Thiyagaraj Krishna

And just when you began to think that I was letting my blog die without being fed with its much needed ‘posts’, I am back with an update!

After two weeks of training and POC’s I finally cleared the IBM Certified Solution Developer exam(Test-284) for WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances exam yesterday with a good score and held upto my manager’s hopes! The DataPower Certification exam was said to be quite tough and needed a lot of attention to clear it successfully!! The going was a tough one as there are a lot of questions in the exam with plenty of Use Cases and scenarios which weren’t completely covered in the classes, but most, which if you analysed the question correctly would narrow you down to two choices or less! All of this made me take up almost the entire duration of the exam, a little over two hours. I have found that I finished two other exams I took (Teradata Certified Professional and an IBM Certified Database Associate) with more than half an hour to spare. But ultimately, alls well that ends well!

A big kudos to the organisers, staff and mentors from IBM! (Tapan, Sateesh, Vanishree, Yaseen, Manu and all others!)

I also got to know that our batch were among the first people(after Yaseen) to take up this exam in the Asia Pacific Region! Cool! Makes it even more special! And with almost everyone clearing the exam, it was happy moments indeed!

I am now officially certified for WebSphere DataPower!! Yaay!!

I came across this site via the Instant Messenger status of one of my pals which promises to donate ten grains of rice for every word you get right in their vocabulary game. The game works like this, a word is presented to you with four probable synonyms. You are given the task of choosing one that best relates to the current word. If you answer correctly, ten grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to end World Hunger and as you play, you also get to see a nifty bowl beside with some graphical grains in it!

Fun apart, this seems to be a noble initiative to end world hunger, and all you have to do is play the game! The game is quite interesting I tell you and you get to build your vocabulary too. If you select a wrong option, you are told the right option and are allowed to play again. You can learn a lot of new words this way and I also read that the system automatically guesses your vocabulary level and adjusts accordingly! Cool! And as you keep guessing the right answers, ten grains of rice are donated for each correct guess!
I played for a few rounds and had some 100 grains in my basket when I was curious as to how this was being funded. I noticed ads at the bottom from some biggies like American Express and just checked the FAQs and found that the rice was sponsored by the ads! Way to go guys, A noble initiative for a noble cause!

Start donating free rice NOW!

During one of my sojourns on the Internet, I came across this web page, aptly titled “The Arrow of Time”. It is a web page which was put up by an Argentinian Photographer, Diego Golberg where he and his family took a picture of themselves every year on the 17th of June since 1976. The web page becomes a snapshot of them in time as every year rushes by.

The page has pictures of the couple from 1976 till 2007 as of now! We have to wait till June 17th 2008 to see the next round of updates! Makes me feel like taking a photo of myself every year too!

Check out this page and wish you a very Happy Diwali guys!

Via Email.

 A couple were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. Their domestic peace had long been the talk of the town.

“What a peaceful & loving couple”.. A local newspaper reporter was inquiring as to the secret of their long and happy marriage.

“Well, it dates back to our honeymoon,” explained the man. “We visited the Grand Canyon and took a trip down to the bottom on the canyon by horse. We hadn’t gone too far when my wife’s horse stumbled. My wife quietly said, ‘that’s once’.

“We proceeded a little further and the horse stumbled again. Once more my wife quietly said, ‘That’s twice.’

“We hadn’t gone a half-mile when the horse stumbled the third time. My wife quietly removed a revolver from her purse and shot the horse dead.

“I started an angry protest over her treatment of the horse, while I was shouting; she looked at me, and quietly said, ‘That’s once’.

“And we lived happily ever after!”

Some days back, I checked out the Google Indic Transliteration service. I was amazed at the way the guys have implemented it!! It is dissimilar from most other transliteration services in many ways. Here, you get the word in your selected language, say tamil the moment you type a word in english and hit the space bar or a punctuation symbol. If the spelling appears incorrect, clicking on the word gives you more suggestions and the word can also be edited as needed.

I found that it worked like a charm for most words, which I verified with some of my friends as I am weak in Tamil. Hindi seemed to work fine too and a friend of mine said Kannada was also transliterating to their respective correct spellings! Way to go guys!! The languages currently supported by this application are Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. It works better if you type a word in English which a English speaking person would pronounce correctly, for example, in tamil, the word “portions”(English) would not transliterate correctly, but typing “poshuns” seemed to do the job >:-)

Check out Google Indic Transliteration!

Following my last post about the stray bullet that hit Niharika Jeena, I took today’s newspaper, again turned to page 3 and found an article informing that the Army had admitted that there were firing sessions that were going on around that time at the military camp.

The army had denied this fact earlier! An army official had told the Times of India that a DSC(Defence Security Corps) unit was engaged in firing practice around that time. The bullets were the same, and the bullet had apparently travelled 4 kilometers before hitting her! I couldn’t find an online version of that article, looks like it hasn’t been uploaded or something, but you can take a look at the e-paper provided by the Times of India.

Now that they have confirmed it, it remains to be seen whether they take the necessary steps to prevent bullets from going all over the city.

I woke up this morning, it was a normal day, opened my door and picked up the newspaper! Read the headlines hmmm… Turned to page 3 and wtf?!

“Stray bullet injures techie”

I was intrigued and continued reading! Apparently a lady by name Niharika Jeena, an employee with Cognizant Technologies was returning home when something hit her. This happened at the Ejipura Signal, next to the Intermediate Ring Road, Bangalore, holy crap!! Thats the route I have been taking every working day for more than a year now!! Apparently it hit her in her abdomen and then she was taken to the hospital by some wise passer-by in an autorickshaw. She is said to be out of danger now, thank god!

But now I am paranoid about taking that exact route and was almost bracing myself for impact on the way home! The cause for this unfortunate incident is suspected to be the Iblur Military Camp which is in the vicinity where routinely firing practice takes place. Apparently a bullet could have ricocheted and taken a different direction to the road, though the army vehemently denies that the bullet could have come from one of its weapons, saying that firing was stopped at 2:oo PM that day and this incident happened at night around 7:15 PM.

Getting fired at your job is one thing. Getting fired on your way back from your job is a totally different thing! I hope they investigate and find the root cause for this, or if nothing is taken up, I guess all of us using that route should add a kevlar helmet and a kevlar jacket to our ebay wish lists and hope we dont get fired at either end!