2007+1

Another year passes by, leaving me more perplexed than ever,

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008

ps- I just spilt an entire cup of coffee on my keyboard, mouse and table. I cleaned but everything is still so sticky. I will just never learn, dear 2008.

ps2- It's a leap year! I'll be drinking tonight.

ps3- I didn't watch the sunset this time, though I used to watch sunset of 31st Dec always.

ps4- December was just great!

su - ozak

I'm done! My first job is over. I've clicked pictures here and there, burnt 3.07 GB of nostalgia and bid goodbye to many. Right now, I've completed all the exit formalities and am waiting for a friend to come. Incidentally, it's one of my friend's birthday today so I don't have to go back home. The ride back home alone would have been melancholic as I'm leaving some really good stuff behind me. It was great -coming out of college-moving to a big city-few friends to accompany-work-learn-be responsible-work-learn- ... . I've learnt more in last 1½ than I did in 4 years of engineering. Learning by experience is the best way to learn.

I was able to sucessfully pursue the dream. It might appear a bit dry that I was just keen on changing a job and called it the dream? Dreams aren't supposed to be such hackneyed stuff. But the way I carried myself loosely in last few years, it was no less than a dream.

I hated outlook before coming to office. I thought it's one of the most useless softwares made my microsoft which complicates things, opens virus attachments unwarrantedly and acts sophisticated to give you a "corporate" feel. It was good to have a mind shift by experience. Software engineer- An insider's view and An outsider's view are way too different. I intend to write it in detail sometime later. Lastly it might be lingering in your mind, why this blog is titled su - ozak? It's a linux command that I used atleast 25 times in my daily work, so it looks apt to name it this way. su is switch user ozak was my linux ID with special admin privileges that I used for logging and doing stuff as a part of my job responsibility that a normal developer was not supposed to do.

Bangalore is a pretty nice place, it just needs a bit of self-policing to make itself nicer! Hyderabad, I'm pretty sure it would be nice and I've hordes of Hyderabad lovers around me. Biryani is good nonetheless! kill -9 0

Hoax

[October 19th, 3:30 PM]
The blaring fire hooter soon became intolerable. The sloths in various cubicles got up rubbing their eyes and asking each other incuriously,

"Hey, what happened, fire?"
"Some other floor should be in flames!"
"I can't see any smoke!"
"We shall wait."
"Aaah, I don't wanna go down the stairs."
"It must be the fire drill. Let's wait!"
"Someone could be smoking near the smoke detector."

When a few energetic souls rushed down to stairs, others too dragged themselves down to the earth, hoping to see atleast some floor in flames so that their momentous effort is not in vain. As we reached down, we were surprised to see the big crowd already present there. It was easy to feel the excitement and palpitation. No one was having a clue to whatever that happened, but everyone was looking at the big building from different sides and angles searching for flames or smoke! I guess people were striving to be the "first person" to spot the fire so that they can shout in the middle. Minutes passed, everyone was restless as there wasn't any fire and the building had the same platitudinous aura in the afternoon sunshine. A while after,the bomb was dropped!! After some coaxing,the stern-faced security guy announced "There's a bomb somewhere in the building!". Now, I truly feel he shouldn't have said somewhere. Again a round of speculations,

"Bomb. Who put it?"
"What kinda bomb?"
"It's in sixth floor. The security guy told me."
"It may be in the parking area, 1st floor?"
"If the still girders melt, the whole building will collapse."
And to top it all,
"Can it be a human bomb?".

I just love people! They can be so "un-funnily" creative at times that you got to salute them! Everyone was smiling and speculating, it was like a festival. Soon police vehicles arrived, and now everyone thought it's not a prank (or who knows, a high-level prank!). Security guys had a tough time moving people away from the building, they all wanted to see it explode I guess. People had mobile phones in their hand in Video mode hoping to shoot a video of the bursting building( and sell it at high price to Aajtak, NDTV et al!). It took 3 hours to search the building. The excitement soon died down and everyone was tired due to standing in sun. Some were sitting in lawn, some roaming around the pathway and so on.Personally, I was more worried that if it really explodes then all will run at once and there may be a stampede!(They won't stand and shoot the video for sure!) The boredom got better of me and I decided to move away to a friend's house nearby. As it turned out to be, there wasn't any bomb. It was just a hoax! We resumed to our work merrily.

Who would like to bomb bored working souls?

Qualcomm Interview Experience

I remember frantically searching for job interview experiences on net when I had to go through one. I became lazy, once I got the job and forgot that I should post to help out others. Here’s my interview experience at Qualcomm, Hyderabad for the job of DSP Engineer.

// Posted on March 23, 2008 in backdate.

The process: There will be one/two round(s) of telephonic interviews to select candidates for onsite interview. There will 6-7 onsite interviews generally on the same day, of which typically 5 are technical and remaining on HR and career aspirations.

Qualcomm Interview

October 12, 2007

Hyderabad, India

Round-I: KG, Manager

Duration: 45 mins

Questions

Tell me about yourself.

Where are you working?

What are your job responsibilities?

Long discussion with various questions on job, questions on clearcase etc.

Why do you want to change your job?

What are your technical skills?

You don’t like to do Build & Release?

How good are you at C and C++? What do you prefer?

What is object oriented programming?

What is encapsulation & polymorphism? Examples.

What kinds of variables are found in C?

Explain static & extern with the help of an example.

What is difference between static and global?

Showed a code segment and asked various static/global variable related questions, compiler level questions.

Round-II: SK, Manager

Duration: 25 mins

Questions

What are you working at presently?

Why do you want to change your job?

Questions and contradictions followed

You’ve mentioned in your CV about JTAG emulators. Explain.

What tools do you use in your job? Explain them!

What scripting languages you know? Explain with examples.

Describe your job responsibilities.

Discussion on various aspects, discussion on this job that I applied for

Round-III: KK, Senior Enginner & SSV, Lead Engineer

Duration: 70-75 mins

Questions

What are you working at presently? What tools do you use?

Discussion on Linux commands and clearcase fundas and platforms( Unix/Windows)

What CM tools do you know?

What are your job responsibilities?

What are the steps involved in compiling a program?

How are objects files (.o) used during compiling?

Explain assembling, linking etc. from compiler’s point of view.

Do you remember your B.Tech courses?

What is static and dynamic process?

Explain about processes. What are threads? How many types of processes? How process transition takes place?

Explain about memory allocation. Explain Physical and Logical addresses.

My computer has a word of 2^16 but at once only 2^10 can be read. How will it be written in memory?

You’ve mentioned about scripting. What do you know? Which scripts?

Write a script for [Scenario].

Explain the logic.

What other logics can be used? Can you optimize your script?

Write a script for [Scenario].

Optimize this script.

Write a script for [yet another scenario].

What is your experience in Perl and Shell?

What are make-files? Write a make-file for .

Round of questions on make-file, questions on rules, target, prerequisite and directives, build-avoidance etc

What do you know in DSP?

Explain your B.Tech. Project (OFDM)

Long discussion on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing and various aspects of implementation.

What is IFFT? Why is it used in OFDM? How are orthogonal signals generated? Show us on paper.

What is encoding? What is interleaving? Give examples. Show us on paper.

What are error-correcting codes? Explain and give examples.

What is Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)? Why is it used?

How is a QAM signal generated?

What is the phase difference? What is constellation diagram? Draw constellation diagram for 16-QAM.

How is the shape of constellation diagram decided? What are its implications?

Draw some constellation diagrams and explain. What are the phases in a 4-point QAM? Why not 0 phase?

What is hamming distance? Minimum hamming distance?

You know MATLAB? Tell something. What have you done on MATLAB?

You know CCS? What have you done on that?

What assembly language do you know?

Discussion on job I applied for..

Round-IV: SB, Manager & SG, Lead Engineer

Duration: 45 mins

It was mostly on my present job, work responsibilities and challenges. I was asked to give various examples and how I would respond in various hypothetical scenarios.

Various questions on Linux commands and scripts

What is your biggest contribution so far?

You’ve worked and seem to be good at Linux but how would you adjust to windows development environment here?

Round-V: AB, Lead Engineer

Duration: 40 mins

Questions

What do you do?

Explain make-files.

What can you do with make-files?

How is assembly language different from normal programming languages?

Write an assembly code to compute factorial of a no.

Optimize it.

Can you further optimize it? Make assumptions.

Discussion on my would-be job responsibilities here, if I’m selected

Round-VI: VK, HR/Staffing Specialist

Duration: 20 mins

Round-VII: DB, Director

Duration: 20 mins

Discussion on job, relocation, career aspirations etc.

September

How was my september? Anything worth to remember? Yes, in bits and pieces, but yes, nonetheless. I got rid of something which I shouldn't have ever accumulated at the first place.

The month started with a hopeful note. Few years back I had the beginning of a dream, but it was so far far away from ever becoming a reality that I couldn't dare to dream further. For a signifact part of this month, I chased it down, edged closer and closer but I still have some covering to do.The last day of the month was quite special. I met a very close schoolfriend after almost six years and ask me, was it fun? It was a blast! I wasn't quite in touch except few small, hasty yet conducive chats on yahoo messenger that was called for when one side was bored and the other busy. When you meet a old friend after many years, you discover so many new facets of changed lives. It almost felt like I was in a different world than them and suddenly the two worlds have united with their own characteristics intact. And yeah, I got the same old remark that goes like "Hey, you've not changed at all!" which is a mild way of putting "Hey, there's still no improvement in you. Why? I was expecting a bit, but that's fine, there's still time. Good luck!". :)

Hyderabadi Biryani never tasted so good!

My blog has become a dlog(deadlog). I haven't posted anything in last three months. The misery is graphically shown below.


As one would make out from this graph, I started blogging quite enthusiastically but it dried down later. The graph needs to plunge upwards in coming days.

For the time being, I'm posting some pics of Ooty and Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary. I went there last to last weekend and the whole experience was fabulous.





The cottage where we stayed!


The whole album can be found here: Ootacamund

Twenty something

Wow, I just realized that the title of this post can be associated with my age but I'm not gonna write about the quarterlife crisis stuff now. This tag I have got from Steve's blog and I think it's pretty simple stuff- answer twenty somethings. Here's what I feel about it:

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.

Okay!!The scar is on my right elbow, hence not much noticeable. I got it back in April 2001 probably. I was returning from a marriage party with my cousin(he was in class 9th then) to his house. Suddenly, we decided to race to home(in order to prove our supremacy over each other :D). The lane was peaceful and lined with tall eucalyptus trees. We both were running hard neck-to-neck and suddenly: black out!! Those dim fluttering streetlights left me obscured in darkness and my quandary probably took a little more time. I stumbled acrossed something, a stray piece of rock or an elevation in the ground, and next moment I fell flat on stomach. The reflex action brought elbow infront of my face and that was the point of impact. Hence I got the scar, which I mention in official forms now, when asked for physical identification mark.

2. What is on the walls in your room?

Tranquil light sky-blue coloured paint. I think it was a good choice of colour by my landlord. No posters on the wall now, however I don't mind putting one in future.

3. What does your phone look like?

Silver coloured MOTORAZR V3. I got it from my brother. The phone is overall good.
Positives: Nice grip, Wide Screen
Negatives: Bad UI design, Low memory space

A little off-topic information about my phone-using-career here, regarding my phones and service providers:



4. What music do you listen to?

Shall I refer you to my present previous post? :D .Needless to say I'm more Floydian than anything else on the offering. I listen to all those rock, metal, punk, old hindi, new hindi etc. I don't listen to pop, reggae, hip-hop etc. My iLike statistics might help:

Recently Played
Most Played
Fan of


5. What is your current desktop picture?

Laptop(Home): A pic I took from caged vehicle in a tiger park here in Bangalore.
Office PC: A pic of Delhi Metro by someone

6. What do you want more than anything right now?

Its 0025 now.Play scrabble with Steve, Sarat and Bobli...Or go for a walk... Or talk to some old friend on phone.. or.. I would have liked to do a lot of things now. There's a lot to make up for and a lot to do further.

7. Do you believe in gay marriage?

I presume gay includes lesbians also context-wise. So?? Let them marry and live happily thereafter. If one of my friends is up for it, I would surely attend his/her marriage but I'm gonna crack PJs there for sure. :D

8. What time were you born?

Between 1755-1800 as far as my mausi remembers :))

9. Are your parents still together?

My father lives far up above. My mother lives with me.

10. What are you listening to?

Post War Dreams - The Final Cut - Pink Floyd.
With me attending Aerosmith concert on June 2nd, I should rather be listening to them. Ain't it? But I'm addicted to addictive addictions.

11. Omitted!!Steve.. where is it?? You fool!

12. The last person to make you cry?

I don't really remember if I have cried in 2007. Probably not. Last year, I cried when I left college forever. I cried just after coming out of college gate, stopped for a while to take a good look backwards, and moved on.

13. What is your favourite perfume/cologne?

I'm not very fond of perfume or cologne. If I have to choose between two, I choose the cheaper one(price-wise not quality-wise :D). Presently I have this Charlie-SILVER-Revlon. Don't laugh, the bottle is almost full and I've to use it.

14. What kind of hair/eye colour do you like on the opposite sex?

I like girls with shining hair.Long, black and free-flowing.
I like cat-eyed girls, however funny that may sound. I probably don't notice eye-colour. We don't find blue-eyed-girls here, do we?

15. Do you like pain killers?

Noye! I don't like taking medicines of any sort unless absolutely necessary. It's addicive as far as I know. I already have many addictions. :D

16. Are you too shy to ask someone out?

I vary. I've asked out just befriended girls and at the same time I've not asked out girls whom I've liked for long. The latter causes sadness and the former has been quite exhilarating at times.

17. Fave pizza topping?

Almost all! Anything with cheese (I'm not said to be like mouse without a reason :D)

18. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?

It's summer. Icecream! I was thinking of getting one today. Right now, a dry fruit sundae would be great. Thanks!! (thanks for asking, I will satisfy myself with cold water now.)

19. Who was the last person you made mad?

I have no track of this. Do let me know if you turned mad after reading all this trash. :)

20. Is anyone in love with you?

I don't think so! I haven't done anything to have this by my side.

Hey, done!! It wasn't as laborious a work as it seemed to be at the beginning. I was probably intimidated by the number 20. Now I will let the generousity flow just like I picked this tag myself from Steve. Let me fly away now! You guys take good care of yourselves and finish this tag soon.

Trail of Music

When I created this blog, I named it Lost for Words in the same breath. I don’t know, probably I’m almost always at loss of words, or may be the lunatic in my head was more inclined towards this Floydian verse. It’s the impact, the ruminations that goes on subconsciously that makes you see things with this perspective. In the 70s, the anti-establishment punk rock inspired youth and influenced their lifestyles. Punk culture was symbolic of youthful rebellions, strange clothing, I-don’t-give-a-damn thinking and DIY (Do it yourself!) attitude. Music kept altering peoples’ lives and various genres had their own effect. For those people who live only to earn their bread, like me, music was just to give some moments of relaxation and unbridled self assessment. In my case, I can relate to music to some distinct phases of my life. A particular song brings me back to somewhere, where I had been at some point of time in my life. When I listen to My Sacrifice by Creed, I feel as if I’m traveling on top or the side stands of a jeep, leaning out with my hair blowing in the wind. No, I’m not demented or drugged enough to hallucinate; it’s just the primeval association of this song to those carefree days of my Rural Internship (May 2003, Gujarat).

I have more of such reminiscences. When I was preparing for engineering entrance examinations during class 12th (2001-2), I used to study whole night (seriously). I always had my walkman ear-plugged in nightlong (inferior technology of bygone days :) ) and I only had a few cassettes mostly of Bryan Adams and some of Boyzone(and other Boy bands). Even today when I listen to Bryan Adams, I visualize myself sitting in the drawing room with Physics book open, calculator, trash paper full of mathematics scattered around me. Any song of The Best of Me album will make me feel the same way. I always liked the songs of Rang De Basanti and I listened to it continuously during the period when college ended and job was yet to start. Today any RDB song especially Khoon Chala reminds me of those self motivating days. I will list down some more as I remember:


Class 8th 9th 10th - Britney Spears, Back Street Boys, J Lo ( What trash I used to listen!! But we all make mistakes in childhood :) )

Class 10th – Titanic Tunes ( Love it!! So romantic and melancholy)

Class 11th 12th – Bryan Adams, Boyzone, Celine Dion, Strings (Duur, Anjane etc.)

1st and 2nd semester – Progressive ( There was this assorted cassette. Had really good songs like In the End(LP), Youth of the Nation(POD), Headstrong(Trapt), California here we come etc.), The Wall by Pink Floyd( I was introduced to PF by my elder cousin. The first song was probably Shine on a New Crazy Diamond. I didn’t like it then, one of the grave childhood mistakes you see :), but I liked it after listening to We don’t need no education and since then it has been ON always.)

Rural Internship- Weathered Album by Creed particularly My Sacrifice and One Last Breath. (There was this young Class 8th guy whom we called RJ. He had this cassette luckily. The song One Last Breath reminds me of my biggest crush so far. After the infatuation got over, it has been my ringtone since last four years.)

Exam time in college- Bhavesh used to play enrique songs to keep us awake whole night. :)

Feb 2006 Delhi Trip- This was for the IMS Seminar for IIM interviews. We three friends were there. The song Zinda Hoon Main brings us back to the hotel room.

Mar 2006 Delhi Trip- This was for my IIMK interview and that time I was in awe of this Floyd song Lost for Words and listened it continuously.(I have this habit of listening the same song for weeks). This still reminds me of the great time I had with my cousins there.

June 2006 Shimla Trip- I hate to say but this trip was associated with Himesh Reshammiya ( I hope I have got the spelling entirely wrong). We travelled in a car and there were loads of Reshammiya cassettes, hence no choice. Gangster songs also marked this trip.)

Bangalore days- Mostly It has been Pink Floyd with notably high frequency of songs like The Final Cut, Wish You Were Here, On the Run etc. Iron Maiden follows next.

That’s it I guess. All these songs have bouts of memory behind them. It’s like having a trail to the past- listen a song and relate it to the bygone days. I’m nostalgic, am I not?

Graffiti

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Startups

Wanna start a company? Good news!! India is 88th best country of this world to start a business. You have to go through, on an average, 11 procedures each spanning around 35 days. Not only this, once you have set up your business, India is the 134th best country of this world to carry on with ease.

Add to this, there are 175 countries only.

No wonder hardly anyone will go out on a limb to take this less trodden path. Statistics aren't so encouraging but I read somewhere that 57% of the statistics are useless :) and also the fact that the above survey by World Bank(in 2006) has placed Afganistan much above India for starting a business. I don't believe them, more because I don't wish to. With Taliban, Al-Qaeda, female suppression et al, they can't be better than India at least.

Sad but true, Enterpreneurship isn't really in Indian blood. Till a decade ago, anyone who thought of setting up a new company would have been pelted with stones(exaggeration allowed!). Life revolved around finishing studies quickly and bagging a job, especially govt. job, which ensured a luxurious(??) life against any financial drought. The advent of IT, resulted in unprecedented growth of places like Bangalore and Gurgaon and lately small industries have been spotted mushrooming around. They aren't even a handful considering the enormity of India, but better than nothing. Enterpreneurship in India has two big examples- one a company and other an individual. The Tatas and Birlas always had their legacy. Infosys, started by 7 someones in 1981, is the torch-bearer of enterpreneurial India. One man you can always look upto is Dhirubhai Ambani. His story from rags to riches is fascinating and inspiring. Besides these few, there haven't been many tides in the unexplored deep ocean.

Lately, there has been spurs. I've heard of people around me talking of setting up thier own company.The outlook towards self-establishment has broadened. With growing economy and more liberalized scenario, even young people of age-group 22-30 are setting up new firms. Fresh college graduates, people with 1-5 years work experience or older have started their own businesses in chosen sectors.Ofcourse, there are serious advantages. You can start your career as CEO/MD/Chairman :). Most of the startups are in field of IT or are internet-based because they're hot and skill-set is abundantly available. Some of them have very interesting concepts. All India Deals , which considers itself as a shopping-friend, is based on simple concept of searching online stores for best deals and discounts. Remember, e-bay started like this only. Some new companies tie-up with shopping malls, multiplexes etc. and give out cards which reaps benefit to the customer and ensures their continued visits. There are many other sectors which are largely unwashed by the enterpreneurial wave. I just hope that more people will jump in and join this bandwagon. There are people who are skilled, ambitious and willing to take initiatives. Indians have all the right ingredients to cook this recipe and serve to the world.