New Year Animation

Yesterday i had not much work to do in office. So i decided to make a flash animated New Year Card.

Code
If you want to post this little animation as scra (in orkut) or want to embed it in your blog, you can do so by using following Code:

<embed width='360' height='200' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='transparent' src='http://sites.google.com/site/rjwarrier/Home/newyear.swf' pluginspage=' http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'> </embed>

Wishing All A Very Happy New Year

Delhi News

After Chennai and Hyderabad, finally the travels took me to Delhi. I reached here on last Saturday with a plan to go for some sightseeing on Sunday which, however, i was not able to execute. For the first 3 days i stayed in Vasant Kunj and then shifted to a hotel in Karol Bagh. The picture above was taken on my way to Karol Bagh. It looks like i will be here in Delhi till 21(at least) which gives me another chance to go for a sight seeing expedition!

Hi Tech CA

When it comes to IT education for members/ students, the Institute is way behind and it seems they does not have any intention to change this pathetic situation. We are still told to study how 'Charles Babbage' invented the damn thing, various Generations of computers (i have been studying these from 8th Std), information systems, steps in designing the info system etc which i think, has no relevance today especially for a CA. Anyways, we have to study anything and everything in the Syllabus if one wants to clear the exam. So year after year every students go through these useless topics.

Anyways, the CA Syllabus is hardly interesting to warrant a post here. Instead, i want to discuss about these rather funny messages (SMSs and E-mails) i have been getting for the past 2 months. The Insti elections are scheduled to be held on Dec 5 and like every election campaigning is in full swing. The big difference is that here campaigning is hi tech i.e SMSs and E-Mails. Its pretty annoying too. Damn! SMSes in the middle of night!! For me this e-campaigning is new phenomenon simply because i became a member this year only. I find it interesting because for a bunch of people (older generation), who finds it difficult to understand a spreadsheet, they seem to be doing quite a good job of conducting SMS and E mail campaigns!

I hope these members, when the eventually become council members, take some interest in modifying the CA syllabus so as to include some quality IT education!!

Holiday Blues

The ‘mini’ vacation is over, back to work in Hyderabad.

Yesterday (Monday) was holiday for bank here in Hyderabad because of election to the local bodies or something. Anyways, all that mattered was I had 2 back-2-back ‘off’ days to negotiate. So, a last minute trip to Bangalore was arranged. I went to Bangalore on Saturday evening and came back today morning. It was way better than killing time in an empty hotel room.

Now the problem is that coming weekend also I have back-2-back holidays and this time I cant go to Bangalore too. Wondering what am gonna do with those 2 holidays!!

Hyderabad

My 3 week long Chennai 'vacation' is coming to an end. The crystal ball has spoken its words again. Now i have to go to Hyderabad. So i guess in a couple of days, i will be leavin g Chennai.

Shift

It has been more than a month. If you ask me the reason for my absence, the answer will be 'Travel'. But i know that it is not entirely true. Ever since i shut down Ledger and started cadiaries, i have lost a huge part of 'blogging' energy. I just dont feel like blogging. Those who have visited my malayalam blog or twitter feeds may say otherwise. Anyway, i want to change all that. You will feel the a Shift soon.

Since today's theme is shift, i am starting with the skin of this blog. You may have already noticed that the layout has been changed back to Minima. I have customised the template so as to add more columns. The customisation is an ongoing process and you may notice more changes in coming days.

September was also the month of Travel for me. Calicut, Tuticorin. Coimbatore, Kottayam etc. Thankfully, this time i was much nearer to home. It looks like October also is not going to be any different :)

Thiruvonam is Here!!

Folks, am back at home for Onam. I wish everyone a very happy Thiruvonam!!

Thiruvona Asamsakal

CST

It has been almost a week since i reached Mumbai. Although i am staying near to Chathrapathi Sivaji Terminus (previously known as Victoria Terminus), i never got time to go and enjoy that beauty.

Today, thanks to the sudden raingods, finally i was able to go there. Because of the rains, cabs were difficult to get. So i decided to try my luck with the BEST Buses. Bus goes directly to CST. So when i finally reached there, i decided to capture a picture using humble Samsung Mobile (Oh, i miss a cam). SInce CST is too big to capture in a Single frame, i took a panorama.

I intend to take another shot tomorrow. Hopefully, the sky will b much brighter tomorrow.

Off to Mumbai

At last am bidding good bye to Chennai; for the time being. My next destination is Mumbai. I going to Mumbai tonight by train (at 22.50). I should reach CST on wednesday morning (at around 4 AM). Looks like i will be there for more than 15 days which means i have some time to explore the place. I plan to go to Gateway of India (at least)

Catch you all from Mumbai, Bye!!

Chennai Calling

Am still in Chennai.

An extra assignment meant my stay in Chennai got increased by another 15 days. The weather is really bad at this point of year. Monsoon has not yet hit Chennai shores. The extended summer is unbearable with mercury touching 41 on some days.

So i am eagerly waiting for my next destination: Moumbai. I herd its raining hard there. Now that is not something am looking forward. Mumbai, during rain, can become extremely unpleasant. But i hope, by the time i reach there, everything will clear out.

CA Day

Today is CA Day. I wish everyone a very happy CA Day!! All CAs, ROCK ON (although i sincerely doubt it!!)

A Week In karadi Maligai

Before i went to Chennai on June 14, i spent a week in a place called Aruppukkottai, some 60 Kms from Madurai. It was a strange experience. From Madurai, it takes a 90 minute bus ride through wind mills and barren land to reach this place; a dusty, hot and incredibly overcrowded piece of land. There are no decent hotels. The only lodge with decent enough rooms is called 'Karadi Maligai' (Bunglow of Bears). Strange name to put for a Lodge, it seems. But to the people here, there is nothing strange about it.
The main industry is textile and they have a number of textile mills in and around Aruppukkottai. Almost all the main banks, except the new gen banks, have branches in here and lending it is big business.
There is nothing much to see here. Outside its hot and dusty. Water is salty and there are constant power cuts. In short, i have no idea how all these people are coping with life here.

Linux Adventures: Intorduction

So at last the X-Windows system was up and running. Now i had a way to explore Linux!!It wasn't eye candy, even when compared to Windows 98; The screen resolutions were bad, the color depth (i.e number of colors that the screen will display) was even worse. But it was better than the dark screen of the command prompt.

In those days the only commands i knew were 'startx' (to start X-Window after booting) and 'poweroff'(to shutdown the system). With these 2 commands at my disposal, i was able to login, start the X-Windows and then play the preloaded games (mostly the one called X-Boing) for hours. The most attractive feature of Linux, for me, was the preloaded games. It came with much more entertaining games than 'Solitaire' and 'Mines'!

When i was spending time playing games, my brother at the other end continued his exploration work. After making the X-windows work, he revised his mission targets. Now he wanted to make it look prettier!! He used to spend hours exploring the file system to find a way. I would sit near him watching every move and trying to understand the process, Sometimes by asking some stupid questions which frustrated my hot- tempered brother. But he was more than willing to answer my queries. Thus these exploration sessions considerably expanded my knowledge of Linux as I learned more commands, learned to 'learn from man (for manual) pages' and also to use the command terminal more effectively. My database of known commands increased as i started to experiment with them in the safety of the command terminal instead of spending time playing X Boing.

My playing time gradually went down and slowly i was getting used to punching commands in the darkness of the Terminal!!

My Blog Post In Deepika

One of my posts, "Linux Adventures: The Beginning" was recently published in Deepika. Thnaks to VR Hariprasad and the Usenet Team for publishing the post. Here is the Scanned version..

(Click to Zoom In)

Travel Diaries

Never before in my life i have been so disconnected from Net. During my articleship i had traveled. But where ever i went i always had access to Net. But now everything has changed. I have to search for a Net caffee these days. Once am back in Trichur, am taking a wireless connection!!

Travel was the buzz word for me in the last couple of weeks (and looks like its gonna stay that way in coming weeks too). One day i was at Salem, next day day at Bangalore only to return to Salem the day after. Now am in Erode and looks like tomorrow i will be in Thiruppur the 'Textile hub' of TN. All these travels gave me enough time to brainstorm and to develop ideas to blog about. You can expect those in near future (i.e once i resolve my connectivity problems)

So Untill we meet again in blogospehere, Adios!!

Linux Adventures: The Beginning

Not many people understands the beauty of Linux. For many, Linux is just 'messier' and 'Geekier'. I dont blame them because untill recently Linux was like that (or so i believe). To be honest, i didnt like the whole command line affair of Linux. But now things have changed, for better. Linux has become cooler, friendlier and better.

My first  encounter with Linux was way back in 2001-02 and the one who introduced me to the world of Linux was my brother. He was studying Computer science and had formed a liking for this 'peculiar' OS. So he requested one of our relatives to install Linux in our PC and he obliged. But from the very beginning, problems began to pop up. Like i said the basic interface of Linux is 'Command Line' and the only way to get a 'Windows' like GUI is to intsall a 'X- Window' system, just as front-end for the Core OS. But, in our case, that version of Red Hat didn't support our video card and we were left with just the command prompt. We didnt had Internet those days, so getting the required driver file was out of the question. However my brother was very determined to make the X windows work without the right driver file and we spend a lot of time exploring Linux to find a way (He used to be the explorer and i used to be the bystander!! ;) ). Finally we managed to to find a way to get X windows without the file and the celebrations were.. well, Unforgettable!!!

From that moment onwards, Linux became much, much more user friendly!!

Thats it for now. More about linux later...

A week without Net

Bringing my laptop back from hibernation every morning to check my mail, scrapbook and blog stats is a daily routine for me. So it was not easy for me to spend a week in Mavelikkara, where a Net caffe is something that exist only in peoples' imagination. But somehow i managed to hold on.. i  survived. However a week without computer, a week without net did had its (positive) sideeffects.

I consider myself as a bookworm, atleast untill net became a part of my life i used to read alot. Thats exactly what i did during the one week of 'Disconection'. I managed to finish (almost) the biography - 'I too had a Dream'- of Dr Varghees Kurian, the man behind 'Operation Flood'. It was a good read.  It gives pretty detailed accounts of the difficulties he had to face (mainly from government officials) during the Initial stages of starting 'Amul' and later 'Operation Flood'. I recommend this book to anyone who are willing to read a book for a change!!

Ubuntu Adventures

May 1= May day= a Holiday. Something rare among lot of Working days!!!! Without further adieu i wish all a very happy May Day!

My last post, now at 13 days , has lost its shine:its time to add a new one to the collection. So what was keeping me away from blogging? Well, for starters i got a new job (my first, actually) in the Inspection & Vigilance Dept of The South Indian Bank Ltd. I joined on 22nd. Ubuntu was the other thing that kept me away from blogs. These days i spend more time exploring, learning and tweaking Ubuntu than browsing the net. More about those adventures later.I plan to do a series about that anyway. The third and the most powerful reason of 'em all is the good old fashion 'laziness'.

The third day of campus interview was another washout as BEL offered the job to some other guys. Well, LBW to BEL. It seems my position involves a lot of traveling, some things never change even when you change the employer!! It seems i will be away for the whole of next week too.

Now the following message is being displayed in public interest:
VOTE, If you have the Election ID card, if you don't....... Oh, even that thought scares me, may be because i didn't vote (For the first time since i got the 'sort of' ID card from Election Commission) this time as ICAI scheduled the Campus Interview right on Election day.

Day 2: Not an early Finish

After waiting for 6 hours, HP finally called me for the interview. It lasted for some 15 minutes and the questions were pretty basic: the usual 'telly us about yourself', what kind of work you have done during articleship, what do you know about Satyam fiasco etc. They even asked some journal entries!!

Anyhow, i was not selected.

Campus Interview: Day 1

Day 1 is over: an early finish. I reached Hotel Bangalore International well before the stipulated time (8.30AM) to find the place alsmost deserted. I have to admire the punctuality of my 'fellow' colleagues. It was mentioned that candidates have to report by 8.30'Sharp', but most of the candidates arrived only after 9.30.

I had only one interview today (PWC). So i sat there, bit tensed, waiting for my name to be called. Slowly hours went by and then only i learned that PWC has revised thier shortlist. During the lunch break they announced the revised list and sadly (?) my name was not in that list. Later PWC clarified that they only needed people for DT & IDT dept and that was the basis for the second shortlist. Anyhow, after waiting for almost 7 hours, i retruned home with nothing to show for my First day adventure.

Moment of Joy

A sweet moment of joy, in these times of despair..

Pl(e)ace-ments

After 2 years of PE II and 3 years of Articleship, i finally became a CA; right in midst of a recession!! I dont think there will be a more sacred time for job hunting than these recession times. Almost every major company has put a freeze on new recruitments. But that doesnot seem to be affecting the ICAI in anyway. They are still optimistic about the campus interviews eventhough in some centers not even a single company turned up for the campus placement program.

The 2 days orientation program was no difference. I herd the word 'opportunity' more time than 'AS' or 'Tax'. I attended the program in Bangalore, where 7 companies (22 companies came in the last edition of interviews) have turned up for campus placements.

Interviews in Banglore starts on 16th April.

Happy New Year

I wish all my readers (especially those in India) a very happy new year!!! AY 2008-09 is history now and AY 2009-10 with all new tax rates, at least for individuals, has become a Reality!! I hope the coming year will be better than FY 2009-09: an year of Scandals and Recessionary blues.

The Beginning

I completed my articleship yesterday. So am officially not an 'article' now!!

I am in Bangalore now. So i didnt get enough time to set-up the layout. Once am back in Trichur, i will be updating the layout.