residual self image

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Sleeping beauty and the nasty bus driver


The company bus - the thing I hate the most but can’t do without. I have to pay an astronomical amount for using the bus though the place where I live is the nearest residential area with respect to my company’s location. And till last month getting the bus driver to stop on my bus-stop was next to impossible. I often had to perform a “tandav nritya” in the middle of the busy main road to catch the bus driver’s attention. But anything remotely female trying to stop the bus was enough for the driver to bring the bus to a screeching halt.

One day, I and another guy from my stop watched the bus fly past without stopping and we had to take an auto to the office. Now this guy had a girlfriend, who also traveled on the same bus. That day she lashed out at the driver and the conductor and hurled abuses on them. From that day onwards the driver always stops even if neither I nor my friend (the other guy at the stop) turns up to catch the bus.


I always have to sit at the back of the bus. Mine is the last stop before the bus reaches the company office. My friend always has a seat reserved for him by the side of his girlfriend. So I walk back to the last row of seats watching him settle down by the side of his girl friend wishing that I too had such a nice and caring girlfriend. The last row always has a permanent occupant.

A beautiful fair girl who is always sleeping. Mostly I sit besides her since there are no other seats available. She never opens her eyes and we have never talked. When the bus reaches the company campus somehow she always manages to know and wakes up. She always dresses quite well and wears socks even when she has sandals on. Maybe she is not keeping well… I always wonder why she is alone. Where’s her boyfriend? I never get to see her id tag...know her name…something to track her identity. Sometimes I wonder whether she is real. Such a beautiful girl all alone. I never get to talk to her after reaching the company campus, people rushing about here and there. I just pray to the almighty that next day she will be awake when I get on the bus and we can have a nice chat. It’s been more than a month since I first saw her. Am still praying.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Back after a week

I know it’s been a long time since I wrote on the blog. My apologies to all those who check out my blog occasionally, yeah I know about you people. :) I had put a page load tracker on the site through statcounter.com .Thanks for coming back regularly.

[My inner self]-:-“Shoonya, What you are really concerned about is whether anyone on this planet reads this blog. For all you know this blog is visited only by pet monkeys who jumped about on their owner’s keyboard and your blog somehow open up in the browser.”

No I am sure they are real people. The log shows that some of the same machines have checked out the blog 4-5 times.

[My inner self]-:-“Ever heard of the word "coincidence" ??”

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… My Inner Self. He’s going to be with us for hopefully only a few days.

[My inner self]-:-“Don’t even think about cutting me off the blog!”

I had been kind of busy last week rushing through the last stages of my training at the company. A couple of more weeks and I will be either in or out. Another reason that I wasn't writing anything for the past few days was that nothing exciting was happening around, it was raining most of the days and after office my primary concern was to get back to the warmth of my apartment and settle down before the TV with a packet of chips and a couple of 5star bars.

A sudden burst of energy on Saturday evening when I had to run like hell to catch the company bus after office hours made things worse. By the time I reached the gates I was totally out of breath and could barely stand, one of the security guys had to flag down the bus for me. The next day I wasn't feeling really good. I then took the decision to cut down on junk food and get some exercise everyday.

[My inner self]-:-“Oh Yeah??? You are not going to tell them about the poori and paneer that you had this afternoon instead of a proper nutritious meal and the huge burger in the evening??? Great dieting!

I am feeling much better today and that’s why you are reading this now. There is some great news; I might be getting myself a camera-phone this week. So be prepared for some wonderful blogging action.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

The Big Fight for the ERP market


For those who came in late:
The number of major enterprise software players started decreasing in the year 2003. PeopleSoft Inc. bought rival JD Edwards for $1.7 billion. Meanwhile Oracle had already started on its quest to acquire PeopleSoft and by late 2004 had forked out S10 billion for it.

The period saw antitrust cases against oracle in the US. Oracle was becoming dangerously big and the scene was reminiscent of the cases against Microsoft getting too big and dominating in the software markets during the late 1990s. The cases were ruled in favor of Oracle and business continued as usual.


Cut down to present day:
Oracle has just yesterday announced its decision to buy rival CRM software company Siebel Systems for $5.85 billion. With that Oracle is slated to become the number one CRM applications company in the world.

The deal further bolsters Oracle's aggressive drive to overtake SAP as the world's largest maker of business applications software -- the computer coding that automates a wide range of administrative tasks. In the past nine months, Oracle has either completed or announced five takeovers of business applications software makers, an expansion that has cost more than $17.6 billion so far.

This obviously has the other big companies in the enterprise customer market Microsoft and IBM scrambling for shelter. Microsoft was very late to start off its ERP product line and will now find it much more difficult to get a foothold in the market. Meanwhile IBM’s solutions have had compatibility problems with Oracle’s softwares- its focus had been on solutions based on ERP’s like PeopleSoft. And would SAP still be around a couple of years down the lane?


Since Oracle has its own suite of ERP packages it won’t be long before it kills the competing product lines acquired by it. That would leave thousands of businesses with no other option but to shift to Oracle or look elsewhere. How soon that happens remain to be seen. These businesses and software solution providers that have invested millions of dollars in ERP implementation will now have to helplessly watch all that money go down the drain. And there are all those people who would now lose their jobs.


There are a large number of small players bringing out exceptional products. But if Oracle continues on its quest to be the biggest, these specialized companies will be gobbled up either by Oracle or by Microsoft (which has already starting by targeting the small and medium-size companies). Last year Microsoft made an attempt to buy SAP but backed out when it realized the complications involved. Just like Microsoft’s Windows OS runs on more that 90% of the world’s desktops, it won’t be long before somebody totally owns the ERP market. When that happens we would have some really terrible software around ourselves.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

i am LOST


The hit series from the american abc tv "LOST" came to Indian shores last week on Star Movies last staurday. I missed the pilot episode - a transformer blew up near my house and knocked out electricity in the area. Luckily there was a repeat show this friday night.

In Lost, after Oceanic Air flight 815 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes on a mysterious Pacific island, a band of 48 friends, enemies and strangers are forced to work together in order to survive. Shot exclusively in Hawaii and filmed like a big screen spectacle, Lost is almost a movie in multiple episodes rather than a TV show.The survivors are beset by giant polar bears, villainous people, a frightening wraithlike creature, and, worst of all, their own personal demons.

The pilot was something like 2 hours and man it was really cool. The production budget for the two-hour pilot was $12 million, far greater than the cost of most television shows.This led to Disney firing ABC Entertainment Chairman Lloyd Braun for greenlighting the show, which went on to became ABC's biggest hit in years. more "LOST" trivia

Never seen anything like this on a tv show, it's a good thing that nobody made a movie out of this. All the fun would have been compressed into 2 hours. The first season depicts the first 40 days on the island.

You have to admit the story is anything but realistic, but the execution is awesome. Its supposed to be a Sci-fi ...the entire plot is avaiable on the net but i have managed to keep myself from spoiling the suspense. I will just have to make sure that i don't miss any of the episodes.

LOST reminds me of the pc game FARCRY- an offering from a then-relativly-unknown developer
CRYTEK Studios. Farcry was a smashing hit, radically different from contemporary shooters. Both Farcry and LOST share the same visual setup-beautiful mysterious islands and an gripping gameplay/storyline that keeps you glued to the PC and TV respectively.

Wish my company sends me on an overseas junket and the plane crashlands on a beautiful
Hawaii island.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

AOE 3 DEMO is OUT

If you have played games on PC, you must have heard about Microsoft's "AGE OF EMPIRES". most gamers simply love this game. and now microsoft is out with the latest offering from the AOE series........


AGE OF EMPIRES 3 ......


and.................


The AOE3 demo is OUTTTTTTTTTT !!!!!!!!!!

just released today.........

Download it right here! (~350mb)

I won't say much, I bet you won't read whatever and go straight to downloading anyway!

The minimum specs for the Demo are:

  • Windows XP
  • 1.4Ghz Processor
  • 256MB of RAM
  • 64MB Video Card that supports HardWare Transform & Lighting (HW T&L)
  • Approximately 350MB of free HD space, not including the installer and room for the temporary files

Server Busy.....no problem ..... here are the alternatives from FileMirrors

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

nothing


am going thru a professionally tough time...lots of exams...bye.

PS: review of "5 Point Someone - What not to do at an IIT" coming soon.

Thursday, September 01, 2005