Sashidhar Kokku

Moving to my own site (and blog)

Finally decided to get my own website and blog on Community Server 2.1. Please update your bookmarks to http://community.dynacx.com/blogs/sashidhar Thanks to all for their support at DNJ.

Me...moving.

Well... was in the cards.... too much spam on this weblog...and moreover, too many errors. My new weblog is

http://devauthority.com/blogs/sskokku

Will try and remember to cross-post for a while..

Wanted to thank the guys at DNJ for their support.

-S

SQL Server 2000 vs Oracle.

I started off my career supporting MS all the way......basically am still in the same team. But apparently, and again....most of the big service companies(eg.insurance, healthcare,etc) turn in a sad face when they are told that their data will be hosted on SQL Server 2000. For some reason, they still think that only DB2 or Oracle are qualified enough to even think of hosting so much data. Honestly, I am not biased, I don't know too much of Oracle....and know nothing in DB2....but know a decent length in SQL server 2k.

And just when I started to read up on SQL server 2005, and try to convince my boss to implement it as soon as it releases, the management decides that all data from now on will be hosted on Oracle (hosted in a linux environment). damn...i hate linux soo much from a developer's perspective.

Ah well...stole a PL/SQL book from my collegue, got to start reading up on it now.

Bugs

Laws of Software Engineering....

Law 1.Every Software Engineer continues his state of chatting or forwarding mails unless he is assigned work by manager. Law 2. The rate of change in the software is directly proportional to the payment received from client and takes place at the quick rate as when deadline force is applied. Law 3. For every Use Case Manifestation there is an equal but opposite Software Implementation. Bonus :-) Law 4. Bugs can neither be created nor be removed from software by a developer. It can only be converted from one form to another. The total number of bugs in the software always remains constant.

Good ol' times

Ever wondered how www.yahoo.com looked like back in 1996..... or maybe how hotmail looked when it first came? Check this out : http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html

Nifty add-in suite.

Was considering tools like Refactor, CodeRush, etc...until I decided to develop all those add-in's myself. After a few weeks of frustration, and scanning the google radar for some tutorials, examples, I bumped into this.Free Add-In suite from USystWare. Nifty tools.....and obviously cannot beat FREE....

XP...now....XI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Ironing

via (http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=70672)

Reduce FxCop errors by using Custom Dictionaries.

Often there comes a time, when you really want to use FxCop as is, but keep getting annoyed with its stupid issues about spelling out the variable names properly. Some organizations want to use a "m" suffix for member data, and a "p" suffix for method parameters, and FxCop keeps yelling at that library...so...how do we overcome that ...well....to a certain extent? Create a custom dictionary !!!

Open MS word
Type in all the words you want to use in code into the dictionary, eg, company name, technology name.
Obviously MS Word will start yelling at you for these words don't make any sense.
Right click on them , and say "Add to dictionary"

and tadaaa....you are all set. Now, if you try to run FxCop on your existing code, it will complain less.

Chinese whisper in an organization....

Engineer to Team Leader :
"We can't do this proposed project.**CAN NOT**. It will involve a major design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy system. And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on it, they can't. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never take these type of projects."
Team Leader to Project Manager :
"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don't have any staff who has experience in this type of work. Also, the language is unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a project of this nature."
Project Manager to 1st Level Manager :
"This project involves a design change in the system and we don't have much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to do the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it."
1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager :
"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So they can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take this project, but with caution."
Senior Level Manager to CEO :
"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in remodelling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some people have already given in house training in this area to other staff members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by us under any circumstances."
CEO to Client :
"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this project successfully and well within the given time frame."

A programmer

How do I associate an icon with my webpage? (called 'Favicon')

It's a new interesting feature of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 called 'Favicon'. Associate an icon with your homepage now. If somebody adds your page to his favorites, IE will access the file favicon.ico in the root folder of your domain and a small icon appears in his favorites list. The same icon is used, if you drag and drop the URL to your desktop. Example: You have a Geocities Page. Then you'll need a Windows Icon File, just name it favicon.ico and place it in your Homepage directory. Then add a line like
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" href="/Area51/Home/6512/favicon.ico">
in the <head> ... </head> section of your Homepage. It's very important to include the whole directory relative to the root of the webserver. If you don't use the LINK REL method, IE will automatically use the file: http://www.yourdomain.com/favicon.ico - Read the MS documentation here. Some people reported me, there are a few bugs in the IE 5, in some cases the icons dissapear from their favourites list (see next question). More infos on Favicons on favicon.com or favicon.de.

(via http://www.iconarchive.com/html/faq.html )

Did not check this to work yet...but am certain to put it up on my site.

Note to self : Adding path information to Windows environment variables.

1. Create a <applicationName>.bat file
2. In the edit mode, enter the direct path to the executable.
(eg) C:\Program Files\nAnt\bin\nAnt.exe
3. Save and close the file and store it under the C:\Windows folder.
4. Open the command prompt window, and type in the batch file name to access the program.

Add CommandPrompt to the context menu.

_{A how-to note to self.}

1. In explorer, open Tools, Folder Options.

2. Select the File Types tab.

3.For Windows XP: Go to NONE / Folder.

For Windows 2000: Press n to scroll to the N/A section.

For Windows NT/98/95: Press f to scroll to the Folders section.

4.Select the entry labeled Folder

5.For Windows 2000/XP: Press Advanced button.

For Windows NT/98/95: Press Edit button.

6. Select New

7. In the action block type "Command Prompt" without the quotes.

8. In the app block type "cmd.exe" without the quotes.

9. Save and exit Folder Options.

10. Close that instance of Explorer window and open a new one.

How a machine thinks....

Seriously...i will never regret loosing to a machine. http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.html