Barbeque Nation - A My Kind of Place (Unlimited Food)

Kebabs & Grills have never been my favorite because I always need Quantity with affordable price & Quality, well I decide it once I eat at a particular place ;) So Kebabs & Grills which generally costs much for few amount of flesh, well I just can't digest this thought :-D.

So for the first time when I heard about Barbeque Nation long time back, I was kind of excited to go and see how the hell they can provide unlimited Grills for affordable cost* (Here * affordable is for Weekdays and that too Day time ;) otherwise it's bit 'little' heavy on your pocket, this conclusion is done after I visited BBQ Nations for first time.Occasion, well it was my Birthday Party to some of my close friends)

In Pune for Barbeque Nation we have two choices
1st. One of my favorite 'Sayaji', near Wakad at Pune-Mumbai highway. (though I have never been to it, I have heard about the place from many people who have been there & I'm planning to go there soon!) Here at Sayaji Barbeque Nation is at Roof Top, cool isn't it ? :)

2nd.Barbeque Nation, Solitaire Building, Behind Dass Showroom,Near Aga Khan Palace, Kalyani Nagar, Pune 411014 This place from outside doesn't look so pleasant but once you enter inside, It's so damn cool :-))

Ambiance is very nice & impressive!

Lets talk about food :D
To start with my experience let me tell you, we were 4 people went to Barbeque Nation at Kalyani nagar, since we didn't get place at Sayaji :-( and it was Friday night! All are hardcore foodie & Non-Vegetarian off course ;-)

First they served some Kebabs & we were so hungry that we were craving to have at least a bit of it :-D Table arrangement was too good there was a small flag which is UP when you are getting served Kebabs if you are done with it you have to bend it ;-) So innovative :-D

For Kebabs you get a small Kebab Conveyor Grill, which is damn cool & entertaining at same time :-D where you can apply various oils to the Kebabs :-P
All Kebabs were fish i guess :-P i didn't bother to ask anyone as I was so hungry :-D There were prawns, Surmai, Chicken and what not :-D but majority was Fish!
We even had Chicken Tandoori kind of eatable :-P other than Kebab so don't worry if you don't like Fish ;-)

After having two rounds of it we finally moved to main course but frankly Speaking after eating so much of Kebabs we had less space in our stomach :-P

In main course they had lots of food which was ultimate !! Starting from Soup to Biryani :-D

Deserts were good, which had Gulab Jamun, Ice cream, Brownie & some more things i don't remember rest :-P as I was concentrating on Gulab Jamuns..! They were so yummy :-D

In all food was great but we paid Rs.580 per person for Non-Vegetarian which was kind of Ok Ok if you visiting it for first time.
But if you are planning to visit it then I will prefer to go on afternoons ;-) where they charge somewhat around Rs.310
So My Rating for BBQ Nations would be 3.5/5

Certifications

Recently I was planning to do Certifications of Unix. While I was searching for various Unix Certification paths I found this fantastic post by some one called Neo.
Please go through it and let me know what you think :) Because personally I think if you have adequate knowledge then spending some bucks on getting a certification is not so costly ;)

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A word on 'certification'

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I've been working on UNIX-based systems for over 15 years, including almost every flavor of UNIX under the sky. Never, in my career, have I meet a great UNIX person who was 'certified'. All the great system administrator and programmers have the same thing in common - a lot of reading and hands on experience on the job. There is no classroom experience that can substitute for crashing a live server for a major corporation at 3 am and having the responsibility to get it back on line before business opens or you are 'toast'.

I've worked in places where the system administator was in a training class for a week and while they were away, the backup tape for the major systems was full and ejected itself. They had a automatic email in place to warn, but they were in class Then, a consultant who was working on a difficult codeing project for a month lost her files. She went to look for the backup tape to restore the files and found the tape ejected !!!! She cried, really.

I've worked with a lot of folks over the years certified on routers, UNIX, MS, etc. I'm sorry to say that none of these people were 10 percent as competent than the people who had a passion for reading and building, hands on. Most certifications are just ways for vendors and suppliers to make money selling training papers.

Want to be great at UNIX? Get a version of UNIX (Linux, BSD, whatever), build a server from scratch and start building and writing C code. Get Rich Stevens books on system level programming and learn to program at the system level. Write your own server and client code, debug the code, work on interprocess communications, debug memory leaks, build shared libs, build static libs, fix corrupt file systems, etc.

Certification is not good for personal knowledge. It is useful when you are just starting to get your foot in the door of a company who requires certification, but you can bet your paycheck that the experts do not have these 'waste of time' pieces of paper. Do you think that Rich Stevens, who wrote the best books on UNIX is 'certified by a vendor?'
How about Linus Torvalds, inventor of Linux? No, they are great UNIX people because they did not take any vendor shortcuts. Patiences, practice, discipline are what builds the foundation for being great at anything, not quick certification classes.

My Old Phone - Micromax Q5fb

I bought this Phone in March 2010 for Rs.4,700 which was actually a fair deal! But I still regret that I sold off my First ever phone, gifted by my Mom which was Nokia N70 in exchange with Micromax Q5fb :(

The only reason I chose Micromax was It's a Dual Sim Phone! Another best feature of this phone is It has a Qwerty keypad, easy to surf web! For me these were the must have features in an Ideal phone!

Problematic things, which I discovered later when I actually bought it :-P are... Bit bulky, loud speakers, Yes those are bloody loud :-( Screen size is small. I also faced problem with it's audio jack, it was faulty and I suppose that is one of the very common problem in Q5fb phones all over India.

In all I would say if you don't have money :-P I mean do not have budget to buy something good then go for this phone, else strict NO.

Overall rating: 2/5

Win Free WiFi Router

Seems like another Spam on internet?? Ahhaa.. well It's surely not! Airspot being youngest in the Indian Market are actually giving 3 routers free, every week!

If you know Airspot then just follow the instructions to get into the race of wining the routers ;) and if you wanna know about Airspot Click Here

So let me tell you how to win the Airspot Routers every week...
1st you have to follow them on Twitter and also on Facebook.

Twitter:- http://twitter.com/AirspotWiFi
Facebook:- http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/AirspotWiFi?ref=ts












You have to earn points and based on which final selection of winners will be made on the end of week..

The Points System

• 2 points – for retweeting any of Airspot’s tweets with the above hashtag
• 5 points – to tweet original tweets, with relevant hashtags
• 10 points – to write a blog post about this contest
• 15 points – to write a blog post about Airspot
• 5 points – if Airspot’s Twitter and Facebook fan pages’ URLs are also included in the above blog post

15 points – Minimum points required to be eligible for winning the contest

So Act fast before someone else grab your very own WiFi router, for more info Click Here

Airspot Routers

You might be wondering How come I'm suddenly into Reviews writing ?? Well I recently came across Airspot, a product/concept from Airlink. Airlink is a company which is a one stop solution provider for WiFi, Wireless and Mobile devices connectivity needs.

These days many ISPs are providing WiFi Services which may or may not provide you with WiFi routers.When it comes to WiFi, we don't really trust the ISPs. We doubt about security and signal strength and what not. We just can't digest it :P

So here I found something interesting and I call it revolutionary:- Concept of Airspot Routers. Main thing I just love about Airspot is You can use it as a normal router but it also helps you to earn some more bucks by sharing your bandwidth with others. So it has potential to create a huge community of public WiFi hotspots where any Airspot owner can access Internet for free, while others pay for a subscription.




How it works ?
Airlink would offer a fixed share between the public and private users where 30% would go for public users and rest 70% is kept reserved for the Airspot owner.

To know more about Airspot Click Here

Finally into Amdocs :)

After my HR interview at Amdocs I was waiting for my Offer Letter. I was told by the HR Rep at Amdocs that I would 'soon' receive 'The' Offer Letter which actually didn't come by a week time :(
So I mailed my HR Rep for the same. And on the next working day I got call from her to come down to Amdocs to collect my Offer Letter :)

I was so happy :) 'June 2010' is been so luck for me till now :)

I went to my college to collect the provisional letter which was asked by Amdocs. I went to my college, Indira College after 2 LONG months :P It was really nice to meet people over there :)
But College Clerical Department still Sucks :x I had to wait for 2 hours to collect a singal Letter Head of my college :( And I'm sure these people will never change :x

Then I head to pick up Rohit, SME at Amdocs and one of my best friend. We then went to Amdocs :) collected my Visitor's ID and then straight to Top Floor of Level2 of Amdocs :) The Canteen :) :) After a wonderful snack time I went to my HR Rep to collect my offer letter :)

The Moment i took that white paper in my hand I was like "Man, I finally did it :)" and the main surprise came when i saw my Salary :) :)


Again I called same people ;) to express my happiness :) :)

Suddenly it started raining so heavily that ultimately resulted into mini flood like condition in Pune :P

Thanks to my Parents that I drove Hyundai Santro these days :P ;) which saved me and my offer Letter from getting wet in the Killer rains :P :)

My joining date at Amdocs is 28th June 2010 :)

Call from HR Rep, Amdocs

It was a fine Friday morning when I was enjoying First Day First Show of 'Raajneeti' with my friend at ESquare, Pune. The moment I step out from Movie Hall I got 'THE' most awaited call from Amdoc's HR Representative that I've cleared Technical Interview and asked to come down to Amdocs for a HR interview round :) :) :) :)

I was so damn happy :) that I finally made it! I called my mom :) my sweetheart :) and couple of best friends. Everyone was happy :)

HR round was just a nominal face to face talk for me. Basic questions about myself, my skills, my expectations from Amdocs, my future plans etc.

I was offered profile named: Subject Matter Expert, a good package and couple of conditions like Rotational Shift (Amdocs is into Development, I'm not into a Call Center Company :P :P ), 55% aggregate in BCA etc.

I was so damn excited that I couldn't negotiate on anything :P though I regret that I could have asked for more Salary (On the basis of Microsoft Student Partner, Microsoft Certification, GNIIT- Software Engineering Course from NIIT)

So I was overall happy.

And now I was waiting for My First ever Offer Letter from an IT Company! Before 2/3 months I got my First ever Offer Letter from HDFC which i didn't converted into an actual Job.

Again waiting for some more days :P

Getting a job at Amdocs was actually testing my patience :P :) but it was worth waiting :) :)

And I Quit BMS

It was my 2nd week at BMS. Well I didn't mentioned it earlier but Internship at BMS was not paid :P !!! When I joined it, i thought it's ok if they don't pay me but hey I used to sit there for almost 8hrs from Morning 10:30 to 7. The workplace wasn't so pleasant :( A room full of people with a single ceiling fan. But I must Admit My Colleagues were Best! Very supportive!
And the day came when I got call from Amdocs that I've cleared the written test and asked to appear for Technical Interview :) I was so damn happy!
So I had to leave BMS, but i didn't feel bad because though i was learning a lot there, I was suffocating :(
Now I'm done with Technical Interview at Amdocs so waiting for another Call ! I'm expecting it, but I'm not "So much" dependant on it! In last two months i have realised so many things :) And I'm working on them one by one ;)
So Conclusion on BMS's exit: I won't ever compromise with Stipend/Salary after all I'm going to devote almost my full day :) And my efforts are not for free!!

First Week at BMS

14th May 2010, my first day at BMS. I was excited but not scared or something, I was eager to know that on what will I be working? Will it be Application Development/ Website Development.

LoL this photo explains what i was up to :P. I didn't knew anything BUT I WANTED TO GET IN any how :)

And I entered very early in the Office so that i could get familiar with the workplace & mainly with my Co-Workers :) I met some girls who were into J2ME ufffff :P JAvA ;)...

Than I met one fantastic person, Sujay Sir :) Very nice person by nature & a great intellect ;) who asked me to review BMS's products for next two days so that I could decide my area of Work like Windows Appli / Web.

So the on first day I was into Windows Application while on second day i was into Web Application. All i did both the days was Code Review and Some Bug finding (i just love it ;)..) I was not at all aware of MS Visual SourceSafe, BugTrackernet and some other stuff. But thanks to my colleagues at BMS :) Everyone was ready to help! :)

In these two days i met all most all, working in BMS, Pune interacted with them, asked their experience working on BMS products, got some tips :) . And finally i have decided to work on ASP.net!!

I never ever categorised or thought of Tier Architectures, when I developed my Academic Projects. When I observed BMS products, my goodness :) everything was very well organised, neatly placed, the PERFECT CODEs we can say :)

And then I realised 'Where do i stand?, What should i improve?'.

It's been so far so good at BMS :) I must admit BMS has very healthy atmosphere, very helpful & knowledgeable people working in there !

So in the coming week I target to refresh with SQL, ASP.net as much as possible :)

Finally in to "IT"

The day has come into my life :) and that too even before Graduating :) I have step into THE fantastic Sector called IT!
The company which gave me this break through is Binary Mantra Systems (BMS).
BMS offers following Services

• Application Development
• Mobile Application Development
• Web Application
• Audio Video Streaming Solutions
• Enterprise Application
• Integration

I have been offered a profile of Trainee Software Developer. One of the main reason of joining BMS is They are developing things in my favourite technology which is undoubtedly Microsoft Technology :)

I have started learning Microsoft Technology long back in 2006. First Microsoft Technology I learnt in my Junior College (11th standard) which was Visual Basic. After that I joined NIIT where i learnt most of the Developmental Languages like C#, J2SE, J2EE, ASP.net, XML and so on :) We did couple of projects.

But it wasn't that easy for me to balance my Grads study and NIIT. So after learning this stuff from NIIT I couldn't be in touch with it. And since then I started worrying that If i couldn't revise and actually work on things which i learnt at NIIT, it would be of no use :(

I have interest in Programming/Development and especially in Application Development, one should see my Curricular Projects done in VB6 and other in J2SE.

The only Web Development i did last time was in NIIT as our Project. It was an Online Movie Ticket Booking website. I still remember the flash work i did for this portal :) people used to come to my Group members and asked to run the Project for number of times :P I used to design the web pages and hand over it to our Programmer, Piyush :) The main problem which we faced was with Flash buttons, I still remember my Group members insisted me too much to come up with something so that we could use those Fancy Flash Buttons on our web pages! After spending clueless hours finally i found a simple trick and guess what I proved my worth of being a Team Lead :) I felt very proud after I gave my final presentation on one fine day :)

I want to repeat the History :P LoL :)

I want to prove my self as one finest MS Technology Developer :)

BMS is also into Windows Phone Application Development, I'm very excited to actual learn this fantastic thing in future :)

Tomorrow I'll be joining BMS :) Looking forward for a long association with this Company who showed faith in me :)

Amdocs Recruitment Test

Date: 8th May 2010, I opened my outlook and suddenly a mail from FirstNaukri.com popped up. Surprisingly it was from Amdocs :) of a Recruitment Drive for SME. Without wasting a single minute i replied with my Resume attached :) Another surprise on the same day, HR Representative called me to confirm whether I can come down to Amdocs, Magarpatta Office tomorrow i.e on 9th May 2010 at 9:30 [sharp] :) and my answer was YES!

She then asked me to choose any one from C or C++ or Java. I asked her that is this only I have to prepare? and she firmly said "YES". But i knew that Amdocs's SME are required to know Unix and SQL also! Thanks to Rohit :)

And then my preparation started I revised C , C++ , Unix , SQL ["BASICs"]. As this was my first ever Recruitment Test I thought it would be based on Basics.

Finally the day came (which was the next day only :P) I dressed up as if I was going to get placed today itself and I'll be start working ;) For me going to Hadapsar was like going for regular routine, 6 months back :)

Finding Amdocs was not that difficult as I was connected to GoogleMaps and offcourse to Rohit. The moment I entered into Magarpatta City I was like "WTH, where I'm ?". Fantastic place, I must admit :) then Cybercity Towers were like Too Good, awesome, flawless :)

I then met with the Test coordinator who escorted me to the Fantastic Class Rooms which were named by Forts i guess! Then I registered for the Online Test and finally my Test Started :)

I wasn't scared but nervous as I didn't wanted to lose this fantastic opportunity to get in to the Amdocs :) Test was quite Challenging actually and mainly Unix and SQL was extremely difficult for a guy like me who studied basics of Unix two years before and never used Unix/Linux thereafter.SQL had questions from Stored Procedures, Indexes, Joins.I could have done better in SQL actually :( but i don't know what I have done there :|

But 1 thing for sure, today I have experienced something which has completely changed my approach to Entrance Tests. And off course I've learned that, I should prepare more on my Aptitude and also brush up my Technical Skills!

If i get selected in Amdocs, I'll surely do my best to prepare very well before my Interview. Let's hope for best.

In all it was very nice experience of First Ever Recruitment Test in my Life :)

Hello World

In India we do "Ganesh Pooja" whenever we starts with something new. Same is the case with "Hello World", whenever a new programming language starts the first program we do is "Print Hello World". Funny but it's the fact :)

I remember when i was studying C# in back 2005/06, the only code i could write was "Hello World" :P

Languages changed, platforms changed but "Hello World" is still there used millions of people to kick start with Programing Languages.

And as I'm very traditional person(not at all actually :D) I'll start my Blogging with "Hello World".....

It's been so long that i didn't write any blog post on my "used to" blogs. But now I'm back in action ;) watch out for my next post :)