iam back blogging after sometime ..

I wanted to keep you posted about the latest in my life. As you know I just got done with my college life a couple of months ago. I have been involved in an entrepreneurial venture along with a group of young engineers. We are setting up India’s very first online marketplace for financial products like loans, credit cards and insurance. Just like yatra.com is for travel, LoanDukaan.com is for loans and insurance products - where you can get multiple instant offers on the lowest rates from banks across India. LoanDukaan.com also provides all the tools to compare and choose the best deals, so you can take a well-informed decision on your loan. LoanDukaan.com’s differentiator is its ability to provide users customized quotes instantly and allow them to lock in their preferred offer by applying directly to the bank of choice - saving the user valuable time and money.

The team consists of CEG Anna University and REC Trichy alumni who have left jobs at Microsoft - USA, Amazon.com USA/India, Deloitte before joining this venture. It is a great team and I am enjoying being part of this young, professional and yet informal start-up culture. My team is making rapid progress and we are gearing for a launch in early July. We have signed on India’s top banks to partner with us.

We are planning a beta launch sometime soon and would love to have you review and give us feedback. Do send me an email if you are interested and I’ll keep you posted.


and yes we are Hiring too ! looking for smart ,motivated professionals and people who love to do these things :) head out to our careers page ,we have listed the openings .If you are interested or know someone who would be interested the definitely pass on the link http://loandukaan.com/careers.html .

and yes you can also keep yourself updated when we launch at out main page .! just sign up ( we promise no unsolicited emails .! )

and yes wish us luck too :)

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People have been asking me why have I suddenly disappeared from the blogging circle entirely. I actually have - my last post was something like 2 weeks back!

I’m quite busy in office these days, and have taken up a new schedule where I get up by 6.30 in the morning and am in office by 8.30 :) Which also implies no staying up till crazy hours in the night. I am working on an exciting new project, and am learning a lot. I’ll write a post on work culture in my company and the kind of work I do soon. 

I took up the Art of Living course last week, and it was simply amazing. The best part was that it was not as if they were forcing you to accept some particular belief or ‘Guru’. The yoga was great, and I feel so much better now. I would urge you to take this course up whenever you can - after you do it you’ll realize that you should have done it a long time ago, just like I did!

I went on a company picnic to coorg, and had a great time. The resort we stayed in was just awesome. I got to stay in a private villa that had a private pool (all for myself :), jacuzzi and lots of other stuff. Won’t say that coorg was amazing, but out resort (Orange county) definitely was. In addition, these picnics help one be better friends with people in your team :) However, the resort was expensive (I’m not even sure if just ‘expensive’ describes how expensive it was), so no point going there on your own. Wait till your company takes you there! 

My post, a must have internet explorer add-on is getting a LOT of spam comments - I get upto 10 everyday :( Guess I’ll just disable the comments for that particular post.

This is all that is going on in my life - well almost :) What about you?

This is one of the most common question that people ask me these days.

Not that I am an expert in answering this question, but I had an opportunity to do each of the above option. And, I have found an excellent answer for it.



But before that, I have to tell a story to you all.

My grand father had told this story to me when I was young.



Here goes the story..

===================================================================================

A man and his son were going from City A to City E through cities B, C & D.

They also had a donkey, which was made to walk along with them.

When they were going from City A to City B, all the people there were looking at them in awe.. They were cursing the man..

“Look, he has a donkey and he makes his son walk!”



The man thought about it!! Before he entered the city B, he made his son sit on the donkey.. They were walking peacefully.. The man was feeling proud about his decision..

Then he realized that people are cursing him again..

“Look, he his making his son sit on the donkey…

Poor donkey! How much weight can it bear!”



The man felt, probably what he had done was wrong..

So, before he entered city C, he lifted the donkey and carried it on his shoulder..

The proud man walked with his son..

Again people cursed him!! :-D

“Look at this fool.. He is having a donkey and he is carrying it! Donkey is supposed to carry him.. But he is carrying it!! What an idiot!”



Now the man is getting annoyed with himself.. So, before he entered city D, he sat on the donkey.. and walked along with his son…

So now what, you would have guessed it right!

People cribbed again..



He got so annoyed that he threw the donkey and ran away!!

====================================================================================



Yeah.. Now lets come back to the original question :-D



If you start asking “What you should do?”, people will give so many answers..

So many opinions.. Some times, they are so contradicting..



So, dont go and ask “what you should do?”..

You should decide what you should do.. The answer to this is within you..



You can take inputs from others.. Like.. What are the job opportunities, work profile, job satisfactions, how hectic is the work, career growth options, how strong is the alumni network, who will be our peers after the degree etc.. Evaluate your options by weighing various opinions..



Finally, “Just do what you are passionate about!”

This is one of the question you find being asked when browse for around 10-15 minutes.


“Your message has not been sent.


Discard your message?” from Gmail.

“Are you sure you want to navigate from this page?


Your message has not been sent.


Press OK to continue, Cancel to stay on the current Page” from Gmail

“Are you sure you want to navigate from this page?


If you leave, your Meebo IM sessions will not be preserved!


Press OK to continue or Cancel to stay on the current page” from meebo

“Are you sure you want to navigate from this page?


You have unsaved changes.


Press OK to continue,or Cancel to stay on the current page” from blogger

Well, what’s common among all 4 of these are that they ask for a confirmation to do some action. This is done generally to prevent losing by data when you click at some link by mistake.

For a web developer, this is one of the simplest thing to code. Javascript provides an inbuilt confirm function. Note that this function always has OK and Cancel button. So we should frame our question to suit these two buttons.

I had a bigger headache when i tried to have this feature in my small map application.


Finally after more than 2 weeks, got how to do this thing without storing it in cookie and doing all other complicated things. I know this is not a great news, but this is really important news for just two souls who don’t mind partying for a week just to celebrate this. :)

Anyway, here is the link to the file that helped me in finding out the order of events and choosing which one might work.


http://sp2hari.com/gmap/events.html

After a few clicking and clearing markers, this is the order i decided to do.

infoWindowBeforeClosed is called before an infoWindow is closed. In this function all the form details are stored into Javascript variables.


infoWindowClosed is called after an infoWindow is closed. Here I ask whether the user wants to continue discarding his details or stay with current infowindow


whatever he chooses, the infowindow will be closed. But I’ll create a new infoWindow at the same point with all those details he already provided with. Hmmmm, i do wish we had callbacks like we have in GTK ;-)

Two things to note here.


1. After reading so much about events, now creating a marker with an infowindow at the initial position is so easy. Don’t know why I was so scared about this sometime back ;)


2. Don’t know why I started thinking about cookies when I can store anything and everything I want to store in javascript variables :-(. Sometimes I do think like an idiot :P

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This post is for playing with icons in Google Maps. In the previous post, the last example explained how to add markers when we click on the map. We will try to add custom markers and change the properties of different markers before and after creating them.

In the first example, we’ll create a custom marker instead of the default “G_DEFAULT_ICON”.


First we need marker and shadow images to create custom markers. If you are not interested in creating your own custom markers, then check out


http://www.visual-case.it/cgi-bin/vc/GMapsIcons.pl


for different markers. I downloaded these markers and stored them in a folder called “icons”. Now let us see the addMarker method which adds a custom marker at the place where you click in the map.


function addMarker(overlay, latlng) {


var icon = new GIcon();


icon.image = “icons/blue-pushpin.png”;


icon.shadow = “icons/pushpin_shadow.png”;


icon.iconSize = new GSize(32, 32);


icon.shadowSize = new GSize(59, 32);


icon.iconAnchor = new GPoint(10, 30);


icon.infoWindowAnchor = new GPoint(10, 30);


marker[markerCount] = new GMarker(latlng, icon);


map.addOverlay(marker[markerCount]);


markerCount = markerCount+1;


document.getElementById(”message”).innerHTML = “Marker added at latitude “+latlng.lat() + ” longitude “+latlng.lng() ;


}


If you aren’t sure about the methods used in the above code, check out the Google Maps API. The above code creates a new Icon and passes it when creating a new Marker


To see how the above code code works, check


http://sp2hari.com/gmap/icon1.html

Now let us make this more complicated. ;). How about the user deciding which type of marker should be added before he adds them?


The code is quite long but certainly not complicated. Before we start with the code, check out how it works :).


http://sp2hari.com/gmap/icon2.html


Two global arrays maintain the different custom markers and their corresponding shadows.


var icons = new Array("blue-pushpin.png", "yellow-pushpin.png", "red-pushpin.png", "purple-pushpin.png", "green-pushpin.png", "lightblue-pushpin.png", "pink-pushpin.png", "blue.png", "yellow.png", "red.png", "purple.png", "green.png", "lightblue.png", "pink.png", "blue-dot.png", "yellow-dot.png", "red-dot.png", "purple-dot.png", "green-dot.png", "lightblue-dot.png", "pink-dot.png");


var shadows = new Array(”pushpin_shadow.png”, “pushpin_shadow.png”, “pushpin_shadow.png”, “pushpin_shadow.png”, “pushpin_shadow.png”, “pushpin_shadow.png”, “pushpin_shadow.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”, “msmarker.png”);





Just to make things easier, I’ve written a separate createIcon function, which takes the index and creates an icon accordingly. The snippet of this function is same as that of the previous file, with very few modifications. :)


function createIcon(index) {


var ticon = new GIcon();


ticon.image = “icons/”+icons[index];


ticon.shadow = “icons/”+shadows[index];


ticon.iconSize = new GSize(32, 32);


ticon.shadowSize = new GSize(59, 32);


ticon.iconAnchor = new GPoint(10, 30);


ticon.infoWindowAnchor = new GPoint(10, 30);


return ticon;


}

Now “icon” is a global variable and keeps track of what type of icon should be created. The function changeIcon does two jobs. First it updates the preview of the icon to be displayed and changes the value of the icon. addMarker usees this icon variable before creating an icon. So any marker created will have the icon corresponding to the selected one. :)


function changeIcon(index) {


document.preview.src = “icons/”+icons[index];


icon = createIcon(index);


}

Cool right ;). Now how about changing the icon of a marker which is already created. There are two ways of doing this. First one is simple, but won’t work if the shadows differ. Second one is a little complicated, but works for all kinds of markers.


Before we start, check out the this link to see how the markers are changed after they are created.


http://sp2hari.com/gmap/icon3.html


In this example, the only addition to the code is


function changeAllMarkers(index) {


for (var i=0; i


marker[i].setImage(”icons/”+icons[index]);


}


}

The setImage function changes the image of a marker, but doesn’t allow us to change the shadow. It’s mentioned in the API as follows

Requests the image specified by the url to be set as the foreground image for this marker. Note that neither the print image nor the shadow image are adjusted. Therefore this method is primarily intended to implement highlighting or dimming effects, rather than drastic changes in marker’s appearances. (Since 2.75)

Therefore, the above example is quite easy and useful if there is not much difference in the images we are going to display as markers.

If there is a big difference in the images we are going to display, then the only way is to delete the overlay and create a new marker at the same point.


This example shows how that works.


http://sp2hari.com/gmap/icon4.html


In this example, after you create a marker, change the image and click on the marker again. You can see that the image of the marker changes according to the one selected. :)


The main idea is that when the map is clicked, if it is clicked on a marker, overlay is passed. Else latlng is passed. Thus using this we code the addMarker as follows :)


function addMarker(overlay, latlng) {


if (overlay == null) {


marker[markerCount] = new GMarker(latlng, icon);


map.addOverlay(marker[markerCount]);


markerCount = markerCount+1;


document.getElementById(”message”).innerHTML = “Marker added at latitude “+latlng.lat() + ” longitude “+latlng.lng() ;


}


else {


point = overlay.getPoint();


map.removeOverlay(overlay)


icon = createIcon(document.forms[0].selecticon.selectedIndex);


addMarker(null, point);


}


}

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Nasik is a weird city..Its a complete contrast to mumbai. The people, their lifestyle, the cool weather and lots of other stuff (except off course the pot- holed roads in some parts which are a trademark feature of mumbai). Everyone there seems to own a car; at least an indica. And I never saw a single signal there, forget traffic jams!

We had 40 odd days on our hands to make the most of our stay in the city. My day began at 6.30 (yes!daily!).A hostleler’s nightmare as you may call it! I would be woken up by a sudden knock on the door. The funniest part being that I still havent figured out who used to do it..probably one of the “other” room guys. Fact is I never really gave a damn as long as the person regularly kept waking me up on time. Our induction seesions were scheduled at 8 am each day and the company bus would ferry us half n hour in advance so that we could swipe our I-cards in time before the rush started.

The first week was a bit of a pain although we were given 2 shirts and a bag and the “T-shirt and jeans” dress-code was enforced till we got our uniforms. they called it the senior management week as all the VPs, Sr. VPs,Heads..blah blah from each function( HR, Finance,marketing, product development..see i remember things) addressed us with fundoo powerpoint presentations which failed to make any sense to us. There are times u feel the company wastes its precious moolah giving these intelectual blabbermouths fat pay packets. But then these are the blokes who conceptualise. They work out the way ahead for the company ,which is something very important.

The common mantra in their “feel good” presentations being “You are the young,dynamic minds,brimming with knowledge who have entered the industry when the india story is just unfolding and rising. You are really fortunate. We wish we were 30 yrs younger so that we could be in your place”. One just got the feeling that these big dudes had copied each others presentations the previous night ,just like engineering students copied assignments.



Ya right! Bright, young minds (I have heard that before, the first day at engg college when someone called us that in his speech)! They wanted to project us as the privileged lot in order to create an “I-am-soo-jealous-of-you” atmosphere. Crap! Utter crap! Why would a Sr.VP wish to be an engineer in the first place? Anyways,each day was packed with 3 breaks (morning tea- sumptuous lunch- snack n tea) and 4 senior management talks. Each of them spoke as if they had a vacancy awaiting us in their departments and we just had to pick n choose. Being a perennial back-bencher by default and design I slept through a few sessions(at times waking up my immediate neighbours by snoring loudly). Such sessions also help bring out the best drawing talents( mostly in the back rows). The funniest(and most eagerly awaited) part of these sessions was the “Audience Queries’” phase which followed the presentations. A thousand hands would go up and the poor guy on stage would be at the recieving end of a barrage of outrageously stupid questions.

Some of them which could be touted as automatic entries into the guiness book of records for the “World’s Most stupid query”

Girl to the marketing VP:

“Sir, I think the Tv commercial you are showing is not very nice.It is not telling anythng about the product. It only focuses on the man and woman in the helicopter.(Lady, he knows his job better than you)



” Sir,thank you for the wonderful talk. I just wanted to ask what is the greenfield project you talked about. Is it the name you gave to your new environment-friendly plant.” (Give me a break!!)



Even better:

Guy to the HR head

” Sir, do we have any chance of a overseas posting.”

“Yes u do, Zambia! Nice country, nice people”



The ultimate:

” Sir,I am really very happy with your talk and I enjoyed it (??). I dont have any question in mind. I want to work with this company for entire life.







Regards



Vishwesh

Its been a li’l over 2 months since i last saw the blogger dashboard. It just goes to show that just about anybody in this world can be kept busy and starved for time. (Infact some people politely enquired whether i had forgotten by blogger password or how to blog.)

But an eventful 2 months its been. So much so that even a blog freak like me cant decide where to start frm.

I joined my new company in mid-august in nasik, a place 180 km frm mumbai. This was the place where we were scheduled to have our induction programme. The company was kind enough to e-mail me the details of the place, the contact nos,general info about the location to ensure that i wasnt stuck in the middle of nowhere. Even before the e-mails, the company sent a series of letters (one of them a ‘feel-good’ letter addressed to my parents on me being one of the lucky ones to join their company ,which moved my father…hehehe)

I got off at the specified address (wasnt much of a pain). It was a spacious bunglow-type house with a plush lawn outside).Light music played on FM, creating an atmosphere of serenity n comfort. Coffee and tea vending machines were there on offer.All of these much needed after a (believe-it-or-not) 5 hr ride frm mumbai to nasik(courtesy a nasty, bumpy road and a toppled tanker).



“Ah ha!!So this is where i m gonna be put up during my stay over here” i thought.

My details were carefully checked ,cross-checked and matched like DNA samples; first by a guy who held a ‘fresh trainees’ manual in hand and another who had our details on his PC.

“Oh, congrats! U are the first in the list. Do you know you are the first trainee recruited by our company this year!” (Great! As if being the first in the list would entitle me to additional salary benefits.).

I smiled, as if to say ” Oh, It was nothing really.”

I was asked for a photo of mine and within ninutes i was handed a sheet of paper. To my horror i discovered that this plush bungalow wasnt where i was supposed to stay.It was just the company guest house. The place of stay was in the sheet of paper(an apartment they had said).

Besides me there were 3-4 other trainees. One who’s face resembled that of a sacrificial lamb, yet another one who was attempting to look cool in

wacky jeans, most of them with anxiety clearly written all over their faces

After having made sure i was done with the details,i sat on the sofa and helped myself to some tea

A well-dressed man, cell in hand, entered the ‘bungalow’and shook hands with me and spoke to all of us in a tone which most people reserve for new tiny-tots who r all crying-crying on their first day at school.



“HR guy!”i thought. Isnt that their job, making u feel at home even in the middle of Sahara desert.

A van waited outside for us to ferry us to our location. We gasped n grunted in pushing(shoving) our suitcases inside it.After a 10 km travel (i presume).. we reached the place. It was a fine 3-storey building with flats.

Me and a guy from rajasthan named dheeraj(whom i had met in the guest house) were put up in a room. The other room in the same flat was shared by a guy from mumbai(venky) and a guy from orissa(suprit). It dint take me long to realise that Dheeraj was the show-off kind who wouldnt waste an opportunity to publicise himself. Venky was the typical home-grown kid who grumbled and cribbed about stuff while suprit was our master story-teller who could make do with anything. He had done his share of india trotting. He was a Bong who had lived in different places and had experienced things which ordinary mortals only dreamt of. And this meant he had lots to talk about. There where 24 other trainees in the building. The ground floor had the common room where we would assemble for breakfast, lunch and dinner and each floor had a TV set.

Our caretaker was a thin, wiry guy called mahadev who wore a dirty orange uniform who would address each of us as “Sirji”. We introduced ourselves and got to know each other well.This was our home for the next 40 days and we hoped everything would go on fine.



Regards



Vishwesh