ZealThoughts

Banff & Jasper - 4 days ultimate itinerary (Ideal for non hikers)

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 17:36:00 -0400

Alberta is a paradise on Earth which finds a place in every person's bucket list. This province has something to offer for all kind of people (hikers and non-hikers specifically). Banff, Jasper and Yoho perhaps tops the list of all the places in Alberta and everyone atleast needs to visit these places once in their lifetime.

We decided to visit Banff, Jasper and Yoho during the Canada day long weekend in 2019. It was a long weekend and we managed to add one more day to make it a 4 day extended long weekend trip from 29 June to 2 July. I had to do a lot of research as I did not want to miss anything in this trip and make the most out of it.

After going through numerous websites and travelogues, I finally was able to create an extensive itinerary for Banff and Jasper. To be honest, you would need around 6 days to complete every places mentioned in this itinerary. But if you are adventurous and can go beyond the line, you can definitely do this in 4 days without missing anything.

Without wasting anymore of your precious time, let's jump straight in.

Itinerary for Banff and Jasper

Day 1: Banff

Finally after lots of planning, you are finally boarding the plane to discover Alberta.

Plan in a way so that you reach Calgary International Airport by 10 am local time. Once you reach Calgary, get your car from any of the car rental companies (Turo, Enterprise etc) and then start rolling. It would be better if you can prebook your car.

Today you would be checking out places around Banff and Canmore. Drive straight from Calgary airport to Sulphur mountain. Take the Cochrane route from Calgary as that would be more scenic than the highway.

View from Sulphur mountain

You can experience the Sulphur mountain gondola which takes you to the top of the sulphur mountain where you can have a small hike to the summit. The view is awesome and you would enjoy every bit of it.

Then plan to go to the other nearby view points like the Bow falls, Hoodoos Viewpoint, Cave and Basin Historic site, Surprise corner and also have your lunch. You should be able to complete all these by 4 pm which gives you time to go to the other part of Banff.

You can now go to Lake Minnewanka which is a nice place to be during the evening. There are many lakes near Lake Minnewanka which you can enjoy based on your preference. There is a boat ride as well which you can enjoy.

Lake Minnewanka

Once you are done enjoying these places, you can go to Banff for you dinner and check into your hotel for a good nights sleep.

These are the places you can visit on Day 1. Try visiting the places marked in bold

Sulphur Mountain and take a Gondola Ride to the top of mountain.
Cave and Basin National Historic Site
Bow Falls
Surprise Corner
Hoodoos view point
Vermilion Lakes
Cascade ponds
Johnson Lake
Lake Minnewanka
Two Jack Lake
Mount Norquay road
Banff town and nearby areas

Day 2:

After an awesome first day, you must be all set for day 2. Today we went to see the most visited places in Banff, Lake Louise.

Start by driving through Highway 1A where your first viewpoint is Johnston Canyon. There are two waterfalls (Lower falls 800 meters and the upper falls 2.4 kms). You can hike and see both or you can check one and move on. Its all upto how much you want to hike. After checking Johnston canyon drive towards Lake Louise. On the way you can check out Morant's curve.

Morant's curve

On the way to Lake Louise, if you see that you can enter the road to Moraine Lake, you can go and see this lake before as there are very less parking there and a lot of rush. Parking is a big issue in both the places. So if you see there is lot of rush, you can also park your car at the Lake Louise park and ride lot and take the free shuttle to both the lakes. You should be done with both the lakes by 4 pm if everything goes well. There are canoe rentals as well which you can enjoy.

Lake Louise

Moraine lake

If you are done with these two lakes by 4 pm, you can then go visit the Yoho National Park. We missed this part as there was too much rush and we wasted around 2-3 hours for parking. Also we didn't know about the free shuttle bus. You can visit Emerald lake and few other places in Yoho National park before you come back and check in to your hotel in Banff or Lake Louise area.

These are the places which you can visit on Day 2.

Backswamp Viewpoint via Bow valley parkway
Johnston Canyon
Morant’s Curve
Lake Louise
Moraine Lake. Hike to the rock pile in Moraine lake to get the view from top. Also take a canoe ride in either of the lakes.
Yoho National Park
Spiral Tunnel
Emerald Lake
Lake Ohara
Natural Bridge

Day 3:

After two awesome days in Banff and Yoho, today we took the Icefield Parkway towards Jasper. Start as early as you can to enjoy one of the most beautiful highway on Earth. The first stop would be Bow lake where you can enjoy the serene views. There are other lakes like the Mistaya lake and Waterfowl lake which are equally beautiful. On the way you can also see the Crowfoot glacier.

Waterfowl lake

Then you can drive to Peyto lake, one more wonders of nature. There is a short hike to Peyto lake, but thats worth it.

Peyto Lake

Then you can enjoy the highway with its wonderful views. You can also enjoy the Columbia Icefield Skywalk and Columbia Icefield tour. But you might need an extra day for this as the icefield tour itself takes around 4 hours.

After that you can drive towards Jasper and on the way you can enjoy Sunwapta falls and Athabasca falls. You might also try to get to Mount Edith Cavell which is a wonderful driving experience. Have a quick dinner and then go to Miette Hotsprings to end your day perfectly. Remember it takes around an hour to reach Miette from jasper town and it closes by 11 pm. So plan accordingly. You can actually include the icefield tour and divide this day into 2 days if you want to enjoy everything.

Sunwapta Falls

Athabasca Falls

These are the place to visit on Day 3

Crowfoot Glacier
Bow lake
Peyto lake
Mistaya Lake
Parker Ridge
Sunwaapta Falls
Athabasca Falls
Mount Edit Cavell
Patricia Lake
Pyramid Lake
Miette Hotspring

Day 4:

Finally we are on the last day of our trip. This day will be a bit hectic as it involves a lot of driving from Jasper to Calgary. You can enjoy few places before you can give it a call. Try visiting Medicine lake, Malign lake and Malign canyon. You can also take a boat ride to Spirit Island if time permits. By all means start from Jasper by 10 am so that you can reach Calgary by 6 pm. Plan to take your flight from Calgary after 9 pm so that in case you are late you don't miss your flight.

Pyramid Lake

Icefield Parkway

These are the places you can visit on Day 4:

Maligne Lake. Take a boat ride to Spirit lake if possible
Medicine Lake
Maligne Canyon

I know that this is a pretty hectic tour for 4 days. I did miss out few places due to lack of time which I wasted on parking. I listed out all the important places around Banff and Jasper. If you have time, you can definitely extend this trip to 5-7 days as per your convenience and you can enjoy more. I do plan to visit again in future as visiting this place once will not satiate your desire to explore this beautiful place.

Note: To visit any national park in Canada, you will need to buy a pass. This money goes towards the maintenance of the parks. You can either buy it online or in any of the booth while you enter the park near Canmore. But I would suggest you to buy it online so that you can save time while you are there. Buy your passes online.

You can download a pdf version of this itinerary here. Note this itinerary was based on my plans and hotel bookings and you can adjust them accordingly.

For any questions or suggestions, you can comment and I would be happy to answer them.

Steps to Canadian Permanent Residency - Do it yourself guide

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Tue, 9 Apr 2019 22:32:00 -0400

Canada lately has been pretty much interested to invite people to become permanent residents (PR) and help to increase their country's population strength. The most striking problem which the government faces now is that the average age of Canada population is over 35 which is not a good sign for any economy as a whole. This has led the Canada Government to bring in new rules in its immigration policies which can make the process faster and can invite more people who can settle down here and boost the economy of the country.

In the last few years, Canada has been the hot topic for immigration as it aims to welcome more than a million permanent residents to come and settle here by 2020. This has led to numerous consultants and consultancies who want to help people to file their application in exchange of a huge amount of money. Though a lot of people claim that it is easy if we go through a consultancy, my personal preference would be to do it all by yourself. In that way you save a lot of money which will be useful when you arrive and settle here and also it gives a sense of responsibility to the entire process.

Though there are many ways to immigrate to Canada, the most known way is the Express Entry. Immigration department of Canada has done a tremendous job by documenting the entire process which makes it really easy to do it all by yourself.

You can just go through the documentation and read some forums to complete the process. For your convenience, I am also pointing out the steps here. Feel free to comment with any doubts and I shall try my best to answer them.

So here goes the steps which you can follow to file your application to Canadian Permanent Residency. I have written this article considering a married couple (husband and wife) applying for Express Entry. I have gathered all these information from my personal experience and also by accumulating experiences from few friends who have gone through the same process. All links referred to in this blog are mostly from canada.ca website and you can easily find them as well.

Before starting with the process, make sure that you are eligible. The below process will ask for IELTS scores, wherein just put some numbers for now.

Go to this link and answer the questions. This is an online tool by IRCC which determines your eligibility. You can try it as many number of times.
Then go to this link and check your score based on your current situation. Play around with the IELTS score and you can get a feel on how important IELTS score is.

Canadian PR is a score based invitation system where your score depends on the following things:

Your age.
Your work experience.
You and your spouse educational background.
You and your spouse IELTS score.

At present the invitation rounds invite people with score of around 450 or more. This score varies with each invitation but if you can bag a score of 450 or more, you can hope to get an invitation to apply soon.

Step1:

The first step to Canadian PR is IELTS. This is perhaps the most important step which you need to excel. Your application process will completely depend on this step.

Go to IELTS booking page and book an exam date roughly two months from now. You will need to book a IELTS General Exam and not ~~Academic~~. Two months would be sufficient to prepare well for the exam. If you need more time, you can definitely do so. But keep in mind that you will need to excel in this exam with best scores as your PR journey depends on this exam.

Step2:

Once you have booked your IELTS exam dates, it's time for you to get on to the next crucial step. Canadian immigration does not accept your university mark-sheet directly and that needs to be verified by a 3rd party. The most common and fast one is WES. WES will need all your degree certificates and mark-sheets to be directly sent to them by your college or university. This is also very important and is time consuming. So you better get started.

Create a different profile in WES for you and your spouse. You will get a reference number which you will need for all your future references. More details here.
Start applying to all your degree universities for transcripts to be sent to WES with your reference number.
There are some websites which help you to obtain the transcripts based on your university. You can easily google them.
Track this and keep following up with your universities.

The entire process can extend upto 1-3 months based on your university.

Step3:

Once you are successfully done with Step1 and Step2, make sure you check for the CRS score again with your IELTS score and see how much you are scoring. You can follow this page to get an idea on whether you will qualify with the score you are getting.

This is the decision step

If your score is good enough (normally 440 or above) go ahead with the next step.

Else, plan to prepare for IELTS and appear again to get better results.

There are a lot of candidates interested in Canadian PR currently, and it's really tough to get an invitation even with a score of 440 or below.

Step4:

Congratulations if you are in this step as I assume that you have got the desired score to ensure a place in the next invitation. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) conducts draws frequently to invite a bunch of candidates to apply for Permanent Residence in Canada. This draw normally happens around every 2 weeks and around 3000-4000 people are invited in each draw. These figures are not static and changes in each draw.

Go to the URL here
Click on "Continue to GCKey" and create a new profile.
Provide your details and enter the pool.

Once you have given all the details in the above website, your points will be calculated and you will be entered to the pool of candidates.

Now you have to wait for the next draw and if you qualify with your points, you will receive ITA from IRCC. You are now eligible to complete your documentation required by IRCC.

Step5:

Once you receive your ITA, you will have 60 days to complete your documentation. There are a lot of things needed by IRCC which will be detailed out to you in your account in CIC website. Normally these are the things which will be needed:

Medical test certificate for you and your spouse done from a IRCC registered medical facility. You will need to take appointment for the same by calling the medical facility.
Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) from all countries where you or your spouse have resided for more than 6 months. Find out how to get a police certificate based on your country.
Experience certificates from all the organisations you have worked in the past as well as the current one. Check this experience letter format for your reference.
Funds proof from your banks converted to CAD amount and stamped in bank letterheads. Based on how many members are applying, you can find the proof of fund details here.

Apart from these details, you will also be required to get

Passport copies
Photographs printed in specific format. Make sure you get this done from a good place as IRCC is quite strict with photo standards. More details here.
All educational details and employment details.
Overseas travel details.
Family background details.
etc....

These things will be notified to you and you will be able to track everything in your CIC account. Once you are confident with all your documents uploaded in the CIC account, you will be able to pay and submit your application to be considered for PR to Canada. Make sure you do this within 60 days as otherwise your ITA will expire and you will have to enter the pool and start over again.

Step6:

After submitting your application, it's time to wait for updates in your account. You will be able to see a table in your CIC account which will get updated with every stage. According to CIC the wait time is 6 months. Check the latest processing time here. At this point one of the following things might occur:

After you get a Passport Request

If everything goes well, you should receive an email from CIC with a passport request for all the applicants. You will need to send in the passports to the location specified. IRCC has authorised VFS Global to deal with your passport from your area to High Commission and back to you. You will need to take an appointment with VFS and visit their office with the email printout and photos.

All the details will be provided in the email you receive.

After successful stamping of a one time visa, the passports will be returned to you along with a Confirmation of Permanent Resident(COPR) document. When you travel to Canada for the first time, make sure you carry your passport and COPR document along with you.

Congratulations !! You finally made it.

You are now one step away from becoming a permanent resident of Canada officially. All you need to do is book your tickets and fly to Canada. At the first port of entry you will be registered as a permanent resident and your PR card will be mailed to your Canadian address in about 2 months from the date of entry.

N.B: The visa is valid for approximately one year from the day you took the medical exam and is a one time visa. So plan your trip accordingly.

Canada.ca
WES
Get Police certificate based on your country
Medical exam details
Forum: Canadavisa
Facebook: Indians in Toronto
Facebook: Indians in Toronto & GTA

I have tried to include as much details as possible in this post. In case you feel I missed something or should add a point, shoot me a comment.

7 Important Windows 10 Features

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:42:00 -0500

Well finally the day came when Windows executives took the privilege to speak out about the much awaited Windows 10.

Microsoft held a consumer event today to reveal the features of Windows 10 operating system. Users may have to wait till the 2nd half of the year before they can try their hands on this new software.

Curious to know few of them. Read on.

1. Cortona in PC

It took off quite well in smartphones, and Windows plans to introduce it to your Desktops as well. So that means Cortona will know almost everything about you and can help you with all your daily tasks.

So next time expect Cortona to give you a reminder about your flight tomorrow and well do not forget to take a printout of the ticket because Contona wont forget to remind it to you.

2. Bye bye IE

A lot happened and was talked about Internet Explorer as Firefox and Chrome ruled the market for last few years. Microsoft finally took a grave decision to decommission IE browser.

So no more IE versions in future. Its time when we say a good bye to IE.

3. Project Spartan

Microsoft claimed that it is building a browser which has a capability to surpass all present day browsers in the market.

Well they are naming it as Project Spartan with no specific names given as of now. We can simply hope that Microsoft provides us with what they have promised.

4. Free Upgrade to Windows Users for one year

According to Microsoft more that 70 percent of the their users are using Windows 7 and around 20 percent users still use Windows Vista (an operating system which is 14 years old).

They have data which speaks that only around 10 percent of their users have migrated to Windows 8. That truly makes Windows 8 a big flop. So to cope up with the customers need and expectation they have planned to provide free upgrade to its users.

The plan is to upgrade Windows 8 users to Windows 10 first and then Windows 7 and Windows Phone users will be targeted.

5. New Start Menu

Perhaps this was the biggest flop for Windows 8 release when Windows tried to revolutionize their design and remove the START menu. But this step was not taken well by the users and thus became one reason for the fall of Windows 8 operating system.

So Windows have decided to bring in this feature once again into Windows 10 release.

6. Improved UI

Windows has given importance to UI improvements as well. You will be able to see a whole lot of rich UI features like improved usability with new icons. A lot of new apps has also been planned to be released with Windows 10. We will have to wait for few more months to know about these features though.

7. Xbox Crossplay with Windows 10

Windows has good news for its Xbox users as well. Cross-play between Windows 10 and Xbox One gamers will become a reality.

And if PC games aren't your thing, you'll be able to seamlessly stream Xbox One games to Windows 10 PCs and tablets on your Wi-Fi network.

Those were some really good features announced by Windows. We simply need to wait for the product to get released later this year to try some of these interesting features.

Windows Phone Shortcuts

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Mon, 7 Apr 2014 02:42:00 -0400

Windows phone may not have picked up that much pace as Android phones has, but from my personal experience they are one of its kinds. Though Nokia is the only company left to produce phones with this operating system, still there are many buyers existing may be because of the brand Nokia has.

I have been using Nokia 920 since one year now, and to be honest I am quite satisfied with the phone. Some features of the phone are not as straight forward as it is for Android phones and I had to research and tweak with the phone to get them done. Some of the functions or shortcuts which do needs a mention are specified below. You will get all these shortcuts if you Google them, but my intention was to club all of them together so that this page becomes a one stop for all such shortcuts.

Disabling auto complete

Well auto complete is good while writing texts to your friends but to some extent. At some times auto complete feature will simply annoy you since it tries to guess each and every word you type finally giving the message a complete different meaning. Especially when you try to write your mother tongue in English and it simply tries to embed English words forcefully. I always wanted to disable it and finally got how to do it.

Settings --> Keyboard --> Your Selected Keyboard and then disable auto suggest

Taking screenshots

Nowadays smartphones can be used to do almost everything that can be done in a computer. In such a scenario there are situations when we need to take a screenshot of the page present on our screen and save them as an image. Yes that feature is available too and is pretty straightforward unless you don’t know how to do it.

Press both Power Button and Windows Button together

The picture will be saved to a folder named Saved Pictures

Scrolling Up and Down in text editor

The other day I was typing about a situation that happened to me and wanted to send it to my friend. The message got too long and as usual I was not able to see the top part on the screen. To the utmost surprise I was unable to reach to the top of the message no matter what I do. That really irritated me a lot. That day itself I started to search how to do it and finally got the way.

Press and hold for some time then scroll will appear. Then you can use this scroll to move up and down

Getting to middle of a typed text

Normally when typing a text we keep on typing and changing words. When it comes to touch screen mobiles changing an already typed word becomes difficult and we end up erasing all the words till that word and type in the whole message again. To get to the desired position and change words this is the way.

Long press at the position where you want to go and then the cursor will move to that position.

Copy a part of text

There are sometimes when it is necessary to copy a part of the text for no matter what the reason is. Copying a part of the text is too easy but you need to know them. This is how it is done.

Click the word from where you want to copy. This will select the word. Then simply drag your finger till the word u want to copy

This is an evolving post and I will keep adding things as I keep discovering them. If you found it interesting and helpful then do hit the like button. If you believe in helping others, then do post your discovered shortcuts as comment and eventually this will become the one stop destination for many Windows Phone users.

Explore. Dream. Discover

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Fri, 7 Feb 2014 08:07:00 -0500

Our bags were packed, tickets were booked and we were ready to go on a trip to the Mountains of North India. We were a group of 15 people all set to make a difference waiting at Howrah railway station for the signal to get green. Suddenly the sound of the Engine hooting came all across and our face was covered with smile. Smile of Joy, Smile of seeing new place, Smile of being together.

I was only a kid, perhaps 8 years of age when I got this opportunity to go visit a new place with my parents. Along with us were 3 more families, my father’s office colleagues. Excitement was truly visible on all our face as the train passed by fields, cities and many small stations getting closer to our destiny, Shimla. After some tiresome train journey, we finally reached Kalka and took a bus to Shimla. Days passed and finally our 10 day trip came to an end. We were there back at Howrah station bidding goodbyes to each other. A moment of sadness was all around but the wait for next trip to some new place made us happy.

From then on there was no stopping. Each year the same month of October we always went to some place. North, South, East, West and Central India, all seemed to get conquered one after another. Each trip kept on getting better as everyone gained experience on how to plan such trips. I always saw my father and his colleagues plan the trips months before. I learned how to plan such big events and how things can get easier if planned well before. So my first lesson, Always plan before you do something.

Few years later we went to a trip to South India. We had our last visit to Kanyakumari. In this trip we were exhausted and bored by seeing sea beaches again and again. Vishakhapatnam, Pondicherry, Chennai, Goa, and now Kanyakumari. We lost all our hope but to see yet another sea beach with least expectations. But when we actually reached the place, only one thing came to my mind “Oh My God”. That was not any other beach. That was the meeting point of three seas and we were able to differentiate all the three seas. That was a view I still remember.

After few years we were on a trip to North Bengal and Sikkim, A paradise on Earth. As it was the month of October, winter was on its way. Snowfall was about to start in the higher parts of the mountains. We all wanted to go and play in the snow. But that was not easy. For that we had to go the highest point, a place called Yum San Dong in North Sikkim, border areas of China. When we reached there, we were amazed to see people staying in small villages.

They greeted us with all the warmth and served us hot tea. On talking to them we came to know that there are around 7 families who stay here. In winter they move to a slightly lower place, Yumthang. For their food and daily purposes they walk around 30 kms each day to fetch food items on mountain roads. And they are afraid to go till Gangtok as it is very hot out there. What !!!! Temperature in Gangtok was hovering between 5 to 14 degrees in October and they say it’s hot !! People have a lot of hardships and we should learn to appreciate everyone.

Two years back me along with one friend went to a place in Karnataka called Shimoga. There are two places nearby, one Jog Falls, the second highest falls in India and second a place called Agumbe, a place to receive second highest rainfall after Mawsyngram, Cherrapunji. When we reached Jog falls after a terrible local bus ride for 2 hrs from Shimoga, we were annoyed to see a small water fall. Then we came to know that the falls can be enjoyed once we descend 1400 steps to get to the bottom of the falls.

We were young and had all the zeal to accept this challenge. Little did we know that it was no child’s play? Descending 1400 steps and climbing them back was really not even a man’s play. When we reached the bottom, what we saw and what we felt was a sight which can never be explained but felt. We sat there on a big rock and time kept passing. 2 hrs we sat there enjoying the falls and not even an inkling of boredom pinched us. Simply one thing came out and that was “WOW”.

The next day we planned to go to Agumbe. As expected as soon as we started rising the mountain, rain grasped us from all ways. It was raining cats and dogs. What else can you expect when you come to a place like Agumbe. From the highest point of the mountain you can see the Arabian Sea at the horizon. This is another importance of that place. But the only thing we could see was rain, rain and rain. But suddenly the rain slowed down and something caught both our eyes. There was clouds covering the whole of sky till horizon but a cylinder sort of structure was formed in the far distance.

On seeing closely, we figured out it was the rain in the form of a cylinder and it was coming towards us. That was a view which I guess very few people would have witnessed. But to make it worse, we didn’t have a good camera. You never see such a view every day and we stood there like idiots with nothing but a Nokia e63 to capture that beautiful moment.

I never got a chance to go to a foreign country but I never regret it because what I saw and learnt from my own country was in no sense any less. Traveling and exploring has always been an ideal gift for me. Even my friends presented me with a trip to Hogenekkal falls in November 2012 on my birthday in Bangalore. Now is the time to learn and enjoy and it has to be utilized.

In Mark Twain’s words “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”

Installing Veloeclipse Velocity Editor in Eclipse

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 03:37:00 -0400

Velocity has nowadays gained a lot of respect in web development and you will for sure find this language in most of the places. In such a scenario, if the language is not detected by Eclipse then that becomes a huge drawback and also difficult to work.

There are scads of plugins available but I used Veloeclipse and it is working good. So you can as well go ahead and try this velocity editor.

Steps to install Veloeclipse in your Eclipse:

Step 1:
I am hoping you have your Eclipse open. Go to Help --> Install New Software. A new window appears.

Step 2:
In the new window you will find an Add button. Click on it and you will get one more window. Here you will have two options. Fill them as shown.

Name: veloeclipse
Location: http://veloeclipse.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/update/

Step 3:
Once you click OK on the previous screen, you will get a new window which will have an option to select. Select the box and click Next.

Step 4:
The rest will be done by Eclipse. You just need to click Next for 2-3 times more and then the plugin will get installed. Finally Eclipse will ask for a restart. Please Restart your Eclipse at this point.

Step 5:
Once Eclipse restarts, right click on a velocity file and open with Velocity. This needs to be done for the first time. Thereafter whenever you open a velocity file it opens in the editor directly.

That's all. Now you can enjoy editing your velocity code right away. Happy Coding !!!

Installing 3rd party jar file to Repository using Maven

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 02:22:00 -0400

Sometimes the requirement comes when you have to use a third party plugin in your project which is not present in any public repositories. In such a scenario it is advised to deploy this jar file into your repository and then use it as a normal dependency in your Maven project.

This is helpful as the jar file becomes available to a lot of projects in future and if any further development work on the same project is done in future, then the dependency is resolved easily.

It's just a matter of running a maven command and you are ready to go. In case you want to install this plugin into your local repository(.m2 folder) then the command would be different from the normal deployment into your public repository.

For Local Maven Repository(.m2 folder):

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=<path to the jar file> -DgroupId=<groupId you want to provide> -DartifactId=<Unique name of the plugin> -Dversion=<version of the plugin you want to deploy> -Dpackaging=jar -DlocalRepositoryPath=<path to your local .m2 folder>

For Public Repository:

mvn deploy:deploy-file -Dfile=<path to the jar file> -DgroupId=<groupId you want to provide>-DartifactId=<Unique name of the plugin> -Dversion=<version of the plugin you want to deploy> -Dpackaging=jar -DrepositoryId=<id of your public repository> -Durl=<URL of the public repository where you want to deploy the jar file>

That finishes your job. You are ready to go now. Now you can use this as a normal dependency in your project and build your project.

How to create a Hyperlink that links to a particular part of a webpage

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 00:11:00 -0400

Well this requirement is quite well known. Its many time a requirement when you want to set up a link in a web page which points to a particular topic of the same web page or some other web page.

The looks like a very tough job to achieve but believe me it is as easy as filling a glass with water. I will quickly guide you through the steps to achieve this task.

Note:
You must be the owner of the page. Or at least you should be able to embed an html snippet in the destination page where your link should point.

Lets take a simple example and demonstrate how this works. Say I have two html pages viz., page1.html and page2.html. I intend to have a link in page1.html which would point to a particular topic in page2.html.

Page1.html

<html>
    <body>
        <a href="file:///C:/Users/satyamr/Desktop/page2.html">Link</a>
    </body>
</html>

This Link now takes me to the top of page2.html.

Page2.html

<html>
    <body>
        <h1>My Page 2</h1></br>

        <h3>Topic 1</h3>
<p> Some Content </p>

        <h3>Topic 2</h3>
<p> Some More Content </p>

        <h3>Topic 3</h3>
<p> Some More Content </p>

        <h3>Topic 4</h3>
<p> Some More Content </p>
    </body>
</html>

This page will have four subsections. Now say I want the Link in page1.html to point to Topic 3 in page2.html. For this to happen you just need to do two changes one in each page. The changes are marked in red.

Page1.html

<html>
    <body>
        <a href="file:///C:/Users/satyamr/Desktop/page2.html#topic3">Link</a>
    </body>
</html>

This Link now takes me to the top of page2.html.

Page2.html

<html>
    <body>
        <h1>My Page 2</h1></br>

        <h3>Topic 1</h3>
<p> Some Content </p>

        <h3>Topic 2</h3>
<p> Some More Content </p>

        <h3><a name="topic3">Topic 3</a></h3>
<p> Some More Content </p>

        <h3>Topic 4</h3>
<p> Some More Content </p>
    </body>
</html>

In case you want to create such a hyperlink within the same page then the process will be a bit different. In that case you need to do something like this

<html>
    <body>
        <a href="#topic3">Link</a>
    </body>
</html>

That's it. Now refresh your pages and try clicking the Link. Voila !!

Terrified Surprise !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 09:33:00 -0400

'Ronny...... Ronny.... Wake up'. I could hear a fading voice calling my name to wake up. I somehow opened my eyes and looked at my watch. It was 10:50 PM. Then I could figure out that it was my roommate waking me up to have dinner. My eyes did not like this disruption and forced me to close them again. Within seconds this friend of mine started calling me again and this time handed me my dinner. With no choice left, I woke up and had my dinner. There is a small incident before this one which needs to be depicted before I proceed further.

Four friends including me decided to share an apartment as we worked in the same company, were friends for the past 6 months and this would indeed save some bucks for us to enjoy. Once, there was a long vacation of 3 days (Once you join office, 3 days will be like 1 month holiday) and everyone was planning for some trip or the other. But for us it was a normal holiday which meant sitting back home and watching TV. One of the friend Shaw was out on a trip and one more friend Sam was on the verge of planning one. We two (roommates Ronny and Avi) were left with no option but to stay back. Finally the vacation started from Friday to Sunday. Sam had already planned a nice trip to a Resort with some Office Colleagues and left around 11 am. Anyways the day passed off watching TV and videos in YouTube. We have a cook but he has his own priorities. He would come only once a day and that day's quota was already fulfilled in lunch. So we planned to get some food ordered and have our dinner. This friend of mine Avi is a little obsessed with his new girlfriend and would spend most of his time out with her. So naturally I had to call him before ordering for dinner. He said that he would pick the dinner and reach home by 9 pm. So I happily ordered and waited for him. I didn't have a clue that this guy would keep me hungry till 11 pm in the night. I felt asleep and slept off and there starts the story.

After having dinner I decided to sleep again as I have to wake up at 5:30 am the next day to go to gym. I was mocked a lot by my friends when I joined but this time I have planned to fail them.

So I closed my eyes again and was asleep in a minute or so.

There in my dream I could hear someone banging the main door. I avoided it the first time. The sound came again. I was so deep asleep that I ignored it this time as well. Then I could hear my phone ring. With a fraction of my eyes opened, I reached my phone and held it up to see the caller's name. 'Sam... what the hell is he calling for. Must be drunk and want to talk'. I received the call and said 'Hello!'. 'Hey please come and open the door' said Sam. 'What the heck. These guys won’t let me sleep.' I checked my watch and it was 2:30 am. I went and opened the door and a sudden gush of beer hit my nose. He was full drunk. Suddenly two more people appeared as ghosts and tried to scare me. I won’t say that I wasn't scared but did create a situation that I knew what was coming. All three of them Sam, Chad and Naresh (office colleagues) were drunk like hell and I was not able to bear the smell. They all rushed to my room and told me to pack my bag. ‘What!!!! Are you all mad? I am not going anywhere.' But they didn't seem to listen. Chad opened my wardrobe and took out my shorts and t-shirt and packed them in a bag. Then these guys just got hold of me and dragged me out of the house and into their car. They didn't even let me to wear a jeans or a trouser. And there I was, in my boxers, sitting at the back seat alongside Sam in Chad's Ford Figo. 'Where are we going and I really don't like this idea.' They only said that don't worry you will be enjoying.

I just couldn't believe that these guys came back leaving their parties just to kidnap me and take me to the resort that too at 2:30 am. I was really concerned as they were all drunk and would be driving the car. Scads of bad ideas kept haunting me when they introduced me to their new terror surprise. They came all the way driving with the car lights turned off and would be doing the same on the way back. 'Ohhhhh no. Only God can save me now. Why did I open the door at the first place? I could have gone back to Kolkata in the vacation to visit my parents. This idea is real shit. Please don't do it'. But they all seemed to be high and wouldn't listen a word. I really had no clue about what to do. Do I cry or do I laugh. I was on my way to die in an accident.

We started from our place and the music was on full volume. I could feel the vibration caused by the sound from the music system. Just as we hit the main road, the front head lights went off. It was pitch black. Only the light from the dashboard gave me hope. Believe me, this was terrifying: both the idea and the view. To make it worse there were neither streetlights nor was it a full moon day. I was so terrified that I came between the front seats and tried to locate the road. But all was in vain. Nothing was visible and Chad was still driving at around 50 speed. I was fully prepared to face the accident. Suddenly the car went over a speed breaker and my heart beat doubled and was about to burst I guess. ‘Phew!!'. I was literally crying. Naresh was the culprit. It was all his idea to turn the lights off and drive.

Never in my life did I believe that I will be a part of such a lunatic act. But there I was witnessing it live. But it was fun I would say. At first I was too scared but slowly the fear went off may be because Chad is an awesome driver. He was in full control and was flashing the headlights at regular interval just to get an inkling of the road. Our main lifeline was the dim moon light and the white lines at the middle of the road. And to add spice we had some awesome music played at full bass and volume.

This was the only pic I took with my Nokia Lumia 920. A part of the road is visible because of the flash. In reality nothing was visible.

May be because we were lucky or may be God had some more time registered to our name; we finally reached the Resort at around 4 am safely. This was by far the best and the most terrified surprise I had in my life. Thanks to my special friends and colleagues Sam, Chad and Naresh though I missed my Gym the next day.

DISCLAIMER:

Do not try this ever. Don't even plan such a surprise for your friends.

OCPJP/SCJP - A good way to learn JAVA

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 04:25:00 -0400

Phew !! After lot of postponing, I finally went for the OCPJP Exam (formerly SCJP) and luckily I got through it. Yes I was quite lucky enough to pass the exam, though the percentage I scored is pretty low compared to most of the people out there. But still I am quite happy with what I have.

Scads of tips to score well in the exam will be easily accessible on doing some search in Google, so I am not going for anything like that. This is mostly about how I went for it and finally came out with flying colors. I thought to write this blog just to give a boost to all those people who are planning to write the exam and also those who scored less and are in the notion that they ruined it completely.

If you have passed the exam, then you are good. Oracle and previously Sun made it pretty sure that only if you know the basics of the language, you will pass the exam. But nowadays you can get hold of so many dumps which will fetch you more than 95% easily. The question remains to you. Do you want a good score and know less or know a lot and score as per you potential? I am in no way against the dumps, but referring only dumps for the exam will make you a dumb in JAVA. You need to know the language well and then you can keep the dumps to refresh and revise. In that way you will score and learn together. I was bold enough to not try dumps at all. All I did was to read the SCJP book and a little practice and then I went for the exam. As a result I scored less. But then again the certificate doesn't reflect your score. In fact that's kept confidential. So where's the harm in scoring less. You still is Certified and get the same certificate which the person scoring 100% gets. Nice isn't it !!

Oracle's main motive behind the exam is to make people learn the language well, not to create a competition out there. To be very honest, the questions are not at all easy for anyone to pass it. You really need to have a very strong hold on the basics of Core Java to get through it. Let me rather put it in a different way. "The Questions were quite easy as all were from the topics which you will be brushing up so many times preparing for the exam. But the answers were really tough as you will be completely bewildered with so much similarity between all the choices". Finding the right answer becomes a challenge sometimes. And the multiple choice questions are the worse.You will have around 5 -6 options out of which 3-4 will be correct. And you have to mark all the correct answers. The worse part is that even if you marked 3 out of 4 options correctly and the last option as wrong, your whole question will get wrong. You wont score in that question.

You will be given a total of 60 questions in which you have to score 61% to get a PASS certificate from Oracle. Don't even dare to skip a section for the exam as you will for sure get questions from all parts of the course. This is not an Undergraduate exam dear !!

If you are preparing full time (not like me going to office and then preparing for 1 - 1.5 hrs a day in the night), it will take you around 2-3 months to prepare well. It again depends how intelligent you are to grab the language. So no hard and fast rule for the time. Prepare as long as you want and just the time when you feel comfortable with your preparation, GO FOR IT. Now how do you know whether you are prepared ?? Interesting Question (I know you are thinking that how intelligent I am. Its just my decency that I don't show off :D). Go for some mock exams. At least 4 of them with time. Then you will know how well prepared you are for the exam.

Plan at least two weeks before and book the slot. This will keep you tensed for whole two weeks which in turn will get you prepared well. Its just like we normally like to do our work when the deadline comes and interestingly we do well in the end. Just the same logic goes here as well.

So if you are planning to write the exam, Just Go For It. It will surely help you in future.

If you have already given it and passed with low score, just chill. Have a glass of water and get back to work. You are doing good.

Some information regarding the Exam:

1. One and only one book for the exam is SCJP by Kathy Sierra

2. Oracle Page for OCPJP 6 exam. Link

3. Google for some of the mock exams and Dumps. My advice will be use them after reading the book completely.

Thats it !! Show ends here. Do share your experiences as well if you find this post useful.

Finally, All the Best to you fellas.

Nokia Lumia 920 Two Days Long Battery Test

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 6 Apr 2013 03:36:00 -0400

After waiting for nearly six months before Nokia 920 launch I finally bought it two days after launch on 12th January, 2013.

Overall I am very happy with it especially, after changing from iPhone 4.

A lot of friends are asking about performance of Nokia 920, about camera, apps and especially battery life.

So I decided to do a detailed analysis of battery life for it. Thanks for the great app Battery that helped me do this.

I kept my phone on charging in the night and make sure it is fully charged before testing next day. Disabled data connection, blue tooth, WiFi. Location services on.

2nd April, 2013:

Woke up and started getting ready for office,

At 7.30 - 100%

Started for the office in bus and listened to music via headphones on the way. I occasionally changed the songs in between by using volume bar.

Reached office and at 8:15, stopped the songs.

At 8:16 - 100%

Not much use afterwards had two calls around one minute each. The phone mostly was on standby.

At 11.34 - 99%

I used one note to write all this. Then attended one call for two minutes. Internet browsing for around ten minutes on 2G. Checked Facebook waited for Whats App to see new chats. Friend checked out phone seeing photos etc. for five minutes.

At 14:49 - 89%.

Not used phone after that. Phone stayed on standby.

At 17:30 left from office and started music on my way back home again.

At 17:37 - 84%

Reached home stopped music

At 18:28 - 82%

Time to call home. Made two calls 36 minutes and of 23 minutes. Some normal phone usage (For windows phone this includes staring at great animations of home screen tiles)

At 22:41 - 70%

Got two more calls from friends lasting 20 minutes and 6 minutes.

At 23:13 - 65%

2nd Day 3rd April, 2013

Skipped charging the phone in the night. Woke up next morning.

At 6:42- 58%

Same routine, left for office, started music player.

At 7:25 - 57%

Reached office at 8:15. Stopped the music.

At 8:15 - 54%

Had breakfast. Phone on standby and I recalled that I could use screenshot feature also ;)

At 9:42 - 52%

Feeling bored at 9:45 turned on WiFi, apps started syncing One Note, Whats App, Facebook, 627.AM (An alarm, to-do and weather app).

Browsed Facebook, downloaded store to download two new apps. Used Camera Roll Sync (must have, because update for full resolution upload still not available for my mobile) to upload 62 full resolution pics from camera roll to Sky Drive.

At 10:33 - 39%

12:09 - 36%

WiFi Enabled on lock. Downloaded Viber, Hike, and two other apps.

12:19 - 32%

Occasional chatting on sms etc.

1:40 - 30%

Again went back to work. Not much usage. Phone standby.(See the discharge speed :))

Leaving from office. Before starting music.

17:29 - 23%

Reached home, stopped music.

18:38 - 20% battery saver kicked in.

Before dinner.

20:35 - 17%

Started data connection (2G) to see Whats App and Facebook updates.

At 21:27, while using Whats App, I got critical battery level warning. (Very few Screenshot with time. I know. Blame the battery app developer.)

Finally after two days at

21:44 while chatting on Whats App phone said Good Bye.

That's it.

So what i concluded from this is, its very easy (for me at least) to make 920 last for two days on one charge. Generally I keep WiFi on full day in office and much more use than i did that day and still it shows around 50% in night.

The discharge speed on the app keeps on varying as you use and may not show correct information sometimes. I do wish the app showed time also as the screenshots would have been more meaningful.

Do tell me if you liked/disliked the review in the comments below and if it helped in your buying decision. And do include how it is going for your mobile.

Firefox : Google directly from the Address bar

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:55:00 -0400

        Hello there !! Firefox is one of my favorite browser alongside Chrome and it really annoys one when you get used to one feature of a tool and couldn't find it in the other. Today I was wandering about how can I get the same feature of Google search right from the address bar just like Chrome. Now googling has become the most performed task by any engineer in a day and if it takes to open the homepage again and again it really becomes ridiculous. So here I got a solution which serves the same way as Chrome does.

Step by Step Procedure :

Step 1:
Go to the address bar of Firefox and type about:config. It gives a warning which you have to allow. Press the button saying " I'll be careful, I promise ! ".

Step 2:
In the search bar of the page type in keyword.URL . This brings you to only one option.

Step 3:
Right Click on the available option and click Modify. Then in the pop-up window paste the following

   http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=
Then press OK.

That's it. You are done. Yes it was that simple. Now open a new tab and test your new feature.

Note:
One problem I had with this feature is that the search fails for a single word. I am trying to figure it out. But it works simply well with more than one keyword.

Happy Googling !!!

Installing Google Chrome in Ubuntu 12.04

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:42:00 -0400

Whenever it comes to browsing the Internet, Google Chrome always forms a favourite option. Its easy to install it in Windows but again when it comes to Linux, it becomes a headache.

The most irritating fact is that Chrome does not come by default in the Synaptic package Manager. So using the terminal to install it forms the only solution.

Believe me its very easy and you need just around 5 minutes to get it done.

Steps:

Download the package file as per your need from the official website. Link
Keep the download path as "Downloads".
Once the download is done you are almost 90 percent done. Then all you have to do is type in some commands to finally install it.
Just copy these commands as they are into the terminal one by one.
For 32 bit system:

sudo apt-get install libcurl3 libnspr4-0d libxss1

cd Downloads

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb

For 64 bit system:

sudo apt-get install libcurl3 libnspr4-0d libxss1

cd Downloads

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

That's it !! You are done. Now enjoy the web.

These are some of the problems I faced while installing.

In the step sudo install I got a message "pkg : status database area is locked by another process while trying to install" .
If you get this message then try out the following commands:

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo dpkg --configure -a

If still you get the error then perhaps you can try out the command

sudo apt-get -f install libcurl3 libnspr4-0d libxss1

Hope this post was helpful. You can always show your concern by liking/sharing the post.

Installing Ultrasurf in Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Thu, 6 Sep 2012 06:29:00 -0400

         Ultrasurf has been one of the most used Proxy Bypass Server all the time. Installing it in Windows is perhaps the easiest job I found but when I tried to install it in Ubuntu, I literally had to scratch my head.

After a long search finally I found a solution which goes as this:

Step 1:
Install Wine in your System from the website http://www.winehq.org/ . Generally it comes pre installed but in case you don't have it then do it quickly.

Step 2:
Download the latest Ultrasurf file from the website http://ultrasurf.us/ . Unzip the downloaded file and you will get a .exe file.

Step 3:
Once you are done with step 1 and step 2, you just need to download two more file and you are done.
       -> mfc42.dll Click Here

       -> msvcp60.dll Click Here

Step 4:
Pretty much done. Now you just have to copy both the files at two places. Go to your Home folder and press Ctrl+H. This shows up the hidden files. Locate .wine. Inside the folder follow the path
         drive_c/windows/system
         drive_c/windows/system32
Paste both the files in both the location. Now you are done.

Step 5:
Now open the .exe file with the help of wine. It takes a while for Ultrasurf to load in Ubuntu, so be patient. Once the software loads change the settings just as you do in Windows.

Thats it !! All set to go ....

XMind Shortcuts at a Glance

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:11:00 -0400

XMind is perhaps the most recommended tool for mind mapping projects or tasks. Though there are copious other tools for the same purpose, but the extensive features of this tool makes it the most loved one.
Whenever we work with any tool, the first and the foremost thing we search for is the shortcut list. I too needed it most as I had to open the labels over and over again just to find the shortcuts.
I googled it out but was unable to find a full list. So thought to make one for myself and as I have already made it then why not share it as well.
So here goes the list. Though a short one, but contains all the important ones.

Hope it will help you in your work. :)

If not M.Tech then what ??

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 01:43:00 -0400

Who knows? Life has an ever-changing path with scads of options open at every possible instant. One needs to have a lot of courage and confidence to leave one and follow the other. “Every path is paved with gold” is the marketing mantra and you just need to find the essence of the holiness in the path you choose to kiss the summit in this highly competitive world. Keeping aside reaching the summit, finding the essence is in itself a mammoth task to achieve.

Though I was lucky enough (that’s what I think) to get into the MTech program, I did have a lot of choices to make other than Mtech. To be a doctor was my first dream and I tried a bit to achieve it. But the huge syllabus in my intermediate deprived me to attain such a lovely goal and I had to detour this path with no other option other than the very common BTech.

“BTech used to be a very prestigious degree in our times”, is what my father kept on saying all the time. I felt as if I am committing a crime by opting for this used to be a prestigious course. It really gave an impression that students who don’t get to get into anything finally settle for engineering and it was really annoying. Still curious to know how, but I did manage to get a degree after four years which stated “BTech in Electronics and Telecommunication”.

But the twist came then and I was uncertain about my future. I didn’t know what to do or rather what I want to do. I somehow managed to get out of college and then there I was, standing with a dark road or perhaps roads in front of me. With no clear thoughts and a common engineer’s job in an IT company paying the meagre salary possible, I decided to try every possible way. I had the intention to get absorbed into any field which readily accepts a novice like me.

The first path was to prepare for Common Aptitude Test (CAT), every engineer’s dream. Almost half of my batch mates were along with me, on their way to become managers and capture the multinationals under their arms. I was really worried as to how do I compete with so many people who always surpassed me in every aspects of graduation. But I did not lose hope and kept on preparing. After a lot of preparation, I appeared for CAT and cleared it with good percentile. It was just good and not sufficient to get me going. I got some real good offers from so called good colleges for MBA.

The second path was to prepare for Masters in science (MS). Suddenly I got focussed and interested to go to a foreign university to complete my masters. A foreign degree really looks good in your profile. I got this impression when I saw three foreign degrees in our H.O.D‘s nameplate outside her cabin. I started having dreams which had the impression to be real. So I prepared for GRE and appeared for it. This time as well I had a good result but again not that good.

These two results really disheartened me. I was getting opportunities from good college but was unable to convert them into reality. I again came back to the situation, puzzled about my own interest in life. I was so fickle minded that I could not even decide what to do next. I was in real dilemma as I had three options, viz, MS, MBA and job. This enigmatic situation had the courage to introduce me to the fourth option MTech. With no intention in life to opt for a masters in Technology, I had to appear the tests for it.

To the utter disappointment of my life, this was the only path I got through without any inkling of hassle. Had I not passed this barrier so easily, I may have been studying accounting and finance in some BSchool in India or doing research in some trendy topic in the USA or sitting in the bench of an IT major drawing and spending money without even doing a bit of work. Life would have been different and it’s really hard to say in which way. For a good for nothing lad like me, having so many options to choose from is simply an illustration of the idiom “Bolt from the Blue”.

To be very precise, if not MTech then I would have been a future Manager of a multinational trying to utilize every bit of its resources to make up for its losses. If not so, then may be a future scientist, chided and castigated for trying to disprove the Newton’s Laws or else a corner cubicle guy in an IT major with no intention of getting disturbed. Life did give me a chance and I grabbed it at the right moment to enjoy every flesh out of it.

FAQ on MS in IIITB

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:52:00 -0400

I wrote a blog about M.Tech curriculum in IIITB to help the aspirants getting into the course and it did solve my purpose. But I also started getting a lot of queries about the MS course offered in the same institute. As I am into the M.Tech course, it became very difficult to answer all those queries. So finally thought to come up with a FAQ list about the MS course. All the questions were answered by an MS student as per his experiences and views. So here goes the question-answer session :

Special Thanks : Priyankar Talukdar (for creating such a nice and compact FAQ)

Q: How important is it to have a knowledge on programming languages like C ?

Communication skill is not an issue here. Merely mentioning C is considered weak stance. I feel concept and depth of knowledge about a field like database, networking, computer architecture, control system is more preferred than a language such as C ,java ,python or whatever u call it.

Q: What about the Campus placement? Do I have a fair chance to make it to the big companies like Google?

As far you dreams of getting into Google and Amazon and Yahoo FaceBook are concerned, there is less scope of making it there unless you are exceptionally talented and get it off campus. To my knowledge none of them comes on campus. Microsoft is the only exception here.

Exception: MS student, (2011 pass out) under Prof Chandrasekhar bagged a job in Yahoo ( code testing ).She got it off-campus

Q: How is it different from M.Tech in IIITB and generally how long does it take to complete the course?

As MS applicant you have to go real deep into what you would like to do. Before you jump into MS, you must understand clearly MS is not a course based curriculum. It takes average 2.5 - 3+ years and is extremely rigorous. Mtech has options of final semester as internship/ thesis and is strictly a 2 year course. I hope you have read the application procedure for MS , requiring Statement of Purpose, Letter of Recommendation.

Q: How do I prepare for the Interview OR Steps to preparing for MS?

Statement of Purpose: The document of 1-2 pages should briefly mention why you want to pursue MS. Please refrain from mentioning you want to work at Google , FaceBook and whatever ! Be discreet and concise about your research area and what have you done /know about your field of choice (on which u want to work for 3 yrs at IIITB)

Letter of Recommendation: The better the professor/industry person under whom you have worked /studied, the better your chances of a good review.

Grades and Scores: GRE/GATE scores are good to show but not mandatory.

Undergrad Grades: Mine wasn’t very good and had to justify that with projects and good internships I did during my undergrad and during my 2 yrs work experience as Embedded Design Engineer.

Most Important of All: Preparing a particular/specific topic of a subject. For example I am from ECE background and I picked up the topic Power Optimization in VLSI circuits .I prepared a presentation on that and had to deliver that to a panel of 12 professors (Duration : 45 minutes ) . I am still continuing my research on that topic I presented the day of my admission. This means you have to decide well ahead which area you wish to work upon. However upon joining, you may be asked to change a little bit depending upon your Advisors wishes ,but that is rare.

Concluding on the above, prepare your documentations meticulously. Your approach and your frame of mind is what the professors will gauge. If you follow the simple techniques I have mentioned above, I am sure you won’t have a problem getting through.

Another thing worth a mention is kindly go through the professor's profile on our website and try to go through their publications/research area. They feel that if a candidate has done his homework well is a genuinely interested researcher. They want researcher, they have no concern for your job ambitions. If you prove well in a span of 3 yrs they have all the right contacts to get you placed. Moreover R&D based companies prefer MS candidates over Mtech(without thesis).

These were the collection and I am quite sure that it contains all the necessary details.

All the BEST !!!

IIITB : Preparing for the Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:20:00 -0500

Congratulations if you cleared the Written Exam. Just one more step and you are through. Interview is the most important part in any selection process. It is here that you get the chance to prove yourself in front of the professionals. So if you are confident of your knowledge and presentability then there is no need to worry.

Interview is conducted for three days in a row for all the MTech students(There are around 1000 students called for interview). You will be allotted a day and will be asked to report to the college on the specified day. The process will basically cover the whole day with many events like Document clarifications, Biometric Scans, Interview etc. The Interview is a one-to-one process where you will be interviewed by a Professor of the college. The interview will last for around 20 minutes where you will be asked several questions which you need to answer precisely.

The questions will be all typical interview questions like:

1. What is your name and tell me something about yourself? They can be tricky as well like- Tell me something about yourself which I would really like to know?
Suggestion: Just give a brief description of yourself and present it nicely. That's it..!!

2. What are your hobbies?
Suggestion: Be prepared for any type of counter questions in this case. Just be confident about your answers. If you don't know something then admit it. Don't try to revolve and fool around. Just remember that the person in front of you are professionals.

3. Why do you want to do MTech?
Suggestion: Tell any thing which you think will suit your purpose or just google it out.

4. You will be asked to tell something on any topic. This will be intimated though mail as well. This presentation counts a lot.
Suggestion: I would really ask you to use the white board while presenting the topic. Prepare the topic really well as you will get some serious questions on it. Try to be correct as much as possible. Be clear with your explanations and your English as well. Try to make the presentation as much interesting as you can.

These were some example questions and some suggestions which I think will be useful. The 4th question is very important and the whole interview process largely depend on it. So take some easy and interesting topic from any field you like and prepare it well. You can get some feeling from MY INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE. It is a bit large but do read through. It will be of much use. All you need to do is be smart. Lastly one thing I would say is that Go and Give your Best. If you are selected and if these series of articles helped you then do tell me. Again ALL THE BEST..!!

IIITB : Preparing for the Online Exam

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:37:00 -0500

Now here you are, at the most important part-The Preparation. Well there's nothing to be feared or getting tensed. These exams are all about testing your capabilities. If you are pretty sure about what you can do, then you are there. I will be dividing the article in two parts i.e, Online Exam and Interview(Follow the link provided) and I will be short.

Online Exam :
The first hurdle, and you need to be fast and smart at the same time. If you have not appeared any competitive exams before then take this as a must suggestion. You ought to be fast and value each second in a minute.
The exam will be for some odd 2 hours and you will have 3 sections, viz, APTITUDE, MATHS and PROGRAMMING.

Aptitude: This section consists of some basic English questions(Articles, Prepositions, Sentence Completion, Antonyms, Synonyms etc), Logical questions and some tricky questions. They are easy but needs some practice. As you have limited time for each section and have to finish within the slotted time so you need to know some tricks to do the calculations and solve the questions fast. Just grab a book and start solving. Practice is the best method to master these problems.

Maths: This in fact is the most difficult part and contains the maximum questions. Your maths needs to be strong to solve this section easily. Questions basically cover 10 and 12 level maths starting from Logic, Trigonometry, Co-ordinate Geometry, Derivatives, Integration etc. Some questions are tough and the others are of moderate level. This section also needs lot of practice. Learn all the formulas well as you will not be in position to waste time remembering the formulas in the exam. All are MCQ type questions and you need to select the right option amongst four.

Programming: This section consists of around 15 to 20 questions. The questions will be related to Computer Fundamentals, Basic Programming in C or C++ and some computer related questions. This section is not that tough and you just need to have your basics strong and you will come up with flying colors.

Just go to the exam center free minded and do well. Frankly speaking the cutoff is not made public and you will be intimated through mail about your interview dates. So its better to go and do as much as you can without worrying about the outcome. So all the best for the preparation and do well. For any queries do post the questions. ALL THE BEST !!

Getting Into IIITB : Tips and Procedure

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:44:00 -0500

Hope you people are preparing well for the exams. As the topic suggests I will be talking about how to get into IIITB right from the collection of the form to the date of the joining.

These articles are all from my personal experience which I would share with you. But as time passes there may be certain changes as selection procedures do not remain the same way for years. So let's start with the procedures.

Firstly, the forms are made available around February which you need to check constantly in this LINK. As soon as the forms are made available, you need to get a copy of it or apply online in the same link. You will be charged accordingly for the form and moreover you are likely to get all the detailed information in the same site. There are three ways to get into this college i.e., IIITB Online Exam, GATE or GRE. You will get enough time for your GATE results to get announced before the last date for form submission gets past. So decide well that which way you want to apply.

Secondly, after the form submission you will have two options i.e., either to sit for the test or directly go for the interview. Those who apply through GATE/GRE will get the second opportunity(I was of the first category !). Anyways, you will get the test date while filling up the form and accordingly will be asked to appear for the test on the selected date in the respected city. The test is mostly conducted in the month of April. You can find my suggestions for the test in this LINK.

Thirdly, once you clear the written test you will be notified for the interview through email within 2 weeks along with the date of your interview. The interview will be most likely in the month of May. Preparing for the interview is the most important task because this is the most tough stage where you need to compete with huge number of students just to be in the top 150 students (The strength in one batch is around 150).
You will find my suggestions for interview preparation in this LINK. You can also have a look on my interview experience as well.

Finally if you get through the interview process as well then you will be notified for the admission through email. You will be asked to confirm your seat by paying certain amount of money which will get adjusted to your first semester fees. So that was the entire process to get to the MTech course in IIITB.

I divided this article into links as long articles are really tough to read. Anyways all the best for you exams and most importantly your future. For any further queries just post in your questions and I will answer them as soon as possible or get in touch with me in Facebook.

Convert your Favourite Videos to MP3 instantly

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:06:00 -0500

You must be having many favourite videos in famous sites like Youtube. But at times you are unable to download the videos or want to have the mp3 version of it but cannot get hold of it.

Then here is a top solution for it. Just you need to go to the site http://www.vidtomp3.com/ and type in the URL of your favourite song in the space provided and follow the steps. Within few moments you are done and then just download the mp3 to your PC and enjoy.

How to Install/Run GCC compiler in Windows Command Prompt

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:24:00 -0500

How many times do you switch between Windows and Linux just to get the benefit of your favourite compiler?? Now that was the main headache I always had because no other compiler seemed to satisfy me. So I searched and finally got a solution which I would readily share with you all.

There are few simple steps which you need to follow and then you are done. No more switching unnecessarily between the OS. So here goes the steps :

Step 1 :

Goto the site www.mingw.org and at the left side menu Navigation-->Downloads. In the directed page click on Download mingw-get-setup.exe. Download the file and run.

Step 2 :

While installing mingw just follow the steps and finally you will see the command prompt popping up downloading the respected files. This will take some time. Finally click on finish.

Step 3:

This finishes your job. Only one more step and you are done. Goto Control Panel-->System-->Advanced-->Environment Variables.

Step 4:

Find the variable "PATH" and click on Edit. Here give the path of the bin file in MinGW.

Step 5 :

This completes you work. Restart your system and you are ready to use GCC in windows.

Commands for compilation :

To compile your file:

gcc filename.c OR g++ filename.cpp

To run your file :

Just type the .exe file name on the command line and hit Enter.

Hope you could get through the process. In case of any queries just feel free to ask questions and I will try by best to solve them. And don't forget to share if you like it. Happy Programming.. :)

Nokia Lumia 800 - A nextGen Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:08:00 -0400

Finally two giants have joined hands and come up with a device which everyone always dreamt of. Nokia Lumia 800, the first phone from the joint venture of Nokia-Microsoft is about to hit the market in around November 2011 and has already got a huge response from users worldwide. Also known as Nokia Sea Ray, this phone is believed to give high end challenge to the Galaxy series especially Galaxy Nexus.

To start off with the specifications, this phone has all the very necessary requirements like the support for all 2G as well as the 3G networks with a high end touch screen to make your work easier. The touch screen is an AMOLED capacitive one which supports 480X800 pixels screen resolution with a screen size of 3.7 inches which seems to be quite big. That is just not the end as the screen supports scads of features which include Nokia Clear Black display, Multi-touch input method, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate and Touch-sensitive controls. Regarding the sound and phonebook, it is really good and supports all the latest trends. It has an internal memory of 16 GB with a 512 MB RAM with no options for card slot. But with a memory of 16 GB why would you need extra memory slot. It has whole lot of a place for a mobile. The phone even supports Class 33 GPRS and EDGE with a HSDPA 14.4 Mbps 3G support which is the latest in the field. Finally about the camera which is good with an 8 MP lens supporting 3264x2448 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics with autofocus and dual-LED flash but does not have a secondary camera which is really a demerit for a phone of this kind.

This was all the phone supports. Now let’s dig into the internals of the device. The best thing about this phone is probably the OS which is Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. Now this OS is a real one which will surely take this phone to lot of users. It even boasts a 1.4 GHz processor and Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset with 3D Graphics HW Accelerator. It has a GPS inbuilt with A-GPS support and exclusive features which include MicroSIM card support only, SNS integration, Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Digital compass, MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player, MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player, Document viewer, Video/photo editor, Voice memo/command/dial, Predictive text input.

Nokia finally has decided to come up with devices which can give real competition to its rivals and this phone is indeed a device to do so. Critics and users around the world have great expectation from this phone and hopefully Nokia will keep its promise with such great features in the phone. The dashy look of the phone with full touch screen will surely be a factor for its success among the youth. Moreover its size and price is also another factor which can make this device quite popular as it’s not too large to carry. Now it’s simply worth to wait until this device hits the market at this yearend as it has already got huge user response prior to its release.

Get sms alerts from your Inbox for free

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Sat, 1 Oct 2011 06:38:00 -0400

“You went to bed late at night and obviously woke up late next morning. Meanwhile you did not get time to check your mail which actually helped you to reach office in time. But the twist happened when you got to know that the meeting for which you prepared the whole night actually got over even before you reached office. Actually the meeting was preponed by an hour due to some reasons and you were informed through mail.”

If the above story is quite common in your life then this article will surely get you through.You just need to follow some really easy steps and then you are done. After that you will get all the notifications in your mobile via text and need not worry about checking your mail each time.

STEP-1:

Go to www.way2sms.com and make a free account with the signup button. After you become a registered user then sign-in into your account.

STEP-2:

Once you sign in, you will find “Mail Alerts” at the top right end corner. Once you click it you will be redirected to you alerts page. Here you need to note two things. First your Mail Alert Status should be activated and second you will find “Forward your mails to” followed by a mail address. Copy the address.

STEP-3:

Go to your mail page like gmail or outlook and forward all your mails to the address you got in step 2. Then you are done. You will now receive all your mails as a sms alert.

I can help you with Microsoft Outlook and GMail as I tried with them personally. So here it goes:

OUTLOOK:

· Sign in to your account and at the right top you will find “Options”.

· Select “Create your Inbox rules” and then click “NEW” in the page redirected.

· Once you click “new” you will get two options:

1. "When the message arrives and"

· Select the option “Apply to all messages”.

2. "Do the following"

· Select the option “Redirect the message to” and paste the mail address obtained in step-2.

That finishes your job. You can now do your work without any worry as you will get all information in your phone wherever you are.

GMAIL:

· Sign in to your account and at the right hand top corner click the settings icon.

· Then select “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” button.

· Click on “Add a forwarding message” and paste the address obtained in step-2. You may be verified by google. Once you verify your account or phone then you can enjoy receiving sms alerts.

For any other mail domains other than the two examples, you will get the information from the website www.way2sms.com itself. I hope this article will be able to help you a lot. If you have any easier method other than this then do comment below which can help other readers as well. And if you have liked it then do hit the like button below.

Amazing Chat Smileys for Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Satyam) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 07:29:00 -0400

Using new smileys and impressing others while chatting have always been a trendy topic. In facebook, while you chat with someone, you are sure to generate huge response if you use different smileys. It is very much true in case of girls who always want to know such distinct topics. So why not learn as much of the distinct ones and add spice into our chat experience. But where to find all these different smiley codes??? I have made your work a bit simple by collecting some of the most popular smileys along with their codes. Though its easily available on googling but getting all of them at a single page will surely make your job simple. So go on and learn them and have a happy chatting. And finally do post if you know any new smileys other than the list.

FacebookSmileys	Meaning	Shortcut
	Smile	:-) :) :] =)
	Tongue	:-P :-p :-p :p =P
	Big Smile	:-D :D =D
	Cry	:'(
	Cool	8-\| 8\| B-\| B\|
	Very Angry	>:O >:-O >:-o
	Confused	o.O O.o
	Devil	3:) 3:-)
	Heart	<3
	Moody One	-_-
	Curly Lips	:3
	Chris Putnam	:putnam:
	Penguin	<(“)

B Bold *Your text*

U	Underlined	_Your text_
	Sad	:-( :( :[ =(
	Wink	;-) ;)
	Surprised	:-O :O :-o :o
	Geek	8-) 8) B-) B)
	Mad	>:( >:-(
	Thinking	:/ :-/ :\ :-\
	Kiss	:-* :*
	Angel	O:) O:-)
	Very happy	^_^
	Pacman	:v
	Robot	:\|]
	Shark	(^^^)
B	Bold	_Text_