There was a Japanese who came to India for sightseeing. On the last day, he hired a cab and told the driver to drive to the Airport. During the journey, a Honda drove past the taxi. Thereupon, the man leaned out of the window excitedly and yelled, ‘Honda, very fast! Made in Japan !!!.

After a while, a Toyota sped past the taxi and again the Japanese man leaned out of the window and yelled, ‘Toyota, very fast! Made in Japan!’ And then a Mitsubishi sped past the taxi. For the third time, the Japanese leaned out of the window and yelled, ‘Mitsubishi, very fast! Made in Japan!’

The driver was a little angry, but he kept quiet. And this went on for quite a number of cars. Finally, the taxi came to the airport. The fare was 800 rupees.

The Japanese exclaimed, ‘What??… so expensive!’ There upon, the driver yelled back, ‘Meter, Made in India VERY VERY FAST !!!!!’

Men always have better friends. They will stand by you, no matter what…

Friends of Women — A wife was not at home for a whole night. So she tells her husband, the very next morning, that she stayed at her (girl) friend’s apartment overnight. So the husband calls 10 of her best (girl) friends and none of them confirm that she was with them….

Friends of Men — A husband was not at home for a whole night. So he tells his wife the very next morning, that he stayed at his friend’s apartment over night. So the wife calls 10 of his best friends and 5 of them confirm that he stayed at their apartments that night and another 5 are claiming that he is still with them….

This is called FRIENDSHIP.

I am sure it would be of a great rescue to Bangaloreans who are in need to travel via air. As the new airport (Bangalore International Airport — BIAL) is located far away from the city and the average time duration to reach is about 2.5-3 hours in the day time, everyone in the picture tends to make use (exploit rather? huh…) of the situations for getting more MONEY!.

This particular piece of info i got from my friend through an email seems to be of a great boon. Thought of sharing it here ! But, kindly go through the website for the full-and-updated information!

Here you go..

—–

We are starting a Airport Transfer Service for Bangalore . Since the New airport is far from the city and we feel that Airport Transfers will become very expensive for the Passengers and there will be a definite problem to commute to and from the New Airport . We are introducing our service to make airport Transfers less expensive and still provide the required luxury while taking customers to and from the airport. We will pick up the customers from the Airlift pickup points and drop them to the airport and vice versa bring them to the city from the airport.

Unique features of the Airlift Vehicle

*         Airlift will be 6 seat air conditioned Toyota Innova. Individual Bucket seats for all 5 passengers.

*         Airlift will have a LCD screen on each passenger seat for personalized entertainment system, these screens will show 5 channels with different contents.

*         Airlift has ample overhead covered and secured luggage space.

*         Airlift will be Wi-Fi enabled for passengers to browse the internet on the screens and as well as with their laptops.

*         Airlift will be driven by our Auto Pilots who will be in uniform and well trained to communicate and present themselves to the customers.

*         Airlift will also be tracked by GPS system to ensure efficient on time services and tracking every vehicle to make sure of complete security of passengers.

Airlift is being designed to provide complete comfort and help the passenger to use their commuting time productively.

Pricing:

We feel that the Normal City Cab from or to the Airport will cost about 750/- to 1000/- one way. Our service has been priced at Rs. 300/- one way and moreover Return journey for to and from the airport will be Rs. 450/- per person.  That is nearly 70% saving on the Airport Transfers vis-à-vis a regular City Cab.

How to avail the service:

Book Tickets online on our website http://www.airliftonline.com through Credit or Debit Card.

Pickup the Prepaid Coupons in any of the Retail Stores and call 91-98450-47788 to make a booking or use the same on http://www.airliftonline.com

Support:

SMS AIRLIFT to 54545. Our support team will get in touch with you ASAP.

Call our 24/7 call center number 98450 47788.

Logon to our website http://www.airliftonline.com for any queries

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 world, so that this initiative benefits as many students as possible.

Hey buddies,

Its been a weeks time I came back to Bangalore from Bahrain. Of course was about to write one post about ‘life in bahrain’. But had been quite busy with the KT and handover stuff. Let me see how soon i could finish that off!

As such completed 9 months over there and back to India. Could see many changes (improvements rather) here. Getting settleddddd….

Cheers!!

“how to include a javascript file (external .js file) into the jsp files?”. it is all about. It can be achieved by using “<script>” tag as follows

<script language="text/javascript" src="../path/to/your/javascript-file.js"/>

This link helps you for the same -> http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_whereto.asp

It all started off with the inclusion of a javascript calendar in a Web application what i am developing! At first i had searched for some cool javascript calendar stuff in google.  Though got a couple of links, got impressed very much this DHTMLGoodies stuff. The reason being it satisfies my exact requirement as it does NOT not only capture the date but also the time which is what i needed. Look at the section “A date picker for form” which is in the middle of the page.

But the issue always start with customization :). As the demo page was having some other types of calendars, i had to omit those. But my gimmics on the mimic was not working as i kept getting an ‘Object expected‘ error in the IE browser! Felt very bad and tried some work arounds, finally somehow managed to get this thing done! The real action i was doing was keeping the html page outside the folder which was actually inside a folder named ‘demos’ in the downloaded DHTMLSuite package zip file. But it dint seem to be working and i was going crazy what might be causing so. Well, one of my colleagues also attempted to debug and finally we have decided that it should be under a folder and its name should also be ‘demo’. He even searched for the same in files in demo directory for being hardcoded! I was telling that it should never be the way.  i asked him to recheck by giving a different name and he gave the name as ‘xxx’. Crazy fellow :). It did work

Finally, the mistake was there in the naming convention of .js file. There was an error in the filename as the actual filename was having a mixed camelCase (fileName.js) but inside it was referred all in small case! yuck.. It is again a silly copy-paste error!

This is how we tend to do the mistakes on the things which we know we are comfortable with. Aint I?

As of today 18 May 2008, i am completing 8 months of my stay in bahrain. I really wonder and don’t know how months are getting passed. One good difference what i feel from my TCS colleagues here is for all of them it is the reverse as they equate the months to years whereas for me it is in the reverse as months are like weeks :).

Yes, the first onsite always has some moments to ponder, memories to cherish, values to add :). Though i am yet to post the part 2 of the post describing the lifestyle here (previously i have posted “Life in Bahrain“), i just thought i can quickly post this as it may not be possible to finish that post within today!

Soon i would be going back to India..

Cheers..

I am sure all of us would have passed this phase with no good reason or with some special reason deserving your feeling fresh mood!

Today i do feel so. Well, it is just nothing but my office PC has been given a rebirth. Sounds confusing? It is formatted and the OS has been reinstalled! :). Not just today, i do have this feeling whenever i happen to encounter this scenario. Perhaps the reason could have been the efforts taken to prevent this to occur and updating your antivirus, taking backup of your data etc.,

A new life you get after a long struggle…?

Everytime we do format your PC and reinstall your OS, mostly we tend to take some oaths as follows:

# Should install only the required software

# Should not keep/store the video/movie files in PC as they occupy more space

# Should keep the contents well organized

# More importantly, should keep my desktop clean! (lol, it deserves a special attention as i am sure most of us are bound to break this golden rule. Aint I? :)).

# Should update my anti virus frequently

# Should scan the files before i get them from any external media.

Well , the list could go on. I have something else as well. Right from beginning you got to take your backed up contents, installing the software, configuration, customization etc. During installation, there are chances you get a newer version which you might not have been really thinking of before the fresh start!

One such kind is the installation of ‘SeaMonkey‘ browser which i happened to see it in my roomie’s laptop and he installed it in his Ubuntu. It was nice enough and it insisted me to try as the Firefox 3 beta was very slow and poor. Really don’t know why but somehow firefox made me feel bad of it! :(.

The SeaMonkey is also from Mozilla but it looks so cool. Also have found out some more interesting information which i could post later.

i have also tried out downloading Ubuntu for the first time and installed it successfully using VMWare in my Windows XP.

Whatever it is, i am feeling fresh today! Aren’t you?

somehow, it is my 75th post here! — yet another reason to feel fresh!? lol! Thanks to the new and improved WordPress administration, it shows the count in the dashboard once you login!

Wish you too have a “fresh time” ahead buddies!!

I remember years back there was a famous blog post with the same title and it was blogged by a person named Kalaivani (kalai in short). I still remember in the year 2005, I got it as a forward and not to deny it was helping us to laugh like anything due to its beautiful narration of the situations.

Here i do post this with my siutations. Well, those of you who are not aware of my name in full, it goes as ‘M Raghavan alias Saravanan’, and i do prefer to have it in full in most of the places and wherever possible! May be because of the self-love one can argue!

It so happens many times that i am asked for an explanation of the term ‘alias’ and why i have two names? Not to miss the interview parts i have attended so far. Luckily if it gets missed out during the initial phases of technical interview, it is for sure to mark its presence in the HR interviews. I would ask them with a small question, “there is a small story behind it. would you like to hear?”. Well, most probably the answers were of type ‘Yes’, ‘Sure’, ‘Go ahead’

Very recently, i faced the same with the conversation with a new blogger friend Meenu on her post and so am i here with this post! As per her request, i am mostly writing it in english and wherever appropriate using the translation for the tamil slang!

Story behind my Father’s name

To start off with, the first name or name before the ‘alias’ is my dad’s name as well my grandpa’s.
Well, my dad also has a story for his name. My dad’s name was R. Muthu karuppan since my grandfather’s name being ‘SP Raghavan’. My dad felt a bit shy and/or reluctant for keeping the second part ‘karuppan‘ as it would be a catchy term for the fellow buddies to tease him with the meaning it gives as ‘blacky or black in colour‘ in tamil.

Hence he did remove that ‘karuppan’ out of his name and kept his name as his initial expanded. And his name got transformed from ‘R. Muthu‘ to ‘Raghavan Muthu’. Infact he did this all with the Gazette Notification.

I do remember during my schooling (nursery and i was in Standard V), there was a small argument between our school correspondent and my father for this naming clash and my initial should have been ‘R’ instead of ‘M’. My dad had to send the xerox copy of the gazette for the proof even after explaining those stuff. Obviously that’s the first time I also happened to know all these.

My Naming conventions so far..

Coming to the main track, i was given the so called name ‘Raghavan‘ for the naming to be continued across generations. But again in Tamil culture, women should not call the people by name which happens to match with either of her husband’s or father-in-law’s as it is treated as lack of respect. For that sake, i was given the another name ‘Saravanan’. As my dad felt like keeping those two names in the official records/certificates and they got it registered as such. Just to accommodate both the names, there came a conjunction ‘alias’. That’s when the name has been in existence.

Now coming to the other short/sweet/pet names i do have. Well the list goes like this.

As narrated above, i am called as ‘Saravana‘ by relatives and neighbors. I am specially called as ‘Saro’ by my family members which of course was originated from my beloved mom!

During schooling till class V, i was called as ‘Saravana’ as most of my teachers were my mom’s students and they got used to the same name.

After class 6th, i was called by ‘Raghavan‘. One small incident to share here is, after the initial few days in class 6th of a new school, one of my classmates came to our house on a holiday just for a pastime and when he enquired about me in lathe which is exactly in front my house, he was told that there was no one by the name ‘Raghavan’ and he had to simply return. The next day, i had to explain him as well the neighbors of the other name i do have! lol.

Only one person called me ever as ‘Ravagan‘ [donno where he got that term] and few people just used to call me as ‘Ravanan‘ — just to tease me.

During my engineering, my name has got several forms. Some seniors and friends called me as ‘Raghav‘ which made me feel good at that time till when i came across the term ‘Raghs‘ during my 3rd Year. This term ‘Raghs’ - which of course stays till to date of my preference, has got its own variations. Few people use it as ‘Rags‘ while some others use as ‘Ragz‘.

Very few people use ‘Raghava‘ that sounded like either they are annoyed or over affectionate.

Few friends called me as ‘Raghavs‘ and some continue to do so :).

One of my best buddies who used to call me as ‘Raghs’ for long, she used the term ‘Raga‘ — donno what made her spell that way.

I exactly don’t remember the scenario but one or two called me as ‘Raghavendran’

Some of the selected lecturers used to address me as ‘Saravanan‘ - which brings a nostalgia of childhood schooling memories and i just enjoy the feelings within!

A peculiar set of people called me with the unused conjunction ‘alias‘ and that was also welcomed till now

Few of my college mates and friends call me as ‘Raghavachari‘ as i feel they felt good that way to call me!

Once I went to St Johns Hospital, Bangalore for the corn excision on my leg in Feb 2006, i was called as ‘Raghavan Pillai‘ by one of the sisters over there! mmm. yet another! :). I really din’t dig my small brain for the sources causing the name. :). [Thanks to my beloved colleague,friend,guide Rajasekar M for reminding this one after reading the blog post:p]

What’s a big deal.. a name is given to call you right. The purpose is getting saved!

Out of all these, i somehow prefer nowadays being called with the name ‘Raghs‘ and thats what in use everywhere including this address of this blog!

Some difficulties I face officially

Though having been identified uniquely in all academic environments, i used to face a tough time when filling up the application forms, where in i had to draw few more boxes to write my so called ‘name-in-full’ and it usually attracts a smile from the neighbors and/or the concerned official.

Names in the professional environment

During my employment with Covansys (of course my first employer), the naming convention for the emalil id was the first letter of your initial followed by your first name. And my email id was ‘RMuthu’ (as explained above). Though i had an option to have the email id as ‘MRaghavan‘ by reversing, i dint want to do since i had huge number of email ids on my own name itself, i thought of giving a credit to my dad

But the display name was ‘MUTHU Raghavan alias Saravanan‘. Most of my team members (it was a huge team having 70+ members) started calling me as ‘Muthu‘. Initially i was correcting them by saying its not mine but my father’s name. But no one seemed to agree and they justified saying that it was short compared to Raghavan. What a super analogy and analysis? Just a difference in few characters/letters. Huh! I was practiced to listen to the name ‘Muthu’ thereafter and it continued for 2 years literally. Even now some of my ex-colleagues call me as ‘Muthu’ only! Enna kodumai sir idhu?

Another important aspect was with the US clients. Initially they used to ask me in email as how to spell my name and what name they can make use for the sake of their convenience!. Some of them used to address me as ‘Muttu‘ (sounds like ‘Mute-u‘) in the conference call with which people around me have a good fun !

Now, my name has been registered in my present company as ‘Raghavan alias Saravanan Muthu‘ - just a reverse of place holders. Some of my present colleagues call me as

#1. ‘Raghavan alias Saravana Muthu‘ — [note the absence of 'n' here :)]

#2. ‘Raghavan engira Saravana Muthu‘ — of course thats how the term ‘alias’ gets translated in tamil!

#3. ‘Raghavan alias Saravanan alias Muthu‘ — beautiful!

What to do? Getting used to it!

After all, its a part of your name and its like a metadata!

Names in the Onsite (Bahrain)

I guess it was somehow missed though i thought of posting it months back. And now its the time to include that as well.

After coming to Bahrain for an onsite assignment i am given some more new names by some of my colleagues here. They are from TCS. Those names go as below.

#1. Raghavan s/o Raghavan s/o Raghavan — maintaining the full hierarchy from bottom to top! :). Software engineers they are, you know!

#2. Veettula Saravanan veliyila Raghavan – meaning ‘in the home Saravanan but outside Raghavan’

#3. Raghwan – that’s how the employees of our client (LMRA) call me. They mainly follow Arabiq here. It can be taken as ‘Raghwan’, ‘Raghghvaan‘ as it varies from time to time and depends on their mood

Name in the Passport

Well! It goes for a task man. I don’t know why it went like that. And no wonder, the ‘government employees’ are prone to do that i suppose. In my passport, my name is entered as ‘Raghavan ALSOKNOWNAS Saravanan’. All what i could do was to yell at my dad and he politely did the same back to me justifying that he got an answer from the officers that its their way of mentioning alias names! ouch..

Was very much concerned of it as was advised by some of my senior colleagues that it might invite some troubles during the visa interview especially for USA. Till now, i have not faced any issues and i hope the same in future as well.

Hope this answers the question in detail with few extra information and somehow it was interesting!

Donno how many other names are there in store for future? :P.

FBOK – Fellow Buddies only know

How is the new layout? Just thought of changing it and I did it today.

Let me know your thoughts on the same

Cheers!

LONDON: Did you know that computer keyboards often harbour more dirt than an average toilet seat? Shocking but true!

The findings of a research carried out by a microbiologist published today in Which? Computing magazine shows that keyboards house millions of bacteria which can cause diarrhoea and vomiting.

James Francis examined samples from 33 keyboards and found bugs including E coli and S aureus which can cause skin infections and make people ill.

For comparison the scientist swabbed a toilet seat and door handle in a typical London office and found that in the case of one keyboard it was five times dirtier than the lavatory seat. “I haven’t seen a reading like that in a very long time — it was off the scale. It was increasing the risk of its user becoming ill,” said Francis. The keyboard had to be removed from the office because it was home to 150 times the acceptable limit of bacteria.

Two other keyboards had “warning levels” of bacteria, while a further two showed high levels of coliform bacteria which are associated with fecal matter.

“These results are generally typical of offices up and down the country,” said Francis.

The chief culprit for contamination was people eating at their desks and dropping crumbs that lodge between keys and encourage the growth of millions of bacteria.

Other causes include people not washing their hands after using the toilet. Dust, which traps moisture, also provides ideal conditions for the growth of bacteria.

“Most people don’t give much thought to the grime that builds up on their PC, but if you don’t clean your computer, you might as well eat your lunch off the toilet,” said Sarah Kidner, the editor of Which? Computing. The magazine suggests giving the computer a regular cleaning.

 The survey showed that 22 per cent cleaned their keyboard and 27 per cent their monitor on a monthly basis. Just over one in 10 said they never cleaned their keyboard, which 20 per cent said they never cleaned their mouse.

 It recommended that computers be shut down and unplugged before being gently dusted with a soft, lint-free cloth and wiped with an approved computer cleaning fluid.

 The magazine also warned that headphones could ferry germs between people and transfer headlice.

  I somehow tend to clean my home PC on a regular basis which includes keyboard.   Anyways, it is again justified with the news.