9:45PM – 12 K.Ms - Old Madras Road signal. Lights, red. Gigantic water drops started falling. Being on a two wheeler, had no option but to stop. Parked in Indira Nagar on the juice shop. Had an awesome mango shake. Rain pouring in at gushing speed. Roads started submerging , water everywhere. All traffic rules violated, everyone rushing here and there. No option , but to wait, cosy and dry under the shop.
10:15PM – 12K.Ms – Making calls to friends to kill boredom
10:20PM – 12K.Ms – More calls !!! geez, I am bored.
10:30PM – 12K.Ms – More calls !!! geez, I am bored.
10:40PM – 12K.Ms – Rain seemed to reduce in intensity. Made an attempt to proceed further, drenched slighlty. But bearable. Heading south.
10:50PM – 10K.Ms – Whoa, what’s that? Never seen so many vehicles and jam on a flyover (Domlur flyover). Cars coming in from all the directions. What’s happening. Rainfall intensified.
11:00PM – 10K.Ms – Managed to get down from the flyover, swerving in between car spaces. Drenched badly. Roads submerged in water till knee length. Parked the vehicle and hid under the big stationary shop.
11:00PM – 10K.Ms - Waiting for rain to reduce. Cars, trucks , buses all stuck up on the road. Honking honking ! Jam packed. No one goes anywhere. No movement on other side of the road. Looks like the other end is witnessing a phoenix, ganges in south !!! World came to standstill. People trying to manoeuvre their bikes across the water logged gaps, pavements. People falling in water logged ditches, heading in some direction. Total chaos. Power went off. Street lights off. Can see big shiny blue DELL on the far end.
11:30PM – 10K.Ms No traffic movement ahead. Looks like the inner ring roads are submerged totally under water for a stretch of 4KMs. No one goes ahead. The mob broke the divider to let the water flow out.
12:00 AM – 10K.Ms Still waiting under the shop. A noble voice shouted: The inner ring road is totally submerged and vehicle movement is impossible. Cars take a reverse and follow Old Airport Road, Old Madras Road, MG Road etc. Slight movement in vehicle began.
12:15 AM – 10K.Ms The traffic reduced. All vehicles headed in reverse direction. Drizzling. I too took the reverse route .
12:30AM – 8K.Ms. Brigade Road . Roads damp, but not flooded.
12:30AM – 6K.Ms. Bannerghatta Road. I am an idiot that i did not take this route. May be I would have escaped that Domlur inner ring road crisis.
12:45AM – 2K.Ms Outer Ring Road. Whoa, I am reaching home finally . Hurray.
12:50 AM – 0K.Ms Alas ! Reached home. Drenched. Took a shower to freshen. Had dinner. Did some tweeting and finally slept at 2:00AM . It was a tiring day .
Epilogue
Wallet got drenched badly. It took two full days to dry. Luckily, the two 500 notes managed to stay off from getting biologically recycled owing to excessive hydration.
Catastrophes bring people closer. They seamlessly start helping each other without thinking as otherwise they would.
Voila, it was an amazing experience 
Officer : You have over-speeded
Motorist : Hmm… I was just 70 Km/hr
Officer [Hands him a printout]: See this. You were at 76 Km/hr. The statistics have been captured by the #@&^*#5 camera with %#6*#*9 technology. Its all given below. I will have to fine you . 300 bucks.
Poor motorist had no other option.
P.S – Identity of motorist is concealed and is of no concern with respect to the blog.
M: Large coffee machines, surplus supply of beverage, good enough for coffee/tea addicts.
S: Limited supply of beverages, may vary depending on where startup is located, its own office, or a business incubation center.
M: Manager says, you need to be in the office at 9:00AM sharp, they are aussies, ahead of us by 4.5 hrs. We need to bridge this gap. Mails need to be checked every second. Sticking your ass in the office without doing anything is the motto. Punch the clock, 9:15 hrs a day. Some companies have started a early bird offer, earlier you reach the office, say before 8:30 AM, you acquire credit points making you eligible for the lucky draw coupon of Rs 500, Rs 1000 and so on.
S: A product based startup, timings are flexible, no one is going to ask you to push your ass at 9:00AM. But you have critical goals and targets to be achieved, which are of extreme significance for the startup. Hence, you cannot simply laze around in the office. You need to get things done and if you are passionate about work, this can be your dream come true.
M: Please display your ID, where is your ID. I hate this. You are like one in a million. Just another piece of shit in the campus.
S: You know everyone else. The whole comapny is a team and you are a integral part of the company. ID card? I don’t remember the last time I wore it. Only thing you need is the incubation center’s access card. No one is going to pester you to hang the id round the clock, as if you may be a terrorist.
M: Dress Code. This is the most fascinating part. Mondays-Tuesdays- Ultra Formal, Wed-Thurs- Mild Formals, Fridays-Freedom, but with a limit, off course. Thank god they do not have any restriction your undies.
S: Dress is not a restriction. Work is all what matters. But that doesn’t mean that you can park yourself in the office wearing your sleeping t shirt and shorts 
.
M: Use of brain, minimal, rather its a rare event. And if you are a fresher, I suppose you will be doomed in most of the cases, they treat you really fresh. They may put you in some low profile, time consuming work and may not listen or ascertain your technical capabilities.
S: Ideas are supposed to nurture in a startup. Brainstorming and impelmentation of cool thoughts to reality is inevitable.
P.S. Writings here are solely based on writer’s life experience and may not match up with the real scenarios or your beliefs. Contradications are likely to occur. Comments are welcome.
in unauthenticated mode. I was just going through the squid logs at /var/logs/squid/access.log, and I saw few miscreant IPs eating up my network bandwith by using our proxy server. Then, I decided to tune up the authentication mode for squid proxy server. Squid doesn’t have its authentication module and we need to us LDAP,PAM or NCSA. I came accross NCSA based authentication at http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-squid-proxy-server-authentication.html. Given below. It worked very well in our case.
Configure an NCSA-style username and password authentication
I am going to assume that squid is installed and working fine.
Tip: Before going further, test basic Squid functionality. Make sure squid is functioning without requiring authorization
Step # 1: Create a username/password
First create a NCSA password file using htpasswd command. htpasswd is used to create and update the flat-files used to store usernames and password for basic authentication of squid users.
# htpasswd /etc/squid/passwd user1
Output:
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user user1
Make sure squid can read passwd file:
# chmod o+r /etc/squid/passwd
Step # 2: Locate nsca_auth authentication helper
Usually nsca_auth is located at /usr/lib/squid/ncsa_auth. You can find out location using rpm (Redhat,CentOS,Fedora) or dpkg (Debian and Ubuntu) command:
# dpkg -L squid | grep ncsa_auth
Output:
/usr/lib/squid/ncsa_auth
If you are using RHEL/CentOS/Fedora Core or RPM based distro try:
# rpm -ql squid | grep ncsa_auth
Output:
/usr/lib/squid/ncsa_auth
Step # 3: Configure nsca_auth for squid proxy authentication
Now open /etc/squid/squid.conf file
# vi /etc/squid/squid.conf
Append (or modify) following configration directive:
auth_param basic program /usr/lib/squid/ncsa_auth /etc/squid/passwd
auth_param basic children 5
auth_param basic realm Squid proxy-caching web server
auth_param basic credentialsttl 2 hours
auth_param basic casesensitive off
Also find out your ACL section and append/modify
acl ncsa_users proxy_auth REQUIRED
http_access allow ncsa_users
Make sure that you do not have any other http_access statement.
Save and close the file.
Where,
* auth_param basic program /usr/lib/squid/ncsa_auth /etc/squid/passwd : Specify squid password file and helper program location
* auth_param basic children 5 : The number of authenticator processes to spawn.
* auth_param basic realm Squid proxy-caching web server : Part of the text the user will see when prompted their username and password
* auth_param basic credentialsttl 2 hours : Specifies how long squid assumes an externally validated username:password pair is valid for – in other words how often the helper program is called for that user with password prompt. It is set to 2 hours.
* auth_param basic casesensitive off : Specifies if usernames are case sensitive. It can be on or off only
* acl ncsa_users proxy_auth REQUIRED : The REQURIED term means that any authenticated user will match the ACL named ncsa_users
* http_access allow ncsa_users : Allow proxy access only if user is successfully authenticated.
Restart squid:
# /etc/init.d/squid restart
Delivery Manager : All the best, come back to $%$^% !
HR ( at exit interview ) : Had you told this in the interview, you could have asserted even to the head of the company, that I will work only with that profile. (It’s a good learning, you have full rights to claim what was promised to you in the interview)
Security Guard (at final exit, I don’t have the ID card, but the relieving letter)
(me) : I have the relieving letter
(sg) : Ok. That’s fine. But it’s my duty, show the letter. (Opens up the letter and takes a glance). Kisi acchi jagah ja rahe honge (you must be going to some good working place)
(me) : Yes. Kaam accha hoga wahan (Work will be good there)
(sg) : Laughs. Waise mujhe kehna to nahin chaiye, ^&^&%& aane se pehle main bhi sochta tha yahan bahut accha kaam hota hai ( Before joining here as security, I had an impression that work is great at this company, all because of the big name)
(me) : India main naam bade and darshan chote ( Bigger and branded name, but the work profile is low )
(sg) : Bilkul sahi (That’s perfect) ]]>
No. 72. Rakesh Gupta
No. 73. ….. and so on.
Hurray ! I was floating on cloud nine . I had made in to the company . The on campus drive at my college hyped as arduous process had been a cake walk for me. The faculty member read loud the list of the students who had made in. Celebrations were inevitable . 24th September 2006 :
Hey, did you collect the offer letter ? No, have they come? Cool. Having an offer letter in your hands of a big shot MNC, with a year more still left to complete your engineering degree, sounds fantastic. I had made my mind, I will join it. Become a fundoo coder shoder !! All things seemed to be so perfect. My future path was decided. But, I failed to realise that heavenly signal. As they say in literature, when you desire something, universe conspires to let you have the best. But, I was blinded by the charm and glamor and was not able to see that I had something better to achieve. 10th May 2007 – 25th June 2007:
Desperate wait for the receiving the joining letter at the company. As the history says, it should be something in the middle of June. Perhaps, this was one of the firsts of heavenly signal which I failed to realise. The signal that I am destined for something better and I should seek or continue with some other opportunity. 1st July 2007:
For the first time on the college’s history, a database giant had arrived interviewing our batch. The coll was over and everyone was relaxing at home. But the offering and name of the database giant tempted everyone to rush back to the campus from even their remotest abodes and try their knowledge and luck. The selection process was strenuous and I was pleased to make into top 18 out of the 500 people appeared. But unfortunately, they needed only 12 folks. Hence, had a narrow setback. I was disappointed, but this was another heavenly indicator that destiny has something else in store for me and I should realize my potential. 10th July 2007:
The joining date of the company came(23rd July). As expected, it was in their huge training campus. I had mixed feelings. But, I had made my mind and was careless to hunt for any other opportunities. 17th July 2007:
The company had altered the joining date and location to 6th August, to a place where I had never been too. Perhaps, this was the biggest heavenly indicator. Again, I could not sense it. What could I do ? I was not seeing things beyond joining this company, which eventually turned out to be a big mistake of my life. I have been avid passionate about Java and Open Source technologies since my college days. With an expectation of getting similar kind of work/training, I joined the company at the new location 6th August 2007:
Lush green campus and huge glassy buildings, good enough to dupe anyone. I was joyous. The training process started and things went on smoothly. Till one fine day, we had the catastrophic event …. MAINFRAMES, yes your batch has been identified for the mainframes stream. Happy hunting folks, Its gonna be a wonderful time. Man, I was shattered, I never desired to study those outdated legacy systems. The company was not willing to cater to your personal interests. 10th October 2007:
I started pumping my resume like anything. I wanted to get out and do anything but not mainframes. Ill-fated, nothing much happened. Only ray of hope was to complete training and expect to get a different technology project. Chances are meager, but you never now. 1st Feb 2008:
After successful completion of training, off to production. Seems, a whole new world is going to start. Fortunately, I managed to sneak into a non mainframe project after persuading one of the managers at the company. New energy and enthusiasm started to reverberate again in me. 10th April 2008:
All that glitters is not gold. I could perfectly understand that. This one was the biggest and best heavenly indicators, you need to work hard, you are destined for something else. Now I started feeling it hard. The project, they call it support and maintenance barely requires you to be smart, logically and technically sound. There was nothing much crucial I was playing. It started striking me that I am losing, losing rapidly; everything, my knowledge, my analytical and logical skills. What would my future be ? A dumb box. Oh no ! I won’t let that happen. Job hunt began with more fierce efforts. I needed to move out. No kidding this time. It’s a high priority to give justice to my career life. 15th July 2008:
Filed the resignation, a sense of relief or moksha. 20th August 2008:
I walkout like a free bird. With lesser apprehensions about my next venture.
The following code draws a circle of particular diameter by setting the PIXELS falling inside the circle to a different RGB value. It involves simple co-ordinate geometry fundas. There are some approximations being taken.
import java.awt.image.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.JComponent.*;
public class circles extends JFrame {
public static void main(String args[]) {
double d=Double.parseDouble(args[0]);
int diameter= (int)d;
circles ca= new circles();
ca.drawCircle(diameter);
}
public void drawCircle(int diameter) {
int x=0,y=0,radius;
JFrame frame=new JFrame();
JLabel lab;
BufferedImage bi=new BufferedImage (diameter,diameter,BufferedImage.TYPE_BYTE_GRAY );
WritableRaster raster=bi.getRaster();
double [] iPix=new double [diameter*diameter];
if(diameter%2 == 1) {
diameter-=1;
}
radius=diameter/2;
for(int i=0;i(radius)){
y=y%(radius);
}
else
{
y-=radius;
y=-y;
}
if((x*x+y*y)<=((radius)*(radius))) { iPix[i]=255; } else { iPix[i]=0; } }
raster.setPixels(0,0,diameter,diameter,iPix); lab=new JLabel(new ImageIcon(bi)); frame.add(lab);
frame.setVisible(true); frame.setSize(600,600);
}
}
compile the program as javac circles.java
run as java circles diameter_value
e.g. java circles 500
]]>I told her about our Research company, and welcomed her to join us. As it was an easy game, pay and get the certificate. She decided to explore all options, keeping this one open. My pal convinced her about the advantages and ease of doing there. Fortune rocked and she popped up in the gang.
Jackpot was hit when I realized that her residence in the city was at a walk away distance from where we stayed . It came to my delight. Opportunities to hang out and spend more time with her, know each other enhanced. Had wonderful excursions an outings with her and the gang in the city of gardens, Bangalore. I started developing a love for the city, probably because of this reason.
Three years have passed. We have moved our own ways.And as I blog, the rain drops splash the window of the bus, crawling and struggling hard across the water logged Hosur road. After a hectic day of mundane work this rain and melodious song of James Blunt (1973), brought a nostalgic feeling.
We had a birthday party in one of the popular restaurants of the city. We were around 16 people. One of the girls, was excited to the cloud nine and wanted to pose for a snap wiith a gold flake ciggarette in her hand.Obviously, most of the girls do not fag. And she too belonged to the same category.
The restaurant waiters were too quick and smart in the services. Guess what happened ???
The girl was posing with the ciggarette in hand for the photo.A waiter popped in and kept an ash tray in front of her, before the snap could be taken. The whole party folks bursted into laughter and waiter received a special pat for that.
]]>