Trip to Parsons Valley

This is an official trip arranged by our company for a milestone release. We were 25 in number, and the trip was really great as expected. Parsons valley, this place is quiet interesting because of its loneliness. I really loved to be there for some more time. Loneliness, stunning climate, beauty of nature, lovely landscape and there are many more reasons to be listed for which one should visit this place.

We stayed there for two days. On the day we reached that place we went around for a small trek to a stream near by. The next day there was the long trek around the valley. This is my first long trek, it really inspired me to go on for more treks. This sort of enjoyment has no words to be explained. Roaming around the hilly forest along with friends without any real aim, wow! thats really superb. After this trek I just wanted to visit the top-slip which is considered to be one of the best trekking spots in Tamil Nadu. Few snaps below.

toondoo.com rocks

A new website toondoo released today. This is meant for creating cartoon strips. This website really rocks. A cool fun site which children will love, and believe me even the adults will love this. It has various different options which allows you to create a toon of your taste. They give you a large set of characters apart from which you can upload images of your choice into it. I just gave it a quick try and resulted with the following, a very simple one in fact.



This is released by the Jambav team of the AdventNet.

SCJP Cleared

Well, it feels good to have cleared the SCJP after 15 days of preparation. These 15 days were really one of the strangest patch of days I have experienced. I stayed in the office not going home. Did not meet any of my friends. Just talked to couple of my friends over phone. I haven't been like this before.

The work in office during this period was also very high than ever before. So working till 9.30/10.30 pm and then preparing for the exam till mid night was the schedule which I was following. The days passed stressfully. I didn't get the confidence of clearing the exam at any point of time because the I knew 15 days of preparation will definitely not be sufficient. But I wanted to clear the exam at any cost so kept working hard in the available period of time leaving back all other worries.

As a final part of the preparation I just wanted to write some mock tests, which were available in my friends place. So I went there the day before the exam and wrote some three exams all of which I failed, this totally brought down my morale. I was almost sure that I am never going to clear the exam that moment. But, on the day of exam I went to the testing center keeping in mind to do the fundamentals correctly and not to worry about the tough ones. I sticked to this which helped me to get through.

Thanks to all my friends who backed me when ever I was feeling the pressure.

Few Tips (From my experience):

1. Prepare for the exam for a minimum of 3 month with good concentration.
2. Revise all the portions at least twice.
3. Take up mock tests 10 days before appearing for the exam, so that you will be able to find the sections where you are week and you will have time to revising it once more.
4. Use the study material for the SCJP 5.0 by Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates. Also study the important APIs from Java docs.
5. Take the test cool head, don't panic.

All the best - for all who take up the exam.

Tada - Raw nature !!!

This trip was just an unofficial one with few of my colleagues. We were six in number started from Chennai at 6 in the morning in a cab. We halted near Puzhal lake to have a view. This place took all of by surprise. I didn't expect such a big lake any where near Chennai. Later came to know that, this is one of the main source of water for Chennai.

We reached Tada by nearly 11. The cab driver left us at the point beyond which we can move only by walk. The place was really superb. Nature lovers will definitely find this place as a treat for their eyes. A mix of a light forest, cool stream & rocky hill. There was no definite path to reach the falls, just we will have to walk through the stream or in between the trees. We were not able to reach the main falls as we were running out of time. Also we heard from some people that reaching the falls would be challenging & swimming knowledge is a must. Except myself and another guy the others were not good swimmers, so we decided against proceeding towards the falls. But on the way to the falls there are many puddles which will give us enough enjoyment. Few sample snaps have been posted below. So if you are in Chennai and will like to spend a weekend in a totally different way (Without pollution, noise and all the other disturbance the city provides), this would be one of the best choice available.



One good thing about Tada (that I liked) is, it is still a place where the tourist dept. are yet to set their foot. So this place is just a raw nature with no customization.

Adorned in new Robes

Now the Indian team has some thing different to wear after using the same old patterned Jersy for more than 4 long years. This is a welcome move, the present jersy is really good but I have personally developed a boredom towards it. The color of the new jersy is called as Powder Blue, which is less blue than the present one.

And also there is some innovation in the material used. Nike has patented material which is used, which is claimed to be 15 percent lighter than the previous one. So this will assist the players to perform better.

Hope this change brings change in fortunes for the Indian Team.

Humiliation for Aussies

A first humiliating white wash for the Aussies in my memory. It was great to watch the Kiwis chasing down the mammoth 346 with 4 balls to spare in the final one dayer. Full credits to the efforts from McMillan & McCullam.

Of course this is a stripped down Australian side but still the Kiwis were also playing without the likes of Bond, Vettori, Oram... So in my opinion this a evenly poised competition in which the Aussies have lost out. This being this the final international series before the world cup due next month, the Aussies will have to sort out too many problems to defend their title successfully.

And with the Proteas, Kiwis, Indians ;) finding form the competition is wide open.

Final 15 for the World Cup.

The announcement came this morning. And as expected there was little change in the team which is taking up the SriLankan's challenge at home. In my honest opnion this is the best side that could be selected with the resources available. I would have tried to find a place for Powar at the cost of a pacer in my 15. But now the most important thing is which 11 will you go for and what will be the batting order. You cant expect Uthappa or Shewag (who ever opens with Sourav) to find form immediately, in that case will Sachin move up. We cant expect our pacer to rip off the opponents top order every match. They are very inconsistent. Any way interesting times ahead. Lets hope for the best.

The Team : Rahul Dravid (capt), Sourav Ganguly, Robin Uthappa, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Shewag, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Ajith Agarkar, Harbajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel.

Finally Proud owner of SE K750i

My very long desire to buy a rich featured Mobile phone finally got satisfied on the 17th of Oct. During my leisure in office my major interest will be looking into the UniverCell site for mobile prices and GSMArena site for mobile reviews. I kept looking for the best in the market like mad from these reviews. Initially the mobiles under my consideration were the

SE K750i
SE W550i
Nokia 6280
Samsung x700

The W550i went out of contention due to the lack of a quality camera. The x700 also lost the race due to the same reasons. But the Nokia 6280 was satisfying all my needs but it was way out of my budget. So finally decided to buy the feature packed K750i which was priced just right.

I had decided the right mobile to be brought but the correct time to purchase it was not yet decided. I fixed the date as Sept 29th, but due to some constraints (I was leaving to Madurai that evening (time constraints)) I was not able to make it on that day. So finally decided that I will get it in the week prior to Diwali. As the purchase of the mobile got delayed once again I started to analyze the web for a model better than this. As a result of this search I shortlisted the new contenders as,

SE K750i (Still on top)
SE W700i

In the final moments I was even tempted to buy a very costly SE W850 which struck my eyes. But I controlled the temptations and decided to buy one of the two listed above, I felt it to be stupidity to spend over 15,000 on a mobile. On the day of purchase when I woke in the morning I had no idea that I will be buying my new mobile that evening (actually it was night when I bought it). While I was in the office I decided that the mobile must be brought before the forthcoming thursday as I will be leaving to Madurai. I had only two evenings time. I called Pradeep (my pal) and confirmed him whether he will be free in the evening so that he will accompany me to WaveTel.

Time was 7.00 PM I was still busy with my work, I called Pradeep and asked him whether the plan can be rescheduled to the next day? But he told to finish this off today as there were other commitments tomorrow. At 9.00 he called me and asked shall we move? I still had some work to be completed but still I decided to leave.

Finally we reached WaveTel at around 9:45. We asked for models from Sony Ericsson which were released after K750i the sales person suggested W700i. I got the sample pieces of both K750i and W700i in my hand and had a final look to decide which one to choose. Pradeep also suggested to go for the W series and the owner of WaveTel also suggested the same. Finally after some pause I decided to go for the Black Beauty, K750i.

I have almost fixed my eyes on the SE K750i when Pradeep purchased it during few months back. Its rich features and the nominal price compared to other nokia mobiles were the main reason for me to turn my attention towards this bar. Now I am happy to own this piece.

In search of a place to live in (in Chennai)

The search is on again. This time it is getting even more tougher as our requirements has also gone on the high. It has become a habit for us to change a house every 6 months, we are already looking for our fourth house in the last 18 months. This often happens due to some external forces rather than our own decision.

As a known truth the bachelors are never encouraged in the apartments. And also we are seven in number where ever we reveal this we are straight away shown the way out!! if we keep this as a secret during the time of signing the agreement then we are done once the truth is out.

In and around Thiruvanmiyur (Our current location), we are not able to find a single house that suits our requirements so this time we will have to compromise with the distance. The search in the ECR, Kotoorpuram, Velachery, and the OMR began. We were still not able to locate the exact one. I along with Vel suggested a house in the ECR(Palavakam) with the help of a broker which was sacked due to the lack of parking space. Then few more were suggested by Vel in the Kotoorpuram area all of which had some flaws in it, eventually all got rejected. In the meanwhile Pradeep was striving hard in search of the best possible house which we could get. Eventually he(Pradeep) came up with a superb apartment in Perungudi & one more was found in Velachery, both satisfied us almost such that we were almost egear to agree but due to distance constraint these were also rejected.

Finally the day dawned with Guru waking me saying Pradeep is ready to see a house in Palavakam with the reference of a broker. We (Pradeep, Jayan& I) started together and was later joined by Kumar. It was a hard days search with no result till noon. Due to some constraints Jayan, Kumar & I were forced to return home, Pradeep continued the search with the broker and found one in the OMR(Thoraipakkam). All of us except Guru visited the house in the evening and were really exited seeing the facilities and the size of the house. After further discussions within us and with the owner this house is fixed as our next place to live in.

More about the house once we move in (Hope so).

Just the entry

Whew!! At last I am also here.. Felt like blogging very long ago but finding time just now.. I hope that I visit this place pretty frequently..