Good things always have an "END"

Whenever I used to think about the courses we were studying, only word that came to my mind was "USELESS". I always used to find it difficult to survive till the end of the semester but this semester flew like a rocket.

This ( 5th ) semester was the best in terms of the courses we studied. I liked all the courses (except the usual maths one which always gives me a tough time) but I enjoyed Operating systems, Databases and Data Communications (Yeah, I know Nandi sir sucked but the course was interesting ) the most. I am really not worried about the grades this semester as I studied regularly( I swear !!) and I know grades will reflect them. Now I know how people like "Mukund" , "AA" are so calm and composed all the time.

and now when the semester has ended what I am missing my courses so much that I have started reading the rest of the silberschatz. I am hoping for the same kind of courses (enjoyable ones) next semester.

Note : I know it looked like a geeky one but it was short guys, please don't complain. Okie, next post on hypocrisy (Attention GS!!)

Create ER diagrams from SQL

I needed to make a schema for my recent database project. I already had the sql tables, so I decided to try making the schema an easy way. The following procedure was followed on my ubuntu machine.

Step 1: Install sqlfairy

sudo apt-get install sqlfairy

Step 2 : Install mysql or oracle(if you don't have it already)

apt-get instal mysql-server5.0

Step 3 : sqlt-diagram -d=MySQL -o=hmc.png hmc.sql --color

This will create a colored image, hmc.png taking table details from hmc.sql, where -d=MySQL specified the MySQL driver.

Easy, isn't it...

You can read more about sqlfairy from the link provided. It provides a lot of other magical features.

Trip to Gangtok - Part 1

Gangtok: We were on-board with 2nd class tickets. Thanks to Pranay who got us seats and we had a (relatively) comfortable journey.

As Lewis Carroll said:
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."


This trip was probably the best trip of my life mainly for two reasons:

1. The trip was fully unplanned, so no worries of booking hotel, tickets or things like that.
2. and I celebrated my B'Day at a height of more than 17000 ft., that was amazing.

As soon as the train left the station, we again started with our cards, though pranay was feeling sleepy and went on the first floor soon. We three kept on playing 3-2-5 game for as long as I can remember. The train was running at its top speed and we reached NJP in just 7 hrs. There we headed for a dhaba as we all missed our dinner. After that we took a cab for siliguri and from there to Gangtok.

The climate was calm. It rained during most of the journey, needless to say I loved it ( my love for rain is evident from the fact that I never attend a class on a rainy day).

The rest of the trip was more adventurous and exciting than I thought. Driving through the terrain with no roads,chatting with an army man of my village, drinking through-out the journey( I drank 1/2 wine, a quarter of rum and some breezers in a single day and luckily did not get any abdominal pain ;) ) and I driving Thakur crazy with the line "Thakur haath kyun nahi utthatey".

Time to go, OS assignment is waiting for me and I don't want to make you more jealous. Ha Ha...


P.S. : Once again, Thanks to Thakur for making my 20th BirthDay a memorable one. Thakur rocks maxxx....(IIT-G communiy style).

Trip to tawang - Part 2

The worst and the best part of the journey was that it ended before it could start. Yes  guys...we all left the campus with dreams of tawang, snow and beautiful valleys in our mind and guess what, on reaching the bus stand we came to know about the curfew in Tezpur. Still we waited for 1 hr at the bus stand, looking at each other like asking what to do now? Actually no one wanted to go back to the rooms we left with so much hope and excitement. 

Soon Ashish came up with the idea of visiting shillong and Pranay appended it with "bikes". But that too was not acceptable to God, and we could not hire the bikes we wanted. Now again we started to stare at each other. And this time, we decided Gangtok to be the destination. We flew to the railways station at once. There we came to know that the train to NJP(West Bengal) is at 10:30 p.m. and it was only 4 p.m. . So we purchased the tickets and decided to roam in the city till then. 

So we kept the luggage in the cloak room of Vishal Mega Mart ( free as well as safe ;) )  and passed out time playing cards at the station, eating delicacies at Pizza hut and waiting for the train.

This was by far the most undecided and unplanned journey of ours.

Trip to Tawang - Part 1

The white snow is the second thing that fascinates me after Cinderella. Also It had been long when we went on a trip together. So I and kamal decided that we will go somewhere these holidays even if its 2 k.m. away. And the opportunity came knocking at our door when ashish asked us to join him on a trip to tawang. We will be leaving in the evening today though we don't have the passes yet. Listen what pranay has to say on this:

"chalo yaar, tezpur tak chalteey hain. passes miley to theek warna ghoom phir k waapas aa jaayengey".

Anyways I am too much excited to see those beautiful valleys. I just hope we get to enter Arunachal.

Note: Please bear with me for my better future.

Abdominal Pain

While drinking coke at the canteen, I remembered the words of my doctor :

"....nitin, you are diagnosed with hepatic stetosis, so improve your eating habits. Drinking and smoking are not allowed and also try to get something less oily and fatty...."

There exists only two type of days in my life, one when i am ill having a little stomach pain, acidity, and the other when I am more ill when I have this unbearable stomach pain, chest pain, acidity at its height. Yeah you guessed it right, I follow his instructions only the other days and take a resolution to follow them always. I cry in pain, "God, save me. I will (not) follow his instructions always and forever". But all in vain, as soon as I get into my good days i.e. when i am less ill, I again start this Maggie, coke, smoke and all other banned stuff. 

You might not understand why I am making so much fuss over stomach pain. So here is a little diagnosis . If you are having abdominal pain, you might be suffering from :

1. little indigestion(thank to god!!! why? read ahead and you will know.)
2. Gas ( did you drink too much coke or ate something that upset your stomach. again thank god!)
3.  Stomach ulcer ( ever got mouth ulcer and tried to chew everything from the other side of mouth. try the same with stomach, might relieve you a little!!)
   
4. pregnancy (there are better ways to know if you are pregnant. So this one gets eliminated.!!)
5. food Poisoning.
6. liver and pancreas inflammation. ( the one I am having!!)
7. Heart attack ( I hope you will thank god next time if you had pain for cause 1 or 2)
8. kidney stones. (You might have to live on pills for rest of your life.)
9. Appendicitis ( inflammation of the appendix.)
10. Irritable bowel syndrome ( IBS). why IBS causes stomach pain is still a mystery( as per the website i am referring to.)

And the bad news is that for all these...pain is the same. So remember to get some doctor's advice before you take a meftal or buscopan next time. 

and for all those who drink, "remember the drink limit", otherwise you also might be writing something similar in the near future. I will soon write on my past drinking habits to let you estimate your limits.

That was a little on abdominal pain, for more there is always the great, mighty, endless, "GOOGLE"...

Note: I still drink but it has decreased to .0000001% of what I used to drink an year back. For this,  thanks to "vodafone".

Telephonic Interveiw for sun CA

After the HP CA prank, I thought of not applying for the Sun CA but Anurag insisted and I sent my CV to Nandi. After a month when I and Anurag almost forgot about it, we got a mail from Anuradha Sen(Sun MicroSystems) asking for our contact nos. And then we realized that we are the only two who actually applied for the CA. Both of us went crazy at the whole idea that "chalo ghar ki baat ghar mein he reh jaayegi ;)". 

So We scheduled the interview after the OS exam. As I had already given a telephonic interview with Harpreet for which I was not at all prepared(at that time I din even know what a telephonic interview means), I started preparing for the most important, easy and usually asked question.."Tell Me about yourself".. I spent 2 hours preparing for it. Then I started to wait for the call and as I waited, my nervousness started to gain heights. 

and then, Tring Tring ...Tring Tring...

Me: Hello,

Anu: Hi nitin, I am anu from sun. How are you doing..?

Me: Absolutely fine Ma'm!!(I thought of asking "how are you" here but ....)

Anu: So how was your OS exam?

Me: It was good, rather very good (really guys.....for the first time..)

Anu: That's great, So why don't you tell me something about critical region.

(I thought "is she serious"... I just gave the OS exam ma'm )

Me: (And then I came to know how bad I am in creating definitions) Ma'm critical region is important in the multithreaded environment where a lot of threads or processes share common data, so access to it is kept in critical region which is executed by a single thread at a time so that the data is not corrupted. ( and blah blah blah....)

Anu: So nitin, is it all about data..( I tried to say something, but she immediately said:), I think you mean any shared resources..

Me: Yes Ma'm

Anu: So nitin, tell me what do you know about openSolarisis?

Me: I  hardly use Solarisis. I mostly use windows and linux.

Anu: So which one do you prefer.

Me: Most of the time I prefer windows only(I think she wanted to hear linux, but i wanted to be true)

Anu: okie...thats for the GUI but you must be doing your course work on Linux. 

Me: Yes,

Anu: So nitin , Do you use java..?

Me: yes ma'm, java is my fav. language.

Anu: and NetBeans?

(What the heck, din you read my CV, I cleary mentioned all these things)

Me: yes, for coding in java I always use NetBeans.

Anu: So nitin, have you given any technical presentations?

(For a moment I was lost but when I came back to my senses I had already answered and I think i lied a bit )

Anu : How do you plan to work as a CA?

Me: Ma'm , As a CA I want to be a bit more active than my seniors in conducting a few more session on new technologies. Also I am planning to conduct a purely java programming contest sponsored by Sun during my term. Also if possible, some lectures on JAVA, algo and something related from your side.

Anu: But what will you do to insrease the participation?

Me: (What to say!! I will shout from the roof top) Ma'm I will make sure people understand the concept of java and its need as well as simplicity and power. 

Anu: Thank you nitin, it was nice talking to you. We will soon get back to you.

Me : Thank you. good day

You might be completely illusioned that it went well but you really don't know how many times my voice shaked and How nervous I was during the interview.

Anyways, It was my first official (HP was unofficial) telephonic interview so It was meant to go like that. The only regrets I have is that she din ask me the most difficult question "Tell me about yourself" or "why should we select you" as I had prepared for these well.

Thanks to Harpreet....You rock...

1 2 3 Go....

I was never comfortable with the whole idea of blogging. I always thought why would be anyone intrested in reading my experiences unless I make them sarcastic, or enjoyable and most of my experiences are far away from it, so what's the use. Although I find a lot of useful information from these blogs ranging from scientific stuff to free movie links, so i decided to start blogging.

Anyways as I just started to prepare for CAT, I thought it will be a god idea to blog. But really sometimes I wonder how people manage to type so much. I don't know where all this will go, for how long I will keep on blogging but let's give it a try.