Angry Rant - Don't love your job, then leave it

I just received this in my mail

7 Reasons to work in IT

1. I hated sleep.
2. I had enjoyed life enough.
3. I couldn't live without tension.
4. I wanted to pay for my sins.
5. I believed in Bhagwad Geetha principle : "Karm Karo, Phal ki chinta mat karo"
6. Everything in life has a reason, i wanted to prove it wrong.
7. I wanted to take revenge on myself.

My anger is not solely focused on the above mail. I recently took interview for couple of guys and i can only say the quality of knowledge in so called programmers are even worse than what i was 2 yrs back. Do your job not for money but for the love of it. I love programming which is why i have been able to survive in this industry for 7 long years. If you think programming is a drag then either you are in the wrong industry or your junior or superior is in the wrong industry. I have worked only in two companies, where i have been lucky to get mentors who love what they and not keeping bitching about the job like this. Every single job invented by man has pressure and stress, you expect to get paid high yet you are not ready to compensate for that package. I mean, c'mon people, how bad can it get, try being a Chartered Accountant or a maybe something like a Traffic Police, then you would really understand the value of being software professional. We get paid good amount for sitting on our assess and writing some line in a ever changing world of technology while our brother and sister's in the military get paid measly amount for putting their life at stake. If you are not ready to put in the needed amount of commitment, dedication in your work, stop bitching about it and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE LINE OF WORK. You make others , people who really love what they do, look bad, dammit.

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First WPF App - NutPad++

Well other than the funny name, nothing about this little app is even remotely funny. I have been telling myself to learn WPF for sometime now and for me the best way to learn any language is to create a small application. I just completed the basic skeleton of application that i am modeling after notepad and notepad++. Here is a screenshot of the app

Nothing fancy, just a menuitem, a rich text box and a status bar. I will be first creating a simple notepad like application and then move to bigger thing’s like implementing MDI (its SDI for now). Stay tuned to this blog for more updates on my journey in the WPF forest ;-).

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India’s Real Heroes

How many more lives are we going to lose before we realize war is futile. A salute to the real heroes of India who fight and lose their life for our better tomorrow. I can only hope, we make them proud by making sure India becomes the best in any and every industry.

KARGIL'S FIRST HERO
Lt. Saurabh Kalia

His UNIFORM as a MEMORY

Capt.Vikram Batra, Param Vir Chakra (Posthumous)

Grenadiers, Yogendra Singh
Param Vir Chakra

RFN .Sanjay Kumar
(Param Vir Chakra)

Major Padmapani Acharya,
Maha Vir Chakra (Posthumous) Of the 2nd Battalion of the RAJPUTANA RIFLES

Lieutenant Balwan Singh,
Maha Vir Chakra of the 18th Battalion of GRENADIERS Regiment

Major M Saravanan,
VirChakra, 1 Bihar

Lieutenant Kanad Bhattacharya,
Sena Medal (Posthumous) (22 YEARS)

Captain Saju Cherian,
Sena Medal, 307 Medium Regiment

Lieutenant Keishing Clifford Nangrum,
Maha Vir Chakra (Posthumous) of the 12th Battalion of JAMMU AND KASHMIR Light Infantry

Captain R Jerry Prem Raj,
Vir Chakra (Posthumous) , 158 Medium Regiment

Major Sonam Wangchuk,
Maha Vir Chakra of the LADAKH Scouts

Officers & Jawans from the 2nd Rajputana Rifles pray before going into battle, to get back Tololing Top. Behind the Jawans in the foreground (with a 5.56mm INSAS rifle) is Captain Vijayant Thapar
http://www.captainv ijyantthapar. com/ . His face is partly hidden and is seen sporting a beard. Lieutenant Thapar laid down his life, in the capture of Tololing Top and was awarded the Vir Chakra posthumously for his valor.

Major Padmapani Acharya, 2nd Rajputana Rifles, leads his men into battle after the successful capture of Tololing Top. The2 Raj. Rifles' next assignment was to capture the Knoll mountain feature in the Black Rock area, which is in the Drass sub-sector. It was here, that Major Acharya laid down his life in the highest traditions of the Indian Army on 29
June 1999. He was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, posthumously .

Making the way through narrow valley

The Leh-Batalik road is as notorious as the Srinagar-Kargil road. At its beginning lie staging areas, at its end fierce fighting and often, death. Jawans patrol the rugged slopes near Batalik. For them, there is little time for rest and little time to think, always poised on the edge of action.

Capt.Vijayant Thapar (Robin)
He laid down for OUR BETTER TOMORROW At the age of only 22

His Last Letter to his parents

Moments before the final assault Capt. Vijyant Thapar (Robin) left this letter at the war front base, to be handed over to his family


AND AFTER THAT
HE CAME BACK HOME WITH TRI COLOR DRAPED

Jawans from the 2nd Rajputana Rifles, remember their 23 comrades who fell in the decisive battle for the Tololing Top. The battalion earned four Maha Vir Chakras, one of India 's highest medals for gallantry, three of them being awarded posthumously.

Captain (Dr.) Rajshree Gupta, Army Medical Corps (AMC), salutes the tricolour-draped coffin of her husband, Major Vivek Gupta of the 2^nd Rajputana Rifles, who died fighting the enemies.

WE WON THE KARGIL BUT WE LOOSE OUR BRAVE BROTHERS

Lets Tribute this Independence day for those heroes who left their life and live their life for the nation.

Please don't wish 'Happy Independence’ day to anyone, just tell to remember those heroes and to salute them while listening our national anthem.

And say... "JAI HIND”, be proud to be an Indian.

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Everbody Hurt’s - Beautiful Song

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on.
Don't let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.

Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along.
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on.

Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand.
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on.

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes.
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on.
Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on.

One of the most wonderful songs i have heard in my life. Just when one want’s to give up, this songs is sure to pep them up. Btw Mrs Wierd, my cirticism was aimed at not to discourage or undermine your decision making powers or undermine you, but to a healthy discussion we could have had. Anyways, another song for you

In every way, we are still going strong
so glad that you came along,
you’re still beautiful to me, In everyway

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Google Template Hacked Or is it just Me !!!

This is a Google template i am using.

See the mating image there. It seems to come only in that template. One other aspect of this hacking was, i was using ShareAPic service for hosting my images and putting the thumb nail links here. But two of those images had been replaced with some obscene images. The screens i took was a the image of the whole page and so it is kinda very big image not in size (kb) but in height (pixels). You can the download the file from RapidShare. I uploaded it to rapidshare because i don’t have accounts to any other file uploading websites. Once i get hold a free provider i will change the link.

On a side note, ScribeFire didn’t really help when it came to replace these images in the Review. I had to go back to Windows Live Writer. Ok i gotta go now, gotta change the template and the ad settings. See ya later !!

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Blogging from ScribeFire

I have changed my blog posting tool to ScribeFire. I won't be throwing Windows Live Writer immediately but if scribefire turns to out to be better then windows live write will definitely move out.

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Sniper – Art Of Victory with cheats

So i finally got bitten by the cheat  bug and used it in this game. Blaming the bug would be secondary, i really got tired getting killed in the first mission once i crossed the bridge, yeah i know i am not really a good sniper but i am trying!! . I was just not able to get across the three ever observant guards. I tried couple of times but no luck, one of them was throwing grenade’s at me for god’s sake, where is the justice in that. Anyway's, if you wanna play in cheat mode all you need to do is Press “~” symbol once the game loads and type “Cheat.GodMode()” and Press the Enter key. It will enable god mode, remember if you want to disable it, just type the same text and it will be disabled. Once you are in god mode, you can go stand right in front of the freaking soldier

and slowly take out your knife and kill him. Trust me, its fun the first couple of times but kinda gets boring. Couple of other cheats are, Cheat.AddAmmo() , gives lot’s of ammo’s, and Cheat.GiveAllWeapons(), gives all the weapons. These three are the only cheats that i used in the game. I was able to progress couple of missions in the game but nevertheless lost interest in my immortality. Problem is, once you know that any amount of bullets is not gonna hurt you, you tend to get a bit cocky and start a shooting spree which is not exactly the objective of the game is it ? Anyway's, i got stuck at the level where i am supposed to kill a general, apparently i wasn’t hiding properly. See even being in God Mode didn’t help me clear the level. After that i never got time to go into the game again, maybe one of these days when i do get time i might just go in normal mode and teach those soldier’s who’s the boss in the game :D.

Technorati Tags: games,sniper art of victory cheats,sniper,artofvictory,godmode,gaming

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10% Discount on UCertify’s Prepkits

Great news guys !! , for anybody who is reading this blog out there, i recently wrote a Review on UCertify’s PrepEngine, their exam simulator. They are now offering a 10% discount for the reader’s of “this” blog. All you need to do is, use the Discount code “VIKRAM”,without the quotes, on any of the UCertify’s Prepkit of your choice. You can find the list of prepkits here and the download details. Let me know if you have any issues. Thanks for reading people, Happy UCertifying ;-)

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Sniper - Art of Victory

I recently bought this game and It’s easily one of the best games that i have played. Just like sniping needs a lot of patience, this game also needs. Now and then the sniper is hiding so carefully that no amount of waiting is able to draw him out. I sometime’s go stand in front to draw the sniper out and then run back to hide and start sniping. You can’t just charge to the enemy territory shouting the war cry, within minutes you will be dead meat. I am still trying to finish the first mission where i am stuck near the bridge. I was able to finish of the sniper who shoots when i am the bridge but unable to come in terms with two of the enemies after i cross the bridge. Its just a matter of time, before i complete the mission. Nevertheless, patience is the key to completing this game, unless of course you have used cheat to enable God Mode ;-)

Technorati Tags: Sniper,Sniper - Art of Victory,games,patience,sniping,sniper games

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UCertify Prep Engine Review

              I am posting after a really long time. Lots of stuff have happened in my life some good some bad, but all that is for another day. For now here’s a review i wrote about the UCertify’s Prep Engine. Sometime back I completed MCP in Web-Based Client Development in C# (Exam Number 70-528) using the .Net Framework 2.0 Web-Based Development published by Microsoft.

                     After that I received a mail from one of the UCertify staff to review one of their products, I choose MS .Net Framework 2.0 - Application Development Foundation (Exam Number 70-536). UCertify was kind enough to give me a free activation code for this exam. The User Interface is very simple and unique and has been designed with lot of insight to help users to understand the exam better and identify their weakness and strengths. I will explain what features are present in this prep kit and how it can be utilized. If you find the review lacking in any way, please do let me know.

The Prep Engine is designed in such a way that there is no need for us to download the engine for other set of exams. The Prep Engine lists all the prep-kits available with UCertify and with just a single click one can install the prep-kit and start cracking at the exams.

 

Features in UCertify Prep Engine

1. Exams

a. Normal Exams

In exam you are given either 15 or a number of questions that you choose. This exam must be taken when you start. Mostly the questions in this test cover most, if not all the concepts. Once the exam is over, you get to view the breakup of marks in each section, which would help you to focus and prepare accordingly.

 

b. Adaptive Exams

This exam is quite interesting and you get to analyze and learn in depth, the subject, in the course of the exam. The Kit monitors your answers’ to given questions and brings up the next question depending on the accuracy of answer given to the first one. This helps you to understand the question which you had answered and relate it to the upcoming question, consequently ending up in learning while you were getting examined!

c. Custom Exams

As the name says, you can customize the exam J Sounds cool, right? It is! Here is how you can play around with the number of questions, subject matter, time and most important, viewing answers!

You can specify the number of questions you would want from a particular section. To add questions from the selected chapter, you just need to click button. Once that is clicked, the view on your right hand side will get populated with the questions added to the test pool. Alas! There is no specific way to really select only certain number of questions from the chapters and add to the pool. We would need to select the chapter and add all the questions and then remove them manually. To an average user, this might be an extremely tedious job considering time as a vital factor in exam preparation. Now, I will stop complaining and get back to reviewing. Once you are done adding the questions, you can specify the total number of questions you would like to generate for the exam.

As seen in the above screenshot, we can specify the number of questions that the engine will randomly select. We can specify the number of minutes we wish to write the test and also the passing score. The exam can either be taken up in Test Mode or Learn Mode. In Learn mode, we can click the button, whereby it will display the answer for the particular question. In test mode we do not have this button and it will be like writing a real test where, you know, showing the answer is not really allowed: D.

2. Articles

 

As the name goes, this section has brief articles related to the .Net Framework along with a comprehensive Search feature. On the left side, Articles are classified under different categories, for ease of operation. For instance the “How to” category holds articles depcited in the screenshot.

Similarly, each section contains a specific set of questions and answers which enables the user to familiarize more with the .Net Framework. On other category, Study Notes ,contains the most common and difficult questions in .Net Framework. In the same lines, there are Study Tips which is important points to be noted, when preparing for the exam.

3. Flash Cards

Flash card’s are learning aids, where information is drilled our mind to aide memorization, by way of spaced intervals. In our case, specific questions are put forth by the engine and we need to type the answer and also grade them as “Correct”, “Incorrect” or “Not Graded”

 

4. Interactive Quiz

Interactive quiz enables us to take up a real-time exam. An Interactive Quiz is different from normal exams in two points

i. We would not be able to go back to previous items like we do in a normal exam

ii. Each question is timed individually

As you see in the above screen, we can choose the number of question that we want from each section. We can also set the maximum time required to answer a question. The interactive quizzes are designed to test one’s understanding of key concepts, that are required to pass the certification.

5. Reviewing Performance

The prep engine tracks all the test’s we take and it presents us a very brief performance report. We can go to the screen using the following section in the main screen.

 

Performance Report is categorized into 2 sections – Test History and Remarks. Under Test History section, Prep Engine provides us with a list of the exams we had taken. In the Remarks section, Prep Engine presents our performance in each of the exam. As you can clearly see in this screenshot, I have lot of catching up to-do with exam studies ;-)

6. Loading Other Tests

 

Adding other test’s to your local drive is just a click away! Once you click the button named “Install”, it check’s for the appropriate exam and downloads it to your machine. Then you would be all set to go ahead with the Test Kit.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience using Ucertify Prep Engine. Previously I had used Microsoft’ Prep Kit. It was refreshing to use Ucertify’s Prep Kit for a change. Though, I have not fully explored UCertify’s Prep Engine, I am certainly happy with what I have seen and learnt. Now It’s “Certify” time for me and hope to with study with full steam and clear the exams with with flying colors.

Please feel free to make any suggestion or comments on this article and ways to improve it.

Technorati Tags: Review,Ucertify,PrepKits,Certification,dotnet certification,PrepEngine

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Updating Items in Collection

I have been working with collections for sometime now, i had always either deleted or added item in the collection but never updated. Today i had a need to do that, when i searched i couldn't find a direct method to get a item in a collection updated. After some confusing moments i ended up the following code

Dim t As New Collection
Dim iRemove As Integer
Dim iCnt As Integer

iRemove = 3
t.Add ("te")
t.Add ("ew")
t.Add ("Ad")
t.Add ("Adtree")
t.Add ("tewww")
MsgBox t(iRemove)
Call t.Add("Ads", , IIf(iRemove = t.Count, iRemove, iRemove + 1))
For iCnt = 1 To t.Count
Debug.Print t(iCnt)
Next
t.Remove (IIf(iRemove + 1 = t.Count, iRemove + 1, iRemove))
MsgBox t(iRemove)

For iCnt = 1 To t.Count
Debug.Print t(iCnt)
Next

Nothing too fancy in that code, so far it has worked fine but will wait till i implement it in the main code to celebrate ;-) :D. On another note, i have been reviewing UCertify's PrepEngine, I must say it's pretty darn good. Soon, in couple of days, you see a full review of their product in my blog.

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