Back with a bang!

The title is really apt for this blog entry, I guess (Do agree guys! I spent nearly 3 mins and 12 sec to come up with this.). Anyway it should have been the last statement but thought this will create a great impact on the readers about "What the hell he has written!". As I had mentioned in my last blog I did read a book titled "The curious incident of the dog in the night". It was my first book after a very long time and a very long time means that I had already read one or two books, thats it. Never expect me to write about how the book is because I am really very bad at it and this means I have never done that before. Fine, just to say a few words about the book, it revolves around the emotions of an autistic boy named Christopher Boone. His thoughts are very beautifully explained in a way everybody can understand and appreciate. The book, though small, requires lot of free time and patience since it is about the "people needing help!" and not a bad buy also.

Well, its my blog and got to write about me too. The strange thing about me is that I have never done anything with interest. Either I start with some compulsion or do for the sake of others. Even I read this book because I wanted my blog entry to be a continuation for the previous one and just to keep my word as mentioned in the last blog. In a way I feel really happy that two real good things have started happening in my life, reading and writing, that a so called good dude should always do. Hope I continue doing this and come up with some real "Special" blogs that you would have expected after looking at your email notification.

Signing off!

Long time no blog!!

Its been really a long time since I read a blog. Plenty of things happened during this period. I went to chennai for my friend's marriage just to get my hands very badly bruised with a bike skid (thanks to my extreme driving in CBZ Extreme), watched a handful of movies and completed my summer paper of my professional masters. I was really wondering how I could not find some time to write couple of paragraphs for my blog or even read some blogs. Once again I must attribute this exceptional time management to my spending of countless hours in front of my TV.

Writing has never been my cup of tea. I was always reluctant when it comes to reading or writing. Either I run out of words or feel "what crap am I writing"!!! From last two days, something is really pushing me very hard to read and write. I hope I pick up a nice book now and dip myself deep into some pages.

Cya soon with my reading experience!!!

Take care guys. Hope cities are now calm and there is no panic filling around due to serial bomb blasts.

Weekend at Vaalpaarai...

There can never be any words to explain the enjoyment and relief in taking a day off from the usual hectic and boring weekdays. Especially if you are meeting your near and dear ones after a long time (leaping up and down,getting into each other's arms...hugging..right in the middle of the road, nobody really cares about the surroundings then). So was it, last week.

After a long planning we at last managed to find sometime to spend together at Vaalpaarai (don't know how many of you guys know about this place). Vaalpaarai is a hill station famous for film shooting, prominently Tamil movies. No wonder why cinematographers are very much fascinated by the place. I must say the serene beauty captivates everyone in this world. It is no comparable to the queen and the sister hill stations of TamilNadu, still I must recommend this place for its yet-to-be-explored beauty. It is also known for its large number of hairpin bends(40 totally one of the largest. Kollimalai has the largest in TN ?!?!?!).

The spirit started from the day we booked tickets to Coimbatore from Bangalore for this weekend, exchanging mails everyday regarding plans and literally counting days for this one Friday. On Friday night we boarded a rickety RajaHamsa to Coimbatore (Cbt) and its really an adventurous travel to Cbt through Mysore. From Cbt, its again an hour travel to Pollachi, where it all really started. The qualis (already booked as part of our accommodation) was ready to be boarded. Couple of my friends were already there and we were literally leaping right in the middle of the road....wow!!! Not wasting any more time we bought shampoo, oil, soap everything we needed and quickly took off to rock!!!!

The trip started with Aazhiyar dam. A beautiful landscape with a lake right at the bottom of the hill that we are going to climb. With a few snaps and the breakfast, we steered through our first hairpin bend. It was all oohs and aahs from then onwards till we stopped at the ninth hairpin bend to get a good valley view. Our camera eyes didn't miss a single direction, with the photo flash filling the entire place as though a real film shoot is happening. In a short time, a captivating falls forced us to change into bathe suits. Within a very short time we crossed our last hairpin bend.

A beautiful house, romantic lawn and a thriller type bedrooms were awaiting for the exuberant group. Hope you can very easily imagine our state of mind. We really forgot that we had to pay the cab bill, talk to the cottage owner and etc hoping the other will do. Such was the excitement for us. The hungamas subsided with a quick shower and a delicious lunch. The neatly arranged cozy bed took us to a very deep world that we had never experienced after joining the company.

How come a day end without a cool walk in such a wonderful place! We did have a very slow and cold walk and it was so refreshing for the energy deprived corporates. With that we targeted to enlighten our spirits further in the lawn where everything remained so passive as though they were in a very deep rest under moonlight. We had a very long night party leaving us with energy only enough to sleep.

The very next day started well with "Balaji's dharshan", a private temple neatly maintained. I should say things didn't work well for us that day. We couldn't get into "Grass Hills", a restricted area known for its adventure. Whenever we went to such hill stations we are confronted with similar problems. We forgot to get the pass required to access these areas. Anyway we got back with disappointment. The day is not yet over. A day is not wasted if a memory is made. Well, this time its an awesome falls, "Chinnakallaaru". It is situated in the midst of a forest area. This falls deserves a separate blog itself. Such a beautiful place, with dense forest at both sides, water flowing in the middle and an adventurous wooden bridge to be crossed to reach the falls. After spending two hours nearly, we left the place to end the trip.

Ultimately, it was a much needed break and an energizing trip to "Vaalpaarai". My mind and heart is really beating hard to search for the next place while writing this blog. Hmmmm hope this journey continues!!!!

How IPL works?

Hey it has been a very good entertainment packed one and a half month for all the cricket lovers. IPL has become a huge hit and there is no hint of doubt about that. All enjoyment really comes with a price. But this time its really a huge amount. The following so called official IPL twenty 20 website(IPL official site) can give you some information regarding the scores, schedules and the bidding amount for each team. Still not convinced. Confused about how people are earning money out of IPL. Here is an interesting article from surfindia.com regarding how it all works.

Some excerpts from the website.

The Beginning

Masterminded by Lalit Modi, chairman of the marketing sub-committee of the BCCI, the Indian Premier League was launched on 14th September 2007 on the lines of English Premier League (Football) and National Basketball Association. Studded with the starry glitz of Bollywood and backed by the money-power of Indian business tycoons, the IPL is all set to the change the face of international Cricket in 21st century, that was redefined by the Kerry Pecker's World Series Cricket in late 1970s.

Bidding of Team Franchise

Redefining the current face of Indian cricket on Wednesday, 20th February 2008, it rained millions of dollars within ten hours in Mumbai's Oberoi Hilton's auction room, as 77 cricketers went for bidding in the player auction of Indian Premier League. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, biggest & one of the richest Indian corporates Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya were among the franchise owners, of the eight IPL teams, to bid from the world's best cricketers who were put on the show.

The Economics of the Indian Premier League

Money really matters and the IPL is no exception to it. The IPL or the richest cricket league so far would fetch big bucks for the BCCI, IPL and all the eight franchisees. There would be four major sources of income for the IPL :-

* The sale of media rights for broadcasting of the IPL matches would get in Rs. 4,000 crs. Sony Entertainment Television (SET) and Singapore based World Sports Group has got the global TV broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League for the next 10 years. Out of this Rs. 4,000 cr the IPL would get 20% for itself, 8% as the prize money and the remaining 72% would be evenly distributed among the eight teams. The existing arrangements would work till the year 2012 after that the fresh auction will be held.

* The title sponsorship rights for the Indian Premier League has been secured by the DLF Universal, Indian real estate developer. Hero Honda group would be the associate sponsor. Pepsico and Kingfisher Airlines are the IPL's partners for tournament official beverage and advertising on Umpire's clothes respectively. The revenue from the all above sponsorship rights have been described as Central Revenues with a proportion of 40% to IPL, 54% to franchisees and 6% to prize money. After year 2017 the share proportion would be 50:45:5 respectively.

* The franchisees, apart from the share in central revenues, can earn money by franchisees rights like by selling advertising space in stadiums, by licensing products for their teams like T-shirts, advertising on tickets and gate money. The 20% of the amount earned in this head would go to the IPL.

* Each player of the eight teams would get their annual contracted fee in full that means the tax on that amount would be paid by the team owners. Apart from the above amount they would also get a daily allowance of Rs. 4,000 for the entire IPL season that would last for a month-and-a-half.

For more information regarding the each individual player's bid value follow the link.
IPL info

Web browsers

This is my interesting search of the day. "Web browsers". Of course, most of the computer users know what a web browser is and what it does (will try to post in detail on this soon). But what made the search very interesting is the unexpected outcome of it "The list of web browsers". The available web browsers one knows can go some thing like this: IE, Mozilla firefox, Opera and Safari...anything else??? There seems to be plenty. But why do we have multiple web browsers at the first place? Is it because of different Operating systems support? portability? Do GOOGLE!!!!!

Anyway the different web browsers have some built in support for various applications we run using web browsers. To understand just have a look at the following links. Will update you further regarding this in the following posts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_web_browsers

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

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/21/web-browsers-you
-have-never-heard-of/

(to be continued...)

My Interview Experience

Its been almost two years since I attended my last campus interview for adobe. Its amazon, chennai now. Have already attended amazon interview twice during college, first time for my internship and the next for my campus placement. This time I had five technical rounds of interview during the weekend.

It all started at 3:00 PM, Saturday and I had three rounds on that day itself and left sometime around 8:30 PM. I am informed that I will be having two more rounds the next day, starting at 8:00 AM. Finally I completed my technical interview by 11:30 AM on Sunday.

I always know that its not so easy to crack technical interviews of big shots like amazon especially when you are not in top of your pitch. The interviewers are very much concerned about your understanding of data structures and its right application. Given a problem how smart you are in choosing the right data structure and the algorithm is what is being watched. Though it is not always required that you solve the problem till the end, it is always the approach that is important. Hints are always provided when you struggle, but you need to grasp faster from there.

The interviewers are very much experienced and sharp in analyzing your solution and especially the code. The clarity of your solution must very much be reflected in your code. The competition level is very high and so is the expectation. Though a week's preparation should suffice, it is always recommended that you master the concepts very well before you go for the interview.

A very good aspect of the interviewers is that once you complete your rounds of interview you are being given the feedback on your performance. You can very well rate yourself on amazon's scale. To summarize their feedback on my performance, I got to improve and master data structures and its optimization and the quality of my code.

Still waiting to hear from them :((

These are the questions asked in the interview.

1. Given a friendship list for a social networking site like orkut, design and implement the code to cluster the friends together.

ex:
Input: (a, b); (b, c); (b, d); (e, f); (g, h)
output: (a, b, c, d); (e, f); (g, h).

No other information is given.

2. Persistence and Restoration of a Binary Tree.

Given a binary tree, store the tree in the file and reconstruct the tree from the data stored in the file.

3. Design classes for Notepad.

All your design skills, especially the modularity and the clarity of flow are tested.

4. Given a big document and search key words. Return the smallest portion of the string in the document that contains all the search key words. If any one of the key words are missing return nothing.

5. Given an integer array and an integer return two elements in the array (if any) whose sum will be equal to the integer given.

6. Create doubly linked list from the binary tree.

7. Design a data structure to perform the "insert, delete, search and give a random element from the data structure" operations in a fixed time.

8. Given a doubly linked list and a node delete the node from the list.

Write Code for all the questions except 3. I wrote the java code for all the questions.

Ajith's Aegan Trailer