After quite a few cavity fillings and landing up on the dentist chair for an overtly long root canal session, I had plenty of time to think. I mean there is not much else you can do with you mouth prized open like the bonnet of an old ambassador, and the fitting inside feeling like they were about to fall off from rust and grime…and it did not help much that the mechanic, sorry dentist, was using tools which looked more apt inside the bonnet of a car than a …never mind…I guess you get the picture by now.

Anyway’s, though led to questions, and questions led to action. So I ask the mec..dentist “What makes these cavities happen and How do you prevent them?”
After the first root canal that I underwent, I have been pretty prudent about taking care of my teeth, brushing then regularly twice a day, changing my toothbrush once in two months etc etc.

The doc very smartly decides to answer the second question, completely ignoring the first. “Well, the best way to make sure that you don’t have to undergo any further root canals is to come in and top up my cash register every few months — or to put it more bluntly, come in and get your teeth cleaned and cavities made so that we can fill them up a few weeks later after the afore mentioned cash register has been updated!”

I don’t condone his cash register needs, but…it did not satisfy my need for a permanent solution. I mean how come I have cavities, and my ex-colleague Siva does not have any, when he goes through chocolates as if the byline “….complete food” has proven to be true. Nope, sometime was not right, at least not for me, even if they were for my dentist.

A few days later, as I visited my son’s homeopath, I had a spur of the moment question.

I detailed the background to her and asked her if there was any way homeopathy could help prevent these craters, yeah, ok…cavities which were mushrooming in my private ivory field.

She assured me that now only did homeopathy have preventive but curative remedies as well….now that I though was pushing it. I could buy into preventing cavities happening, but making the craters disappear ??? No way.

Anyway, since her medication was much less painful on mouth and wallet, I agreed to give it a shot…and I was stunned at the results.

After a month of the homeopathy medication, I have had no shooting pains in my teeth…not when I brush, not when I drink cold beer not never! Maybe be, I was a freak instance, but even Gita gave it a shot and she too agrees that her dental problems have definitely vanished.

I just have to share this for the minority which suffers from that numbing pain experienced from exposed cavities. Do give homeopathy a shot, it will spare you the open bonnet feeling which is never a pleasurable.

In case my dentist is reading this, I just want you to know that you better not bet on my contribution to getting the blue ray dvd player you was talking about the last time you held forth.

Have a great day!

Like most parents we had our trepidations about visiting a school with the daunting prospect of getting admission for our offspring. Unlike most parents we did not have too many Plan ‘B’s.

We first visited Anweshana in July 2008. We met Mrs. Bharati, the principal and I was pleasantly impressed(Heck, I have seen security guards at the ITPL campus show more attitude and arrogance than her – but we are not talking about that).

Firstly the place – located in the middle of nowhere, it was a small green paradise. When we visited it was raining and the petite campus was lush green. Delightful!

Our son was happy to be trampling over the lawns and flower beds, picking up frogs. I did try to make some discreet and not so discreet attempts to get him to sit down and look well trained; but I need not have worried. Mrs. Bharati, Jayashri and a few of the others looked on with indulgent smiles. Even the gardener did not have any objections to a 5 year old jumping over his cherished flower beds.

When Advait had calmed down a bit, Bharati asked him to come into the classroom to see his familiarity with the material. She just walked with him and let him lead the interaction. When he showed interest in something she let him talk about it. At one point, he pointed to a jigsaw of a tiger (still in its wrapping). Without batting an eyelid, she reached for it and opened it for him to look at. They then had a discussion about the Bengal Tiger and its habitats for the next few minutes. I was so amazed by that gesture. To me it still is an unique example of unconditional giving.
And that was it…she said if we were still interested we could come in and confirm his attendance in Nov.

The next episode was the first day of school. June 1, 2009. We decided to drop our son off at school, since the bus schedule etc was not yet organised. I was to quickly learn that at Anweshana things happen in due course…but there is no pressure…and least of all on the children.

As we stood outside the ‘main building’ the first bus load of old children came in. For me its an indelible memory. They came off the bus like a tornado. There was no disciplined, walk-in-a-single-line-with-fingers-on-your-lips-atmosphere. It was one joyous circus.

As the kids trooped into the building like they owned the place (and they did!), there were jubilant shouts of ‘Namaste Bharati aunty’ as they romped past. She stood and smiled and wished then all welcome. And then it happened…
One girl wished Bharati ‘Namaste’. Bharati was turned away responding to someone else, so she did not reply immediately. This girl stopped, turned around went and stood in front of Bharati and said …’What Bharati aunty, no namaste for me?’. It was said with such confidence, such surety that Bharati loved her and a Namaste from Mrs. Bharati was her right, to be had for the asking!

To me this is love unconditional! This is Anweshana ! When a child is so comfortable with the principal of the school, when the children are so happy to be back at this school — I knew my son was in the right place!

Over the last two years I have learned and understood Anweshana is about unconditional love. About a nurturing of the ‘child’ within ‘children’.
It is not about ambitions and academics.
Its more about exploration and expression.

Its a school where 2 teachers take twenty eight 6-8 year olds on a 3 day trip. This is to me amazing enough, but to see the teachers get of the bus looking as fresh and relaxed as when they started is a completely new dimension of management capability. My heartfelt regards to Jayashree and Sunita.

The adoration that the children have for the teachers is epitomized by my friend Robbie’s statement about his daughter : “For adrial, after God there is only Hajira aunty!” (Hajira is Adrial’s teacher)

Product Version: NetBeans IDE 7.0 (Build 201104080000)
Java: 1.6.0_22; OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM 20.0-b11
System: Linux version 2.6.38-8-generic running on amd64; UTF-8; en_IN (nb)

Laptop :

Dell Vostro V13 with an amd64 processor

I installed the xdebugger following the instructions obtained by uploading my phpinfo output over here Xdebug Tailored Installation Instructions

End Result :
I could run Netbeans and I got output which has been through the xdebugger. However, Netbeans could not ‘latch’ onto xdebug.

I am not sure, as to where exactly the problem is, but when I installed xdebug version 2.1.0

sudo aptitude install php5-xdebug

every thing worked just fine after this.

Spent a day trying to figure it out, and it was a great learning (just, as usual, at the wrong time!).

Just in case this helps someone.

Configuration :
OS : Ubuntu 11.04
Magento : 1.5.1.0
Location : localhost — a few of the startup hicups are due to trying to install magento on localhost. Ye have been warned !

Issues :

Validate-url : If you try to install through the web interface using localhost, the validation script prohibits it. The fix for this is specified here (SanjoyRoy’s Blog)

Replace line no. #500 to #503 in \magento-1.4.2.0\js\prototype\validation.js file by code below:
['validate-url', 'Please enter a valid URL. Protocol is required (http://, https:// or ftp://)', function (v) {
//return Validation.get('IsEmpty').test(v) || /^(http|https|ftp):\/\/(([A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9_-]*)(\.[A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9_-]*)+)(:(\d+))?\/?/i.test(v)
return true;
}],

For magento 1.5.1 its lines #505 to #507


This solved the first hurdle, but it did not get me much further…
The problem lies in the browser not storing cookies for localhost… which brings up the next step.
There needs to be a ‘.’ in the name.

Add the following line in /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost.dev

Now if you do a fresh install it will go through….

Do note that the admin password (all passwords, come to think of it) has to be > 7 characters. Magento did not flag any errors in the web interface install but neither could I log in later on.
Fast Install
On extracting magento, I found that the install script has a template on howmagento can be installed from the command line
It was what (finally) got magento working for me..


* php -f install.php -- --license_agreement_accepted yes \$
* --locale en_US --timezone "America/Los_Angeles" --default_currency USD \$
* --db_host localhost --db_name magento_database --db_user magento_user --db_pass 123123 \$
* --db_prefix magento_ \$
* --url "http://magento.example.com/" --use_rewrites yes \$
* --use_secure yes --secure_base_url "https://magento.example.com/" --use_secure_admin yes \$
* --admin_lastname Owner --admin_firstname Store --admin_email "admin@example.com" \$
* --admin_username admin --admin_password 123123 \$
* --encryption_key "Encryption Key"$


As I am using this as an experimental package, I diasabled the –use_secure option….but still had to specify a ‘junk’ secure_base_url. Also specified –use_secure_admin as ‘no’

So now I have magento installed and working ..
The nex step is to do a bulk upload of categories and products.

Now if i can do a cool script to do that manually, that would be nice. I really don’t fancy entering 500+ categories manually.

More as I make progress….


]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/magento-installation-learnings-1/feed/ 0 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/configure-dlink-wireless-router-with-bsnl-broadband/ http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/configure-dlink-wireless-router-with-bsnl-broadband/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:41:44 +0000 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/?p=38 ]]> Settings :
• DLink Router DHCP Disabled.
• DLink Router allocated a static IP address (192.168.1.10)
• SmartAX MT882 allocated a static IP address (192.168.1.1)
• SmartAX MT882 configured and working. To ensure this is true, connect directly to the MT882 and confirm that you can browse the net.
• DLink Router connected to MT882 from one of the LAN ports. Not WAN port.

Above statement implies that the WAN settings on the DLink router are inapplicable and immaterial. Tested this with multiple setting to ensure that this was the case.

• All clients are DHCP enabled.
• Huwaei SmartAX MT882 configured to be DHCP server, with an address range from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150.

Note : The above line ensures that there is no conflict with the address of the DLink Router.

The two line items above the ‘NOTE’ are not critical. You could manually allocate IP addresses to the computers you plan to connect. Just ensure that the DLink Router has a unique IP address on the LAN.
I have a problem with lack of flexibility :)

Works like a breeze, after 12 hours to plodding to figure all this out, but thats a limitation on my part, not the hardware :)

Let me know if you get to this piece and it worked for you.
Happy browsing.


]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/configure-dlink-wireless-router-with-bsnl-broadband/feed/ 3 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/enabling-gprs-bsnl-on-a-nokia-3500/ http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/enabling-gprs-bsnl-on-a-nokia-3500/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 03:25:42 +0000 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/?p=37 ]]> Took me 3 months (plus) to figure out how to enabling the GPRS on my phone.

Compliments to my perseverance apart, I thought it may help a few other folks who have similar issues.

The two sites which helped me figure things out are :

Writings of a Kerala Geek
and
Hartti Suomela’s Forum Nokia Blog

Now that due credit has been given, I herewith add a brief summary of how to get BSNL GPRS to work.

• Enable GPRS : Send a SMS to 53733 with the text GPRS49 (for limited data throughput) or GPRS199 (for unlimited data throughput).
• Get Settings : Send a SMS to 8355 with the text Nokia 6500 (yup, 6500 – BSNL does not know about the 3500, or so it would seem). You will get a stream of ‘setting’ SMS’s. Save these to the phone.
• Getting it working : Go to Menu->Settings->Config Settings. Default configuration settings should be set to : bsnl_internet. Select “Activate Default in all Applications”, as well.
  From here you should be browse the internet.
• Enable packet data : Menu->Settings->Connectivity->Packet data. Packet Data Connection should be set to ‘Always Online’. You can change it later to ‘As Required’ once things are working smoothly, and you need some entertainment.
  “Active Access Point” should be set to BSNL_GPRS . The actual packet data access point is “http://gprssouth.cellone.in”.

Thats it : You should be able to browse the net and use packet-data applications.

BTW, do remember to restart your phone, after making these changes. Sometimes this is the key step to getting things working :)
Hope this helps.


]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/enabling-gprs-bsnl-on-a-nokia-3500/feed/ 6 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/why-working-saturdays-is-not-the-answer/ http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/why-working-saturdays-is-not-the-answer/#comments Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:08:01 +0000 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/why-working-saturdays-is-not-the-answer/ ]]> Reflections on an article in the TOI, about getting techie to work extra hours to offset the rise of the rupee :

As the value of the rupee against the dollar drops, there are frantic efforts to squeeze more work out of the employees.
Sqeezeis the right and the wrong word. Right in terms of the approach taken by management, wrong in terms of the end result.

It would be an understatement to say that most of the software organisations are still operating on concepts developed during the industrial revolution. The assembly-line era ideas emphasize the need for physical presence to obtain higher productivity.

We specially the IT organisations have migrated into the ‘think’ mode for productivity. It is only when a person is in a relaxed and reflective mode that great breakthroughs in idea’s and creative thought are achieved. What was Newton doing when he realized the Laws of Gravity. He was sitting under an apple tree. What was Archimedes doing when he screamed ‘Eureka’? Lolling in a bath-tub.

The following three points are essential to achieve higher productivity:

First, we just have to improve the caliber of the front-line managers. Specially in India, most people migrate into management based on their performance as technical contributors. There is a need to train these managers in the basic soft skills essential to front line managers. The technical capability essential to implementing a solution is at a marked contrast to the genteel skill of getting things done.

Secondly, the implement of a metric system. If you do not have some measures – on what basis can you evaluate your teams performance. Start small in terms of the no. of parameters being measured. The biggest problem that software teams face is in the need to show dramatic results. If there is no measure as of date, rest assured, the noise in your project process is going to be large. Just getting to know the noise to signal ratio is itself an achievement.

Third, be aware of the right triggers to motivate the team. A well motivated team can do wonders. The primary requisite for a well motivated team is clear performance measures and unambiguous direction. Most managers fail in this. The annual performance appraisal is the most dreaded event of the year. For the manager as well as the team member. It is necessary to induct the right processes to ensure that this is a collaboration activity which increases synergy.

This would be a good start. If the employee knows what he has to aim for, and how his performance is measured, the rest is just a matter of treating him decent and removing the myriad of obstacles from his way.

I have personally found that it was more difficult to keep engineers out of the office, rather than in it. So there is something fundamentally wrong if there is a need to ask an software engineer to come into work.


]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/why-working-saturdays-is-not-the-answer/feed/ 0 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/the-process-of-getting-back/ http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/the-process-of-getting-back/#comments Wed, 11 Jul 2007 06:19:11 +0000 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/the-process-of-getting-back/ ]]> Been off for some time (obviously). I was not exactly goofing off…just redefining (or is it defining my priorities).
Actually been having fun too…i mean the ‘work’ kinda fun.

First off, I been toying with the idea of hosting my own website. Any justification for doing so is redundant and uncalled for…even then :). The reason is to try and figure out if I really am as technically challenged as I thought myself to be all these years. I always felt that keeping up breast with technology required a lot of commitment and focus, qualities which I lacked. Imagine my surprise, when my dear wife almost yelped ‘Lack of focus!! You are one of the most focused persons I have ever seen.” Well, go figure. At least, that is what I have been trying to do.

To cut a long verbal marathon short, that is about what I did…..(go figure). I realize that I just needed to resolve some personal conflicts, such as how to balance my job and cater to my responsibilities as a parent and spouse.

Another important point I needed to focus on is acceptance. For a myriad of reasons, I do believe in rebirth and the continuation of karma :). I just need to stop getting stressed out about achieving a 1000+ things in one lifetime. It will happen, it will come to pass. All in good time.

I need to focus on the concept of a process. Just as a child has to go through various stages from the time its lying on its back to the point where it starts running, its important to accept that mastery, nay some command, over any activity needs practice and there by time. I have to go through various stages. I have to develop each of the required capabilities one component at a time. There are hardly any worthwhile shortcuts.

That said, the other side of the same coin is no instant gratification. It helps to be become conscious of this concept. Lets take an example of deciding to buy a bean-bag. In the recent past, I would have been pretty aggressive about procuring it. I would have got onto the net, called up a few friends, visited a couple of furniture shops…and in very short order made a bean bag happen. Today I think there are better ways of achieving the same. Just take it easy, and let nature take its course. I am sure before the end of the month,I will be writing my future blogs perched on a blue colored bean bag, made of parachute material. Lovely. Will let you know when it happens.

That said, I intend to keep working at the following :

• Keep writing articles to this blog
• Work @ getting mastery over CSS
• Prepare training material
• work on my photography skills
• setup my very own website

So as I take off on this fun process of learning new things, I shall to keep ye posted.
Cheers
-b


]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/the-process-of-getting-back/feed/ 0 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/estimation/ http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/estimation/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:58:40 +0000 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/estimation/ ]]> The other day while talking to a new project team, I asked a simple question.
“How many defects (ok, critical defects) do you estimate in this project?”

The blank stares effectively told me that I was coming from another profession. After all we do not quantify such things in the software industry. Reality check, dude! You would be lucky if you got an answer to that question in the past tense.

OK, let’s try the corollary question. In this project, how much time do you expect to spend on resolving defects? Before release and/or after release?
There is a high probability that I get some kind of an answer here. It does not matter, if you are not the paying customer, how accurate this answer is.

So a certain amount of time is estimated for defect fixing; but there is no quantitative justification. Whether you have 20 defects or 2000 they all got to be resolved in the allocated time……or as is most usually the case…the project takes the stake holders for a ride!

There is a lot of talk of how difficult estimation is for a software project. This statement holds whether the organization is doing the 1st project of its kind or the 100th. But then we are a unique industry. We are the only industry (that I know of, and my knowledge of non-software industries is limited) which does appraisals and increments for the individuals without quantifiable data. A salesman is usually rewarded based on meeting specific, quantified, targets….or he is fired. So is a production manager, so is a, never mind…
Only in the software industry are increments given not for quantified deliverables, but for trying or better still perceptions of competence. “Oh, its OK the project was delayed by 3 months. Its not your problem that you only introduced 342 bugs. These things hapoen. So you get a 300% raise. Thank you for staying with us and not looking for another job.

There is only one thing wrong with a project plan which is not adhered it. Just one small thing. It was badly planned. But why do we repeat the same mistakes over and over again? Must be something to do with the fact that we are ‘intellegent workers’.

How many project managers take the effort to track actual time against estimated time? Not many.
But this, I now realize, has to be tracked. You estimate that a particular module will take 1 week = 8 * 5 = 40 man hours to complete. It takes 1 week and 1 day = 40 + 8 man hours. (OK, you are still on ‘schedule’ in terms of time, because the said engineer came in over the weekend to complete the assignment.). Now the reality is that your estimate is already off by (48 X 100) / 40 = 19.2 %; either for a particular resource or for the project as a whole. In 1 week, if you are awake to the reality, you need to raise a red flag regards a change in schedule.
I make the humble assumption here that a deviation of ~20% is worth a mention. Actually, since deviations tend to grow exponentially, the project is more than 20% off schedule.

If I were to ask another question of the said project manager – Of all the activities on the project plan, which activities are such that you may NOT need to do them? By this question, I am sure the above project manager is convinced that I am talking to the wrong person – I should be talking to a shrink!

Assume the assumption is correct that each and every activity will have to be done for the project to be completed. This implies that there is no scope for any deviation in the project schedule. No slack what so ever in the project. But deviations are what ‘Risk Estimation’ is all about. For example, if the third party codec binaries do not work as expected then the additional work to be done is … Does this ever show up in a project plan ?– sorry project estimate. Hardly ever!!

So even though everyone talks of risks and the criticality of monitoring them, it rarely ever percolates down to the mpp level. That being the case, it does not make rational sense to expect the estimate to be adhered to.

Another question: What is the basis for all these task estimates on a project? The answer is usually experience. And how many projects have you handled? And how many of these were successful, by any measure of success? Experience is great, but why can’t we have quantified data to back up this so called experience. Without the data, its just the same 1 project experience repeated 10 times. With data collected on every project executed, the experience really matures and judgment ripens.

For any organization there is nothing better than past performance to guide future execution. This is the basic thumb rule used in most manufacturing organizations. But then these organizations have the fortune to employ blue collar workers. Paucity of retrievable past experience is a forte of the ‘intelligent worker’, software community.

We just have to get over the inertia of not collecting accurate data on projects executed. It is a much better and accurate yardstick for improving estimation than function point analysis!


]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/estimation/feed/ 0 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/29/ http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/29/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2007 06:59:17 +0000 sunilsblog http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/29/ ]]> We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act but a habit.
– Aristotle

]]> http://sunilsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/29/feed/ 0 sunilsblog