Something good to read

Who Packed Your Parachute
An excerpt from Aim For The Heart by Tom Mathews

As a leader, do you honor and appreciate the power of WE? Do you stop to thank and recognize the members of your team? Do you consistently show an attitude of gratitude?

I recently read a great story about Captain Charles Plumb, a graduate from the Naval Academy, whose plane, after 74 successful combat missions over North Vietnam, was shot down. He parachuted to safety, but was captured, tortured and spent 2,103 days in a small box-like cell.

After surviving the ordeal, Captain Plumb received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and two Purple Hearts, and returned to America and spoke to many groups about his experience and how it compared to the challenges of every day life.

Shortly after coming home, Charlie and his wife were sitting in a restaurant. A man rose from a nearby table, walked over and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

Surprised that he was recognized, Charlie responded, "How in the world did you know that?" The man replied, "I packed your parachute." Charlie looked up with surprise. The man pumped his hand, gave a thumbs-up, and said, "I guess it worked!"

Charlie stood to shake the man's hand, and assured him, "It most certainly did work. If it had not worked, I would not be here today."

Charlie could not sleep that night, thinking about the man. He wondered if he might have seen him and not even said, "Good morning, how are you?" He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent bending over a long wooden table in the bottom of the ship, carefully folding the silks and weaving the shrouds of each chute, each time holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn't know.

Plumb then began to realize that along with the physical parachute, he needed mental, emotional and spiritual parachutes. He had called on all these supports during his long and painful ordeal.

As a leader, how many times a day, a week, a month, do we pass up the opportunity to thank those people in our organization who are "packing our parachutes?"

 

 

 

FW: Moral of the story is too Good

Moral of the story is too Good...................................

 A giant ship engine failed. The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.
Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.
"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!"
So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."
The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer...... ......... ........ $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap.......... ......... ...... $ 9,998.00
Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference

 

- 4 years of focused ASP.NET/C# development experience.

- 4 years SQL coding experience: Stored procedures, Tables, etc

- Strong communications

- Full SDLC experience

 

George Burns  - "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."

 

FW: Stress/Hope Teeter Totter by Wayne Perkins (Hynotist)

Stress/Hope Teeter Totter

Subtitle: Achieving Goals and Building Hope Requires Stress Annihilation


Why do you want to annihilate stress? The best reason for annihilating stress is because when you are in a stressful situation, you lose hope.

You lose focus on your goals. If you are a business professional responsible for bringing in new business, you may feel you want to give up.

Stress and hope sit at opposite ends of a teeter totter.

Do you remember when you where a small child playing on a playground at school. Many schools provided equipment for exercise. One of these pieces of equipment was a teeter totter. A teeter totter or seesaw as it is known in some places is simply a board balancing on a fulcrum with a place to sit at each end.

Two children sit on a teeter totter with the heaviest child sitting first in order for the lighter child to take a seat on the other end to balance out the load. They alternatively shift their weight to cause their seat on the teeter totter to go up and down.

Stress and hope work the same way as the two children conducting the balancing act on the teeter totter. Stress or fear as it is more accurately defined, and hope, or goals as it is more accurately portrayed, sit at opposite ends of the teeter totter.

As one end goes up the other end goes down. As stress increases its end goes higher in the air and hope goes down. As hope climbs higher in the air, stress goes down. Stress and fear are always opposing hope and goals.

It seems accurate that we need to annihilate stress and fear in order to elevate our hope and our goals.

I remember the movie the "Shawshank Redemption" where the wrongly imprisoned character, Andy, told the other inmates that hope was something no one could take away from you. He said "hope is a good thing, maybe the only thing."

We begin our lives here on earth, knowing that we could die or be incapacitated at any moment. This is why stress or fear is always near the surface of our thoughts.  The major thing that keeps us going is "hope;" hope for good health, hope for enjoyable relationships, hope for positive achievements and hope for enough money to pay for all of our desires.

To the degree that we can diminish stress and fear, we can elevate our goals and elevate hope. Is it difficult to keep hope alive while eliminating stress and fear? Yes it is difficult.

Fear is always appealing to our senses. Advertisers for example focus on our fears.

I remember an automobile commercial that started out by two guys arguing in the car and then an accident ensued. The two men were okay but shaken up visibly by the accident. Anyone watching the commercial can identify with the fear and stress associated with the accident.

Television newscasts focus on several fearful, stress causing events before they get to the sports news, business news or weather. Viewers become hooked on these stressful situations as they arrive home from work and while watching television.

Through all of our entertainment options we observe stress and fear. Words to incite fear are abundant in our spectator sports.

Think about the words and phrases you hear by sports commentators. Think about words and phrases like, "sudden death," "elimination round," "Yankees murder Red Sox," "Spurs defeat Suns."

The overwhelming majority of sports fans are affected by these terms because they are supporting "losing teams." There is usually only one world champion in any given sport, meaning all of the rest of the sports fans "feel stress and the agony of defeat." We experience the other end of the teeter totter as we lose hope.

Do you think we may carry some of this loss of hope into our jobs and our personal lives?

We are so used to being motivated by fear and stress that even our leisure time activities reflect it. Isn't that a shame?

Always remember these statements: "When we are playing on the teeter totter, stress is at one end and hope is at the other end." "We need to develop a quiet confidence to move our minds and bodies in the direction of hope."

What is your ultimate goal? Where do you want to be in five years? If you could time travel to a place in your life five years from now and look back at today, what would you tell yourself about today. How important are the stressful situations you face right now in your life? Would today even be that important in your overall success? Five years into the future, would you still be thinking about your favorite sports teams' loss of five years ago, or the price of gasoline?

Think about what life will be like five years into the future. Think about your victories, your goals and your hope.

The Teeter Totter Exercise:

Take three slow deep breaths. As you inhale slowly, breathe deeply from the bottom of your lungs. Before you exhale, hold your breath for a few moments and then exhale very slowly. Push all of the tension out of your lungs.

See yourself on the teeter totter flying higher in the air. Think about hope. Think about your specific goals and feel in your mind, your heart and your body that you have already achieved your goals.

 

Summary:

Stress and hope are constantly competing on your teeter totter of life. Stress always equals fear and hope always equals your goals. Use the teeter totter exercise daily and you will take a huge step to annihilate stress and propagate hope.

 

FW: Good Initiative taken by IIT's & IISc FREE LINK for all books !

Dear All,

The IITs have taken up an initiative of starting online teaching and thus have started offering course materials online for every engineering stream.

Many professors from all the IITs have provided course materials for each chapter and each subject.

One has to register at the link provided below and can access the course material free of cost.

Every Chapter has been described with diagrams and charts. Please spread this message to everyone, as many can benefit from this program taken up by the government and IIT.

This is just a trial period going on and hence i request everyone to register at the link given.

1] Type the following address on internet explorer http://www.nptel.iitm.ac.in

2] Click on Courses

3] sign up as a NEW USER

4] And one can access any course material.

Please spread the word, so that this initiative benefits as many students as possible.

In life there are two kinds of people a gogetter and everyone else.

 

FW: Suuuuperb Mail !

 

I smiled after looking at the first photo...you will also smile. You thought the dog is imitating the man. .... Just scroll down and you will get to know the story of Will Power. Here it goes.... Entertaining the college kids...right? Now have a close look at it.... So.... Got the message??? Despite being an animal he gets respect... He gets warm welcome everywhere.... He gets a pat on his shoulder... He is STAND-ALONE   The doors are open for only those who believe in themselves and those who have Will Power which can make an animal walk on TWO LEGS....!!

 

 

Remember Rule #1...It's Golden
An excerpt from The Power of Attitude by Mac Anderson

I grew up in Trenton, a west Tennessee town of five thousand people. I have wonderful memories of those first eighteen years, and many people in Trenton influenced my life in very positive ways. My football coach, Walter Kilzer, taught me the importance of hard work, discipline, and believing in myself. My history teacher, Fred Culp, is still the funniest person I've ever met. He taught me that a sense of humor, and especially laughing at yourself, can be one of life's greatest blessings.

But my father was my hero. He taught me many things, but at the top of the list, he taught me to treat people with respect...to live the Golden Rule. I remember one particular instance of him teaching this "life lesson" as if it were yesterday. Dad owned a furniture store, and I used to dust the furniture every Wednesday after school to earn my allowance. One afternoon I observed my Dad talking to all the customers as they came in...the hardware store owner, the banker, a farmer, a doctor. At the end of the day, just as Dad was closing, the garbage collector came in.

I was ready to go home, and I thought that surely Dad wouldn't spend too much time with him. But I was wrong. Dad greeted him at the door with a big hug and talked with him about his wife and son who had been in a car accident the month before. He empathized, he asked questions, he listened, and he listened some more. I kept looking at the clock, and when the man finally left, I asked, "Dad, why did you spend so much time with him? He's just the garbage collector." Dad then looked at me, locked the front door to the store, and said, "Son, let's talk."

He said, "I'm your father and I tell you lots of stuff as all fathers should, but if you remember nothing else I ever tell you, remember this...treat every human being just the way that you would want to be treated." He said, "I know this is not the first time you've heard it, but I want to make sure it's the first time you truly understand it, because if you had understood, you would never have said what you said." We sat there and talked for another hour about the meaning and the power of the Golden Rule. Dad said, "If you live the Golden Rule everything else in life will usually work itself out, but if you don't, your life probably will be very unhappy and without meaning."

I recently heard someone say, "If you teach your child the Golden Rule, you will have left them an estate of incalculable value." Truer words were never spoken.

 

“Don’t count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count”

Target

 

22 scripts fixed

 

Work till 12 am

 

 

Failing is not a crime, aim to low is a crime.

 

100s of players only 1 ball.

is to learn how to take advantage of resources available to you.

 

A lot of people out of college seemed really focused on specific languages. There are concepts in programming that apply to nearly every language, and some that apply to every language. So don't be too worried about which language you should learn. Spend time getting to know the broader concepts. In particular different approaches to coding, the most important (in my view) being top-down methodology. If you do top-down properly, you can write anything in any language.

 

Learn design patterns common to different languages (though many are shared). You can always look up specific pieces of code you need as you go. Focus on the big picture

 

 

There are 100s of guys every one wants to grow. You have to present your work smartly. Smart Work.

 

FW: Read this good article in your spare time.

 

 

 

 

An excerpt from The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them."

Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry - his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing.

How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I'll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land...and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants - one corn, one poison.

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant...success...or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal...or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.

You see, the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.

 

 

 

1.     class Node:

2.         def __init__(self,value):

3.             self.data = value

4.             self.next = 0

5.            

6.     class List:

7.         def __init__(self):

8.             self.firstNode = Node(0)

9.            

10.      def __ShowNodeData(self,aNode):

11.          if aNode.next != 0:

12.             print aNode.data

13.             self.__ShowNodeData(aNode.next)

14.         

15.      def Dump(self):

16.          self.__ShowNodeData(self.firstNode)

17.         

18.      def InsertAfter(self,aNode,aNewNode):

19.          aNewNode.next = aNode.next

20.          aNode.next = aNewNode

21.     

22.      def InsertBeginning(self,aNewNode):

23.          aNewNode.next = self.firstNode

24.          self.firstNode = aNewNode   

25.     

26.  nodeA = Node("A")

27.  nodeB = Node("B")

28.  nodeC = Node("C")

29.  nodeD = Node("D")

30.   

31.  aList = List()

32.   

33.  aList.InsertBeginning(nodeB)

34.  aList.InsertAfter(nodeB,nodeD)

35.  aList.InsertAfter(nodeD,nodeC)

36.  aList.InsertAfter(nodeC,nodeA)

37.   

38.  aList.Dump()

 

Just be Confident.

 

Selfcontrol

 

Visualize

 

proactive

 

Act

 

 

 

DELETE

'Data for Script

'Cat display in advertisers tab for pub

CatDisplayAdvertiserTabPub_strPubId=K138

CatDisplayAdvertiserTabPub_strAdvIdJoin=21000000000160196

CatDisplayAdvertiserTabPub_strAdvIdApproved=21000000000138121

CatDisplayAdvertiserTabPub_strAdvIdPending=21000000000011300

CatDisplayAdvertiserTabPub_strIdDeactivated=21000000000008541

 

'Modify layout of informational links on tabular advertiser display

ModifyLayoutInfoLinks_strJoinAdv=All State Motor Club

ModifyLayoutInfoLinks_strApprovedAdv=ActiveMusician.com

ModifyLayoutInfoLinks_strPendingAdv=Test Client

ModifyLayoutInfoLinks_strDeclinedAdv=A1211210267

ModifyLayoutInfoLinks_strDeactivatedAdv=Northern Tool & Equipment

ModifyLayoutInfoLinks_strPubId=K138

 

 

You have to be your own look out.

What is the thinking behind the action?

 

For in every problem lies an opportunity.

 

 

FW: QTP Questionnaire

Hi All,

 

I was just going through some of the quizzes of QTP and I just came across some really good questions. I just collected them down in a document. Let’s do some mental exercise (I know it is tuff today as it is FridayJ). Just go through these questions.

 

Don’t take either the help of answers I am attaching or Google Help! Give it your best shot first.

 

 

Regards,

Always ask your self what is the objective?

 

When being taught something never argue with the teacher. Go home study what was told and do research on the topics taugh.

 

 

Money is an amorphous abstraction. Its about the confidence that people have in it.

 

www.conceptlearner.com

www.wikilearning.com

 

Everything is a process. Manage the process.

 

 

After a meeting has been done, follow up on the points that have been discussed. Send people emails.

 

Just Chill

Right techonlgy for the right situation.

 

You better be training,

or someone else is training to kick your ass.

 

 

Today python app.

 

Be Angry.

Be an agent of change.

 

FW: Clipboard Hack Problem - Shocking news about CTRL+C

Hi All,  

 

 

Title: Clipboard Hack Problem - Shocking news about CTRL+C

Ctrl+C may be the most important work we do everyday. But it's not a very safe thing to do. Read on to know why. What happens when you press Ctrl+C while you are online. We do copy various data by Ctrl + C for pasting elsewhere. This copied data is stored in clipboard and is accessible from the net by a combination of Javascripts and ASP. This is called clipboard hack problem.

Just try this:

1.        Copy any text by Ctrl + C

2.        Click the Link: http://www.sourcecodesworld.com/special/clipboard.asp

3.        You will see the text you copied was accessed by this web page.

Surprised! I know you are because i was also surprised to see it. Do not keep sensitive data (like passwords, credit card numbers, PIN etc.) in the clipboard while surfing the web. It is extremely easy to extract the text stored in the clipboard to steal your sensitive information. Forward this information to as many friends as you can, to save them from online frauds!

 

It is true, text you last copied for pasting (copy & paste) can be stolen when you visit web sites using a combination of JavaScript and ASP (or PHP, or CGI) to write your possible sensitive data to a database on another server.

 

How Cipboard Hack is done?

The Clipboard hack is done by the following Source Code:

<script language="JavaScript">

var content = clipboardData.getData("Text");

alert(content);

</script>

How to safeguard yourself from Clipboard Hack Problem?

To avoid clipboard hack problem, do the following:

1.        Go to internet options->security.

2.        Press custom level.

3.        In the security settings, select disable under Allow paste operations via script.

Now the contents of your clipboard are safe.

Interestingly, this hack works only on internet explorer, and not on Mozilla Firefox browser. Please forward this article to as many friends as you can to make them aware of this issue with CTRL+C.

 

Interview

The language of interviews

 

When I interview someone, I usually let them use the language of their choice with between C, C++, C# and Java. There are several reasons for that:

• I want them to be comfortable.  It's already hard enough to be in an interview, much less being forced to use a syntax or an API they are not familiar with.  Of course, I don't pay too much attention to syntactic details or making sure they use the right method name as long as the logic of what they write is sound.
   
• It's not that I have something against Ruby or other fourth generation languages, but I found that these languages work at a level of abstraction that is a little too high to give me a meaningful insight on the candidate for a forty-five minute interview.  There are plenty of very interesting problems that are hard to solve even in Ruby or Python (and actually, it's quite likely this is the kind of problem that the candidate will be struggling with if she gets hired), but formulating the question and writing the solution would take several hours.

The real challenge is therefore to find a problem that is very easy to express and which solution in one of the languages mentioned above will give me enough information on this candidate to formulate a verdict.

Interestingly, the choice that the candidate makes already reveals a few things on their abilities.  I found that typically, C/C++ people tend to be very comfortable with low-level algorithmic questions ("pointers and recursion", to quote Joel) but fare very poorly as soon as we "move up the stack" (object-oriented design, design patterns, enterprise frameworks, etc...).  Conversely, Java/C# people are more comfortable with these concepts but get easily stumped on "tight memory" types of questions.

Of course, great candidates excel at both, which brings me to my next point.

Good developers are born good.  Their brain is wired a certain way and they can chew on any CS concept thrown in their direction and spit it out with a bow tie.  Most of these developers then go to school and move from the "gem in the rough" state to that of a "pure diamond".  School accelerates and expands their knowledge.  Of course, there is hardly anything they learned in school that they couldn't have learned by themselves, but the formal process of learning, reading book and listening to teachers saves them years and years of work.  It also expands their minds to concepts they would probably never have encountered in their professional career.

With that in mind, I find Joel's obsession on pointers and recursion quite baffling.

There are two important facts to keep in mind about pointers and recursion:

1. They are important concepts and any serious developer should probably be comfortable with them.
2. You will hardly ever use any of these concepts for today's typical programming jobs.

How's that for a paradox?  How do you interview for this?

Well, it's actually very easy to do a quick check on pointers and recursion, even in Java, but it's equally important to spend most of your interviewing time on other areas that are more relevant to the job the person will be asked to do. 

One of my friends pointed out that what we are seeing today is a more distinct separation between "system programmers" (kernel, device drivers, etc...  which require C/C++ and pointer juggling) and "application programmers" (for which pretty much any programming language will do, including Visual Basic).  What's really puzzling is that Joel's company produces a bug-tracking software, and it's hard to imagine why you would need an army of superstar programmers .  A few selected senior tech leads and designers?  Sure.  But an entire team of them...  doubtful.

As for Joel's reference to Paul Graham's vastly over-hyped essay "Beating the Averages", I am still trying to decide which of the following two quotes is the most ridiculous:

• His start-up had an edge over its competitors because of the implementation language they chose.
• Because of this choice, they were able to implement features that their competitors couldn't.

Actually, I'll call that a tie:  both claims are equally preposterous.

Paul Graham has been a dinosaur for a long time and his disturbing elitist stance ("if you don't know Lisp, you're an idiot") oozes from every paragraph of every single programming essay he has ever authored.  So far, Joel had managed to remain reasonably objective and interesting in his posts, but his extremely narrow background (Microsoft technologies in C/C++ and bug-tracking software) is beginning to take a toll on his objectivity and I find that most of his writings are more and more missing the big picture.  I hope he'll turn around soon and open up to modern programming topics, because frankly, I am having as much fun using Ruby on Rails or Eclipse and EJB3 today as I did writing Copper list based demos on my Amiga fifteen years ago or coding floppy disk drivers in 6502 on my beloved Apple ][ twenty years ago (gasp).

 

“Cheap Elbonian outsourcing companies suck because they are cheap outsourcing companies, not because they’re Elbonians” - Scott Adams

 

 

Think

As you think, so shall you become.

Me, Myself and I

QA Snippet - 3 : Cause and Effect Diagram

 

Follow up on things, don’t forget. Don’t keep it pending, otherwise people are like how come you didn’t bring this up earlier. A statute of limitations becomes imposed on the issue.

Note in a conference call or meeting always note down the points that you are going to. This way they are easy to remember and you don’t risk forgetting.

 

GTD - Getting Things Done.

Don't think, act now. Get the wheels in motion.

Management

Make a decision, or the decision makes you.

 

Learning

If you want to pass cheat, If you want to learn research.

 

Useful tips to Avoid Procrastination

Procrastination can lead to many problems — tests failed, weight gained, relationships weakened.

But you can change your ways.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. ~Don Marquis

 

Here are some tips and steps to get you going!

Steps

• Look at the effects of procrastination versus not procrastinating. What rewards lie ahead if you get it done? What are the effects if you continue to put it off? Which situation has better effects? Chances are, you will benefit more in the long term from facing the task head on.

• Count how much time you spend on activities procrastinating. You may be shocked by the amount of time wasted simply watching TV.

• Set reasonable goals. Plan your goals carefully, allowing enough time to complete them.
• Break the task down into smaller parts. How can you approach it step by step? If you can concentrate on achieving one goal at a time, the task may become less of a burden.
• Get started whether you "feel" like it or not. Going from doing nothing to doing something is often the hardest part of overcoming procrastination. Once you start, it will be easier to continue.
• Ask for help. You don't always have to do it alone.
• Don't expect perfection. No one is perfect. It's better to try your best than to do nothing at all.
• Reward yourself. The reward that lies at the end of a long road to a goal may be great, but while you're on the way, it may not always be enough to motivate you. Remind yourself-with a break, a movie, some kind of treat you like-that you are making successful progress.
• Don't let yourself be distracted - by taking control and saying "no" to picking up the guitar, playing a DVD or texting your friends, you build confidence in your ability.
• Other time traps to avoid: saying yes when you don't have the time, studying when you're tired or in a distracting location, not thinking ahead, not curbing your social time, and finally, taking on too many tasks and projects.

Tips

• You may want to take a course in time management.
• Several books have been written on procrastination. Here are the titles: "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It" by Jane B. Burka, Lenora M., Ph.D. Yuen, "The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play" by Neil Fiore and for students, "Beat Procrastination and Make the Grade : A Life-Saving Guide for Students" by Linda Sapadin, Jack Maguire. These are highly recommended.
• Of course, not everyone enjoys reading - a very good audio CD/cassette is, "Make Your Mind Work for You : New Mind Power Techniques to Improve Memory, Beat Procrastination and More" by Joan Minninger.
• If you hate to read and begin to procrastinate think of it this way. If you have to read a 276 page book divide it into the amount of time you have. If you have about 2 weeks, reading about 21 pages a day is much less overwhelming.
• Just start working.