Category Archives: Voice

Performance review for Indians

Here is what I would rate from a totally negative manager’s point of view. I guess most of the people would agree with me.

People : We don’t care about others. Common mentality here is  “As long as my work is getting done, I will bribe, cheat, bend laws in order to get it”.  We want to know shortcuts for everything. We don’t like paying tips, but we do like receiving them. When we have problems, we will accuse the “system”. When they see a person is bleeding on the road, they will still walk away, after taking a picture on their mobile !.

Politicians :They are busy with securing a good future for themselves and their family. They have expertise in hiding money in foreign accounts. They go to USA for studying problems of people in India. Right will blame the left, and left will blame USA!

Media : They are supposed to report news as it happens. They will do anything but. dot.

Bureaucrats :They don’t consider people as people. For them, we are some worthless animals wasting their time. If you do not know any politicians or friends/relatives of these people, you have no voice, no choice but to bend your knees and lick their feet.

Managers : They think that we are slaves to them. Some of them even talk like they are the company, they will do good to their chamchas, they decide your future. What the heck.

Religions : They are busy in executing their agendas. Long time back they stopped reading what the Holy book ( be it Gita, Bible or Quran ) says. And even educated people are blindly following the blunders their leaders are making such as Jihad, Conversions etc.

Hospitals : No Doctor tells you the truth. You end up doing all kind of tests worth thousands even if what you have is just a fever. Medicines are sold at 200% profit . They might remove your Kidney when you go for doing surgery for appendicitis. Good luck.

Schools :Donations are sky high. We have different syllabus for different schools. So our children acquires different levels of knowledge  even though they are same age. Some get quality education and some end up getting nothing out of it even when they are going to school. Teachers are getting their jobs by paying bribes. How they will teach values to children?

As always, there are exceptions. Some people are there to help others, do their duty and work towards prosperity of everything. But unfortunately they are a rare breed and scarce to find.

Result : Improvement Needed.

P.S. : The common dialogue I hear regularly is “Why don’t you come to politics and improve it all ?” . Well my answer is : That does not mean that we cannot have an opinion. That’s just what I did now.  πŸ™‚

My Linux PC at Home

At home, I am using a PC with Debian Etch installed on it.

PC configuration :
Celeron 1.8 Ghz Processor
1 GB RAM
160 GB Harddisk
DVD Writer
and a 17″ TFT Monitor

While this isn’t a gamer’s PC or even a high-end one, it is enough for my (and my wife’s ) needs.

We have all our songs/photos/movie collection on this PC apart from my work related stuff.

Our usual development activities consists of HTML, PHP and Javascript. This PC runs the following services to support us.

Apache – Web Server
MySQL – DB Server
Exim – Mail Server
OpenSSH – Remote Access & File Transfer

We also use a couple of softwares regularly. Most of these softwares have Windows versions also Available. So you don’t need to be disappointed if you are using a Microsoft Windows Operating system..Go check them out !!

Geany – Editor for PHP/HTML/Javascript
RapidSVN – Subversion client.
Gimp – Photo/Image Editor.
OpenOffice – For documents/spreadsheets/presentations
GnuCash – Tracking finance.
F-Spot – Photo collection organizer
Rhythmbox – Music Player/Organizer
Mplayer – Video Player

We do play games too. Mostly board games and puzzles. I like playing “frozen bubble” and my wife is addicted to “bomberclone” ! πŸ™‚

I do not need to worry about spending a fortune to buy all commercial software to get my things done. All these software comes absolutely FREE ! We only paid for the PC Hardware. πŸ™‚

Hello Linux / Opensource

I got introduced to Gnu/Linux sometime back in 1999 when I was working as a computer hardware technician. Our customers were all using Windows 95/98/NT and we were supposed to install Windows and other applications after assembling the PCs. We were also handling customer support calls. One day, I got a copy of REDHAT Linux 6 from some pile of CDs we had at our assembling desk and I thought I would give it a try.

At first, it did look a bit confusing and there was no one to guide me. So I refered some documents I got from internet and went on installing the OS with all basic options. After a few days playing around with Linux desktop, I thought “Oh this does pretty much everything same as windows”. I started to dig out more information about this new OS and I realized that it is not really the desktop that I am seeing on the top. It was a pretty good software which allows me to do many other things which Windows could not do out of the box. As I continued my learning, my collegues were asking me what the hell I am doing with that PC in my free time. They were amazed to hear that this OS could accept the change of IP address without a reboot !

Many months passed and I was already very comfortable with Linux. I tried out different distibusions, I tried following the HOW-TO documents in the internet to set up my own webserver….

…years later, now my Linux skills are earning me respect among my tech-peers and a good pay cheque. I use and advertise Linux and Open source. I always ask my friends and collegues to switch to the Open Source software. If you have an absolute necessity to use a commercial closed source software, go ahead and use it. But if you could get the job done using the open source, why not? Trust me, it is not illegal to dump windows… πŸ™‚