A really good tutorial for Cucumber based development

If you are looking for a interesting and quick read for Cucumber – a frenquently used tool in Agile teams, here is a great online book.

http://cuke4ninja.com/toc.html. More coming soon

A Tribute To My Teacher

I  think its time I write this due credit to my Sanskrit Teacher.

Today I am a good speaker. Can talk in front of 1000 , no problem. Speak often at conferences. Did you know I was not always like that. I think I owe it to two people. First is my dad who himself is a speaker. So that may be a gene effect. But I really owe it K T Sundarasampatkumarachar, my 8th standard Sanskrit teacher.

In 8 th grade, when I studied at National High School, Bangalore, ( which by the way is a fantastic school), we used to have these inter school debates in science. I was chosen from my school to participate against many competing schools in Bangalore. There were other kids too from my school.

Competition day came, and I went to Vidya Vartaka, another sought out school at that time. I remember even now my name being called, and I got this weird feeling in my tummy. Went of the stage and all I said was good morning all or something to that effect. After that i had a complete brain freeze.

I could not take the tension of 200 kids and teachers from other schools watching at me. After a few minutes, I was told to come back as I could not speak a word. I think I did say thanks in the end.  Not sure how I felt that day, But i am assuming I must have not felt that great.

What i remember clearly is the next day. KTS who was a Sanskrit pundit and a very strict teacher ( my class teacher) had heard about this fiasco. The entire class would freeze at this stern look. I remember him calling me that day at the steps and asking me to come and meet him.

The conversation with him did not go that well. I remember him shouting at me for what I had done. I  had actually done a lot of preparation for this competition. I remember even now telling him that I will never again be able to speak on a stage as get scared looking at other teachers and kids faces.

Next day when I came to school, I was in for a surprise. I was told there was a special presentation and this was by me on the same topic that i had failed to deliver. KTS had asked me to go do well. He also gave a tip , look at someone you are comfortable with.

I did not know what he had done that day. He had invited our principal, all teachers and made them in the first row. He also had invited all 10th and 9th grade kids whom I would rather not look in the face.

I remember KTS patting me on the back ( He had this pundit ji brahmin cut and would also be in a dhoti and kurta) and saying look at someone I am comfortable at. There I went on the stage and was more scared than ever as all my teachers were sitting in the first few rows staring at me.

I said hello and starting looking for my familiar face. All I saw that day was the smiling but stern face of KT Sundarasampath Kumarachar sitting somewhere in the back.

I don’t remember how I started and finished in style in 20 minutes . I remember his  nod and smile even now and lots of clapping in the end.

Thank you sir, Without what you did that day, I would not be what I am today. I got selected as a keynote speaker recently at a conference again and I really want to thank the man, who made it all possible.

Teachers are really great. They do things with no return favors just like Parents I guess. KTS is no more today, but i am sure he will read or hear what I am feeling today

To you sir, Many Thanks.

Download Mediachitter for IPhone

A good friend of mine has released http://www.mediachitter.com/ .

 a mobile voice blogging and messaging service that lets you exchange Rich Voice Topics with family and friends.

Key Feature Highlights:
* Share voice messages. Play back received messages like visual voicemail.
* Share a photo with a voice tag. Play back audio comments as you view the photo with an embedded voice tag.
* Check in a location and share it with a photo and a voice tag. Play back audio comments as you view the map and photo.
* Share a web link with voice tag. Play back audio comments as the web link gets previewed in a browser.
* Or, just share text messages without any audio.
* Play back received topics with quick access to voice messages or view topic contents as a detailed slide show.
* Exchange topics only among approved friends.
* Share a topic with one or multiple users.
* Create circles of friends for easy group messaging.
* All topic exchanges stay private to topic participants.
* Your friends don’t need to be online when you send voice messages.

3 Months Free Trial:
It is free to download and you can enjoy full-featured experience free for 3 months – no credit card or contract required to sign up! It is available for iPhone 3G and later, IPod touch 2nd generation and later, and iPad. You can find more information about the app on the website http://www.mediachitter.com/ .
Please click http://www.mediachitter.com/appstore/ to download the app from Apple’s app store.

I hope you get a chance to try the service with your family and friends. Appreciate if you can download and spread the word

Linq – Dont use for loops any more

I am using Linq2Sql lately and must say its pretty sleek

Account account= ormAccount.ConvertAll(
oa =>
new Account()
{
Name = oa.Name,
Number= oa.Number,

}).ToList();

One line where i would previously do a
foreach ( OrmAccount in …){
}

Finding recursively for text in a folder

The command below recursively finds all files that have the word foo in it from the current directory down

find . -name “*” -print0 | xargs -0 grep foo

Check the mkmf.log file for more details Installing mysql on Leopard

Today I was trying to do a

gem install mysql.
and kept getting this issue

*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

I had to do to finally install the gem.

sudo gem install mysql — –with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql

The web 2.0 etiquette

Who have you added to your facebook or linked in lately. Has it happened to you, that you send an invite to someone, and for a long time they dont accept. A business contact more powerful in the social blogging pecking order chooses to add you one day. All of a sudden this person who was not wanting to add you now suddenly adds you as a friend. Once an outcase, becomes a friend.

There seems to be this interesting pattern we humans behave in the the online world. Pre facebook and linked in if you talk to someone, no one knew. In the new web 2.0 era it seems like we all demonstrate a new kind of behavior for which none of us have been schooled for.

There are etiquette’s for eating in a business meeting or in a meeting. But there is none so far in the workd of web 2.0

Every day we get up to a new kind of news, no not the ones like there is a war in Iraq.
Nowadays my headlines read

… is having a headache.
Here is a odd headline: finally got “lei’d” in Hawaii!:)…
… opened a bottle of wine
…. is needing a person to play music

In the new world i seem to be getting too much information sharing. When you really meet that person, now you build a certail perception of them based on the web 2.0 etiquette. People tend to carry sort of similar behavior on the web 2.0 world as they do in real life.

Some crazy folks i know tend to show the same behavior on these sites.

I added a friend and his wife the other day. The moment i added the wife , two other friends jumped on to connect with me to get into the gossip.

This is really funny. The new web2.0 soap. Who is chatting what with someone is now of atmost importance to us.

At the same time , I and my wife get to meet some really old lost friends whom we would not have met , but for these social media.

The new marketing and Sales strategy is called Linked In Selling. Just watch who your friends are adding.Go behind those guys. It takes year to build contacts and we expose those contacts faily easily to others to see. Have we ever thought about the effort it took to build that relationship.

It is interesting how we behave socially on the social media. Run run, your friends and competitors are chasing you:)
 
Beware before you get lost too deep in this complex network:)

Wait let me know go and twitter and facebook that i just wrote this article.

Making a difference ,Raghu Dixit

Good Bye And Farewell

One of my favorite persons of all time,  is no more today. My grandmother we call her “Patti” is no more today. She passed away in her sleep a few hours ago in her favorite town Conoor, in Tamilnadu India.

MISS YOU

All I can do is sit here miles away and bid her goodbye. Career and Ambition has brought me thousands of miles away from family. When things like this happen, its a feeling of being lost.

Last year when I was in India I made a trip to Bangalore to see her in Ooty. It was a short trip but i will always cherish her memories.

Growing up when i was a kid, I remember the many many times I would go with my parents and brother to visit Tatta and Patti ( Grandpa and Grandma) in Coonoor. IT was always a fun trip. Taking the train in the Nilgiri Express from Coimbatore a city in Tamilnadu where i grew up to Coonoor.

I remember all those cold winter nights when we arrived in the house, my patti would cook this wonderful meal with freshly picked vegetables ( hand picked a few minutes ago ) from the garden. That garden was her love. It had all the vegetables , fruits  and flowers. I remember he knitting a sweater and being such a busy person when my little brother was born.

She was extremely good at her hold in English. For that generation of Indians to know how to write and read so well was amazing. Infact she used to write letters to me when i was doing my engineering and also when i came to US and was in Florida. I remember that clear handwriting.

Patti you will always be missed.

Love

Grandson

Yes We Can