk on the beach and there is no better ways of relaxation. Watch the sun going into the sea at the horizon and be at peace with yourself.

Munnar - It turned out to be a wrong choice for my family, as both me and my mother got sick due to all the twists and turns on the way. But, have to say, like any other hill station, Munnar also has the beautifual landscapes and great views of the valleys. It reminded me of my college days in Simla. As a surprise element, we came across another waterfall on the way. Took many snaps and videos. Attaching one picture below.


Falls on the way to Munnar

In Munnar, my father and sisters went to watch the live performance of Kathakali - makeup and dance, performed by artists of Punarjani group. These artists sure have a lot of patience. Next day, we visited the tea and spice plantations, Palace museum and Kanan Devan plantations where we were first shown a historical movie of how Munnar became one of the biggest tea producers in India, followed by a visit to the tea processing unit.

Kollam - First we visited Kottarakkara, a small town near kollam. This was more of a personal visit to my father's colleague. But I want to mention it here because of its green and clean view all over the place. We also saw rubber plantation and rubber processing factory - how latex from the tree is converted into rubber sheets.
Next stop was Kollam beach, now that is one clean beach. I was too busy taking pictures here, but my sisters were having a gala time playing in the water. Overall, my experience here was one to remember.
Then we started towards Tamil Nadu. I was not aware that one needs to take permission for personal vehicle before travelling inter state. Our check point was a place called Amaravila.

Kanyakumari - We crossed Nagercoil, and reached the southermost tip of our motherland. First stop here was the sunset point. It was very crowded, full of tourists and localites, some relaxing and some buying shell made show peices from the various shops in the market being set up on the shore. We were told that all of this was destroyed in the Tsunami of 2004 and most of the buildings near the shore were rebuilt.
We stayed in Vivekananda Kendra, a rest house facility in kanyakumari. It is very well maintained and clean. There are two big clocks telling about the sunset and sunrise timings in the reception room. They have annapurana(mess), internet facility, book shops etc, all within the campus itself. Next day early morning, we all went to the Sunrise point, but unfortunately there were lot of clouds and sun didn't appear in the sky. Anyways, we headed towards our last stop of the trip - the Vivekananda Rock memorial and the Thiruvalluvar Statue. These are built on two big rocks within the sea. You need to wait in queue to get the ticket for the ferry that takes you to these monuments. In both these places, photography was allowed in limited areas only. There are temples, meditation centers, book stores and a vast statue of Swamy Vivekanada built inside the rock memorial.

Twin Rocks at kanyakumari

Lastly, on the way back, we crossed a vast Windmill park. Later we came to know, it is the largest wind mill park in Asia. Also located on the highway was a temple of Mullapanthal devi, 15 kms from Nagercoil towards Tirunelveli district.

Thus, ended our road trip across the Kerela and Tamil nadu states of south India.

YouTube Video Editor is a boon for amateurs

YouTube's Editor tool is a saviour for amateurs like me in video editing field. It surely has a long way to go. I am going to support it for a long time and I'll tell you why...read on!!!

Recently I got a chance to visit a National Park with my family and we had many videos made on handycam. Now both me and my dad agreed that these videos cannot be uploaded or shared with the family without editing else the fun will go due to all the pauses and breaks between the various animal sights. So, I began googling for various video editing softwares (both free and licensed) that could serve my purpose without degrading the quality of the videos.I ended up spending about 2-3 hours on the net.

Now, I know some people will say that windows movie maker is readily available, so why waste time. But I have another problem. I am still struck with Windows Vista Home edition. For day-to-day work, it is fine with all its bugs, but it just made my life tougher that day. When I tried to start a video in Windows Movie Maker, only audio came without any video. So, I again searched and found that many people faced this problem and the issue was that DirectX codecs were not installed. So, I downloaded the K-Lite codecs and ran the install. THAT'S IT!!! MY WINDOWS CRASHED :(
Thankfully, I tried the System Restore feature that day before going for formatting my system and that saved my day.

But after all this, we had given up the idea of editing and uploading our family videos. Then after 3 weeks, I was going through one of my earlier YouTube uploads and I thought of trimming that video. So, just searched YouTube help and support for editing videos already on youTube and I found links to YouTube Remixer, an older tool for editing videos, which has now been withdrawn. It was then that I discovered the YouTube Editor feature.

Finally, today I was able to upload my first edited video on YouTube. For a first timer and especially after all that I had gone through, this was nothing less than a victory. And so, I am going to celebrate it. But before that, I genuinely want to thank all the developers of the YouTube Editor software. God bless you guys!!!

(P.S. Have a look at my video here)

The Last Lecture - by Randy Pausch: A must-read for all !!!

I had never heard about the famous you tube video of Randy Pausch on the last lecture he gave in the university Carnegie Mellon, where he was a computer science professor. One day out of  boredom due to my work and daily routines, when I was searching the book store in my office campus for something interesting, I accidentally came across this book. It was kind of a right timing for me too. Oh no, there is nothing wrong with my health, but I was going through a sad, aimless phase in my life. I am sure many people would understand the feeling.
Okay, I think I am deviating from the book. So, when I took the book from the shelf and went through the synopsis and the introductory notes by Randy about how this book is just a way of telling his kids about everything he knows about life and how he sees and valued the life as a whole, I knew that I have to read the complete book. In Randy's words, “If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. If I were a musician, I would have composed music. But I am a lecturer. So I lectured.”

What this book is NOT ?
This book is not a regular inspirational or a self-help book. This book tells you about the smaller and many important aspects of life in the everyday language. It is completely written in first person and keeps you involved with every chapter.

Several online reviews of this book have already been written and there are numerous articles available on the net about the book and the projects worked upon by Randy Pausch. But if you are someone who wants to know more about the book before purchasing it, visit the following link.