New Year

I got one apple and a pear

I washed them both nice and clear

Then cut them into small pieces 

For all my little nieces

And wished them a Happy New Year

Tricked into a Limerick

One fine day I got a kick
And some beating with a long stick
I spoke to each person
To find the reason
Ohh. looks like they read my first limerick :)

Orey Pheelings!

Imagine a world

Where sounds echo the mind

To people who are kind

Where every secret is spoken

And all silence is broken

Where joy and sorrow are not barred entry

Imagine open poetry

BarCamp Edition 5 @ Chennai

Chennaiyil oru mazhai kaalam 

he he.. i am not going to provide you with details as to why the movie  was dropped. Did not want to start the traditional way (It was a rainy saturday morning! Pleasant Climate and stuff). After a long time I saw how 7 in the morning looked like. 

BarCamp It was and I was all pumped up for a visit to PayPal Office and attend my first BarCamp for which I have been waiting for a long time (atleast for the T-Shirt and some goodies).For those of you who don't know what BarCamp is  go here.

Before I go into the details of the sessions at BarCamp, I would like to share a small story, funny one. Four of us planned that we would leave by 8 and do some volunteering work( he he... so that we can get the T-Shirts and leave early).One of my friend's mom asked "Kanna, where are you going on a rainy saturday morning and that too so early?" , my friend replied "Amma, I am going to BarCamp", Mom shocked!!! replied "Dei enna da Solra?? kalangathala Barkku poriya?? Thanni Adi kka Poriya??" (Translation: Are you going to the Bar to booze??).

Now some details about the sessions at BarCamp.I will give some keypoints and important links for further reading.These contain information about sessions I attended and there were many more sessions that I did not attend.

Session 1:

• Mohit Soni an eBay employee presented about Hadoop.
• It can be thought of something similar to a Parallel Virtual Machine, framework for processing large amount of data in parallel and combining them to obtain or arrive at some interesting results.
• Very Interactive session which had people giving some real time examples of how Hadoop in used in Google, Yahoo!, eBay.

Session 2:

• Brain nook - an online multiplayer educational game for kids.
• The games have no enemies,no killing stuff,purely educational, Math and Grammar. 
• Kids compete with other Kids online, earn points and unlock different levels.
• Contains more than 250 games.
• Rich Client, uses Flash and SmartFoxServer.
• They are Hiring!! write to: abhi@nunook.com

Session 3:

• NoSql - stands for Not Only SQL.
• Not a very interesting session though, participants had a good discussion, the presenter spoke very little. 
• Read the wiki, you will understand.

Session 4:

• Nishanth Das Patnaik (my colleague, he he.. eBay employee), a big name in the security industry, works for NTRO, written various books on Security.
• This session was about - XSS which  stands for Cross Site Scripting
• In simple terms as one participant put it "Changing the Content of the website of which you are not the owner".
• Explained about what XSS can do, how to prevent it both as a end user and also as a developer.
• Skipfish, Ratproxy some tools, IE and chrome have built in XSS filters.
• For learning visit : http://www.dvwa.co.uk/
• All demo attacks were outdated but interesting.
• Highly fun - filled and interactive session. Could have gone a little longer  but the smell from the cafeteria changed our minds from Chrome and IE to Chilly Gobi and Sweet poori.

Lunch(Free!!!!!)

• Super lunch and that too for free, paetkush and dilkush. 
• A simultaneous session on PayPal APIs happened near the Cafeteria but many found the food more interesting.

Session 5:

• Home ground, Talk about Android OS.
• House full, people came in running to attend the session.
• Happened at the eBay break room,could see some familiar slides ( he he.. had them in my presentation during 7th semester internship) so was looking at the menu in the break room( he he.. what to do?)
• Answered a few queries (muhahahaha!!!).

Session 6:

• Not a tech talk, was given by G.J.Sidharth (a.k.a Sidhu), a differently abled person, suffers from cerebral palsy, Masters in Economics, works for IndusInd Bank.
• Session started with a video made by some of Sidhu's friends.The video was good but I some how did not like the Background music(Back Street Boys), something more inspirational and strong could have set up the mood for the session better.
• He asked two questions:
• "How many of you love life?"
• "How many of you love to face challenges?" 

• Hmmm.. something we need to ponder upon!
• He then spoke about his childhood, how his parents were being positive to him, how he forgot his english, about the challenges he had to face to get admitted to a college even when he had a 100% in Computer Science and a 90% aggregate in his 12th std., about the challenges in his job.
• He concluded by saying that he gave this talk not to bring sympathy and make people feel sorry for him but he said he would feel happy if atleast one person is inspired from his life and takes up all the challenges that come their way and enjoy and live their lives to the fullest.
• Standing Ovation!
• Please Please Please visit: http://tedxchennai.com/blog/tag/siddharth  

Take aways:

• Amazing insight into some cutting edge technology.
• Good Contacts.
• Inspiration.
• New Ideas.
• T - Shirt :):):):)
• Stickers :):)

"We may be geeks and working on all cutting edge technology and live in a virtual world but after all we are all human beings... we need to come down to earth sometime!" 

A Cup of Thayir Sadham (psst.. check out the new link!!) for dinner and a few Dairy milk's ... aaahaa.. Watte finish to a gujaalti Saturday!!

Prelude

Blog, phinally. 

Late, but worth the wait I guess. At one point of time everyone around me had a blog and not having a blog was like a crime. People were like aahhh!! you don't blog?? he he.. silly phlows.. But I wanted to wait for the write oops! right moment. The right moment came during my internship at bangalore. I did blog then but microblog(he he.. nice name for twitter). But now, the Lion is back at it's den(Chennai) and will do full time blogging. You may start wondering as to what this blog will talk about? Well, this blog will have thoughts and pheelings about my life, Chennai, Android, Music, Photography, Beach, Rajini, experiences with friends, Kezhattu saamiyar(:):)),Mokkai, and not to forget food (especially Thayir Sadham) and much more. So, Start meesic!!