Thought Garage

All Fedex locations have been swamped today (particularly in the afternoon) and it took anywhere between 2-3 hours to drop off any thing at most Fedex locations. All firms (both Consulting firms and big firms alike) looks to be sending their H1B visa petitions today by Fedex to reach USCIS offices before they are opened on monday, 2nd of April, 2007. Keeping in mind the last year's rush (50% of the quota limits were reached with in a span of 10 days), this time nobody want to miss this year quota. Rumours are all around speculating that number of applications received on day 1 itself will reach the quota limits and USCIS might go for lottery to pickup applications. One might think that Outsourcing and moving of development centers to offshores might reduce job opportunities in US. But the demand for H1Bs has been steadily growing. If number of applications received by USCIS is any indication to that demand, one will be surprised for sure this year. Its very interesting to note that...

A short Video with pictures from weekend visit to Dallas Arboretum for wonderful Dallas Blooms. If you haven't visited yet, hurry up. I thought I should have visited a week earlier. Original Pictures here:  Dallas Blooms Photo Album . DallasBloo ms Technorati tags: dallas , dallasblooms , dallas arboretum , inspions

Just in time for Cricket World Cup 2007, found a Google desktop widget that shows live cricket scores . Thanks to Google. Its quite a surprise this time that none of India and Pakistan reached super 8s. I haven't watched Pakistan games, but watched all India games. And I felt that India didn't play a good game and well deserve the role of spectators for the rest of the tournament. At the end of Bangladesh match, I declared that India is out of the worldcup, not that I knew they will loose against Srilanka, but I failed to notice any 'hunger' in Indian cricket team to fight and win the cup. Its an unfortunate and sad page in the annals of Indian cricket. If there is something that I can take from it, it doesn't matter how good you are and how skillful you are,  the application matters the most . There is a classic gameplan of cricket, playing the best of shots and mind-blowing deliveries and then there is a gameplan that can win games. Wonderful and lo...

Wish you All A Wonderful New Year. This new Year, I wish your dearest dreams will come true. Enjoy all the tastes of life in one and only one Ugadi Pachadi.

Not many people comeup with Ideas and Opinions on any given subject on their own.  But when some one express an opinion or share an Idea, the whole world wakesup. Some try to tear the opinion or idea apart by giving their 'expertise' judgement. Some express 100s of reasons why it will fail. Some question the motivation behind the idea or opinion. Some shoots the messenger itself. A very few, believe me, you can count them on fingers, see the potential and will try to understand the implications. These days, we see 100s of them in blogs, articles, magazines, conferences, reviews, interviews, commentaries and every social gathering that try to offer and market their judgements, comments and suggestions. I guess, this is a natural tendency and human nature that is completely in line with Darwin's law of 'survival of the fittest'. Not everybody is humble to see through. And truly and honestly, not everybody is competent to see it. And there is nothing absolute abo...

One of my favorite bloggers, Pamela Slim at Escape From Cubicle Nation  shared yet another interesting aspect of becoming an Entrepreneur. The shift in your relationships.  Having experienced (ing) first hand how people around you react to your plans of becoming an entrepreneur, I would suggest that you read her post to get some great insights to get prepared. One of the unexpected parts of heading towards your right life is discovering that sometimes those around you are not ready, willing or able to see you change.  This can result in disagreements, fracturing or even ending long-term friendships and relationships. Based on my personal experience, if you are working somewhere currently, I suggest that you DO NOT share your plans with anybody. I deeply regret sharing this with my buddies at work. Word gets out pretty fast, and trust me, not many (infact most) will like it. Source: Escape from Cubicle Nation: When you chang...

I love Grady Booch, for how he defines Software Engineering and lives up to his own expectations and privileges of being a Software Developer. Here is an Interview with Grady Booch by Software Engineering Radio.  If you haven't watched, you must watch the video presentation by Grady Booch: The Promise. The Limits and The Beauty of Software . Episode 47: Interview Grady Booch Guest: Grady Booch Host: Markus In this Episode we are happy to talk to Grady Booch . We started off by discussing his Architecture Handbook , how it came into being, the progress, and how it will look like once it's finished. In this context we also looked at the issue of how to distinguish architecture from design. We then asked him about how "professional" software architecture is these days, as well as about the ubiquity of software product lines in industry. The next couple of minutes looked at the question of whether software development is an engineering discipline, craftsmanship or an...

I would be glad and little suprised if you could decipher the following tracking information provided by USPS and tell me where is my package. I recently ordered an item at Amazon.com on 28th Feb, 2007.  Though, the Amazon.com page said the item is available and will be shipped immediately, the item seems to have been shipped 5 days later on 5th of March through USPS. Amazon.com sent me a tracking number to track the shipment. I looked up the information with that tracking number at USPS,  I am totally confused at the following tracking message. It says, the package was processed and left the Dallas TX 75398 facility on 7th March, 2007. I am expecting to receive the package in Dallas, TX itself. And when I looked up today, it still says the same message except that now it says 10th March, 2007. I don't have a clue where Amazon.com is shipping this particular product from. And I don't have a clue where it is currently either.  I clicked on the 'Additional d...

What Indians are searching for: After learning a few concepts about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I went on to find out what are the top 10 things Indians are searching for. First place to look for that information is obviously Google. And here are the top queries in January 2007 from India. (via Google ) India - Popular Queries for January 2007 indian railways cricket wikipedia sania mirza flowers air deccan aishwarya rai indian airlines cricinfo airtel ndtv salman khan katrina kaif nokia mallika sherawat What the world is searching for in/about or around India: If that is what Indians are searching for, let us see what the whole world is searching for in or about India (via Yahoo ): Searches done in January 2007 about India: Total:  451995  69791: india times  56280: india yahoo  51911: india railway  37447: india travel  35734: india map  34057: india sex  32657: arie india  28534: air ind...

Whenever we think of collaboration and community built documentation, I believe there is no other form best suitable than wikis. Along with religious patronage by Open source communities and new web2.0 entrepreneurs, many Small businesses started adapting Wikis as an integral part of collaboration platforms. Applications like Jotspot (acquired by Google) makes it lot easier for anybody to get started. I heard that a few corporates are giving it a try too. I love the concept of Wikis and its underlying power of simple and yet powerful collaboration for any kind of enterprise small or big. Wikis are particularly important for virtual teams, where team members are physically distributed throughout the world and there is a need for a precise and lots of coordination required. But it looks like its a long way to go before wikis are accepted. Still many corporate managers are very reluctant to accept wiki, some even to give it a try. The management at my workplace has decided...