All posts by Ashish Tiwari

About Ashish Tiwari

Ashish Tiwari has 8 years of experience solely working on various aspects of MicroStrategy (excluding SDK). He has experience in Financial domain and created reports having visibility of CXOs and BU heads. He spends his time watching Hollywood flicks. Favorite movie: The Shawshank Redemption.

Life is zingalala

I had seen TATA Sky DTH service at Ashwin’s place. I was very impressed by the quality of reception and features provided. SO even I booked a connection. I knew that was like buying enmity with local cable operator.

The installation guys came at the time as planned. They had all the equipment to fit the dish, but the helper seemed to be a new guy so the main guy was a bit pissed. Specially, when an important screw was missing. Still, I must say everything went smooth and within 2 hours it was done. I must say, it was really damn nice seeing the TV after the connection was setup. It was amazing. Life is really a zingalala now. TATA is not better as far as pricing, schemes and features is concerned but it beats in picture quality and customer satisfaction. My main reason to buy TATA and I feel I was not wrong. Hope everything goes well.

Oye Pappe….Isko lagaya to life ekdum zingalala…

A joke that reminds me of Cybage

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, ‘Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.’

The man below says, ‘Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West longitude.’

‘You must be a programmer,’ says the balloonist.

‘I am,’ replies the man. ‘How did you know?’

‘Well,’ says the balloonist, ‘everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.’

The man below says, ‘You must be a project manager

‘I am,’ replies the balloonist, ‘but how did you know?’

‘Well,’ says the man, ‘you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep,and you expect someone to solve your problem.’

B1…. Be One

Life is full of jinx. Something I would not like to discuss. But in short I got my B1 visa interview through. Getting up early .. I hate so much.. but I had to get myself visa so as to be here at Covansys being billable… It has been 5 months having worked in my core competency… But I’m not complaining.. I’m enjoying this (professional) life less challenging. god.. I must have killed the CEO for keeping me on bench for more than 2 month and I’ve been 4 months on bench here.

So I finally reached US consulate at 8:10 and by mistake breached the queue. There were two queues. ONE Current and TWO anything other than current. If the 8:15 “appointment” is going on, then there would be two queue people for 8:15 appoint and rest. The 8:15 queue was not cleared till 9:30. I wanted to eat something even though I had eaten on way to consulate as well as home. I happen to get in talk this guy of Accenture. We went together for tea. I entered consulate at 11. Really puzzled cause of not having updated information on the notice boards in the interview waiting area.

I didn’t believe when the interviewer said “Visa will be sent to your offer, sir”. I didn’t last even a minute. Wow is Now!!!

Reached office by 1:10 and sent mail to concerned person about the visa having being approved. Here I get a bombshell. APS is not considering the onsite requirement.

Bitter Sweet Home

Once upon a time I was a avid mail writer and reviewer of magazine “Digit”. I was so good that the editor called me for a job opportunity. That didn’t go through. I had written a sample article covering the various p2p technologies (not softwares). My old pal Kiran Pai gave me suggestion on the same. Here is the whole mail.


hi ashish
u had asked for SOME feedback.. but i always give LITTLE more than some 😉
pl dont give me galis for giving stupid and minor corrections at the end of the
mail.. i basically write wotever comes to my mind.. so thats why the mail has
become so lenghty…

btw i am not sure whether this is your final copy..always nice to get it
proofread by some ppl.. since its your first article..fewer the mistakes much
better.. good impression u can make..

SOME POINTS:
>the one liners describing the softwares are pretty cool

>the ‘behind the scenes’ of Online File Sharing described at the end is pretty
informative.. very nice.. specially fast track P2P

> overall the article gives the reader a sound understanding of the entire file
sharing scene and helps him make the best decision..

> even the suggestion to approach the grey market for mp3s seems to be a wise
suggestion

>suggestion ..one liner for audiogalaxy : “The Powerful Galaxy of songs seems to
be shrinking..” or something like that u can write since they are blocking all
copyrighted songs.. (btw u tried searching on audioglaxay.. for metallica and it
doesnt allow u to download..since it is copyrighted…but u type mettalica (the
wrong spelling) and almost all the songs are there.. since public have changed
the filename of the mp3 and stored it. pretty stupid blocking.. napster is on
the contrary using some new tech to block songs depending on the internal file
structure rather than the file names)

>audiogalaxy resumes downloads from sources other than the original source.. u
have mentioned that only morpheus is capable of doing that.. audiogalaxy sorts
the files according to the file size..and if it finds any other source with same
file size then it starts downloading.. need not be the guy from whom u had
started the original download.. only file size exact size has to be the same

> i didnt actually see the ratings that u have given to all the softwares.. but
all the indiviual fields in Napster have more rating than audiogaalxy but the
overall grade is lesser than that of audiogalaxy.. i know that because of the
pay factor in napster..but it looks slightly wrong.. or maybe thats right..

SOME SIMPLE LANGAUAGE MODIFICATIONS THAT U MAY BE INTERESTED IN (OR RATHER NOT):
> A variety of parameters were looked : A variety of parameters were considered
> The pioneer of the online file sharing : The pioneer in the online file
sharing scenario
> Previewing of partially downloaded file is really useful as on one need to
change the extension and then back to old extension. : Previewing of partially
downloaded files is useful since it avoids the need to manually rename the
partially downloaded files for playback
>For India users : For Indians OR Users in India
>upwards bandwidth : upload BW
>If your music need is just latest mp3s and popular mp3s : If all that u need is
fresh, latest & hot mp3s then your nextdoor grey market dealer would be
selling….
>it’s impossible to get onto any Gnutella P2P server : it’s almost impossible to
get onto any Gnutella P2P server
>incomplete as Gnutella sucks on… : incomplete as Gnutella cries on.. (i didnt
think publications like CHip would ever use such words.. or even encourage them
from anybody at a professional level.. u have also used ‘crap’ which also i dont
advocate )
>new kid of the block : new kid ON the block
>and site is highly badly managed and navigation is really very bad : and the
site design is cumbersome and navaigation becomes a slight problem

yup thats it..
bye
kiran

Pune trip/treat

I finally reached 303 Ruby, Nyati Empire, kudos to the heavy road widening projects running in Mumbai and the useless driver of Raj Travels. Something that I really find strange is that drivers of Raj Travels are very slow now and would do stupid mistakes of jo8ining heavy trafficked lanes. this happened with me both ways.

Anyways coming back to the topic. First thing first. I really missed the roomies. I felt so happy for being with them after such a long time. Specially, the flat where I stayed more then next flat I moved. Victor happen to be in the same room where I stayed. He offered me that room as the couch in the hall was not suitable for me due to its short length. Entering in that very room where I lived was a great feeling. I remember the way I used to keep my stuff. One thing lazy butt Victor has changed quite a bit. Akhileh has left lots and lots of furniture and household item when are in use by Victor, Sunil and Yeshwant. Flats has total different looks now. Sooooooooooo much better. One thing, Yeshwant heads the ATG (Advanced Technology Group) at his employer (synicron) where as I am part of ATG here at Covansys. Yes, I’m no longer part of RMG (Resource Management Group) aka Bench. About being on bench for pretty long now. I don’t wanna leave Covansys as of now, but if they don’t assign me a project till March end a search will definitely start. One thing, I was really really lucky to get roomies like them. No offense to any of my roomies in other cities. But I have seen people who are strange, stubborn and very selfish. They were none of them. One thing, I happen to know that Sareeta is working for MicroStrategy Documentation project. Nice. A very good natured girl I’ve met during my college time. Orkut is great. It has changed lives forever. Na kabhi orkut hota na kabhi main ankit se milta na kabhi IvyComptech mujhe 7.2 lac ka package deta. The most important thing in life is not being lucky or great. It is being at right place at right time. My life is full of twists and turns as far as my profession goes and I’m pretty happy about it.

Next day I got the method to go into the local ISP router. Illegal!! but how can we actually call it intrusion when there is no wall and forget the gate and gate-keeper. Al I wanted to make the make my p2p to work but he has very beautifully blocked most of the “Extra service” port. He has blocked even VPN ports. That would be nightmare is someone wants to work from home. He won’t be able to connect to the office at all. Even Ping was blocked. I got a good chance to see the routers settings. Victor would make use to this knowledge. Finally it the time of my much awaited treat of the “very old” new job. Finally we settled for Bamboohouse at Deccan as all of had been there and food was good and for Yeshwant any place with drinks would have done. We reached there and probably got the second last free table. Very soon after we joined that table the queue had started. I don’t really all the stuff we had but food was good. Yeshant had Kajhuraho (a bitter taste beer) where as Sunil had Mild Beer. I and Victor had 2 large pegs of Vodka. He recommended a new brand. Don’t recall it. The only sad part of it was the fish ordered had no spice and Yeshwant got a small cockroach in it. One thing I must say I would always miss Victor (for a being a true and good to have a talk/healthy argument and having enough knowledge about stuff to have a talk of any damn thing) and Yeshwant (very selfless). BTW, jab 10000 lazy people die one Victor comes to earth. Where as Sunil was a balanced person. No extremities of anything. Bill was not much and had ice cream at Baskin Robins while coming back I had a coffee ice cream. It was great. We reached home by mid night as no one was in mood to sit and talk. Soon we were dozing off in respective rooms. In night my roaming got deactivated of its own. F*** off Hutch. Though not much concern, but I just had this number to be contacted and I’m extremely concerned about my parents. It always lingers in my mind. That why **** off to Hutch. I shall chnage the service soon. Just waiting for this ATG cloud to get over.

Next morning (Sunday) I made tea for everyone, something that I used to do while being there and heated milk for Yeshwant to make coffee. He is all set to get his wife and kid at pune. His weekends goes very busy as due to kid Asha would not be able to any shopping. He has got his cylinder discontinued as non-usage for more than 6 months. He might take Ruby’s cylinder. He was separating out the stuff he got to home (he had got lot and lots of stuff, full kitchen utensils were owned by him except very few by him) . But main itna kamina nahin hoon ki main apna saman leke jaoon. :) They watched Borat after tea and copied tons and tons of english movies and software from my HDD. They had so much of stuff to be copied that I had to stop the copying to reach the bus stand in time for coming back to Mumbai. Next time doods. Victor drops me at the Raj ravel bus stand. We had tea and Medu-wada before me taking the bus. We talked if a goa trip could be planned next month. Let us see. I take the bus and come home. I happen to meet a gal on bus who lives at JB Nagar. But we leave w/o taking down any contact number or something.