An Open Source Fascicule

Hey!

Now a am the new Sun Campus Ambassador for SRKNEC since August 2008. As a campus ambassador, I evangelize Sun's brilliant Open Source Technologies including:

1. Netbeans (Its always the best!)
2. Opensolaris
3. Sun SPOT
4. OpenOffice
5. MySQL
6. Glassfish
7. Opensparc

And many many more!! It has been a great experience till now! I hope I will be able to do justice to the responsibility thrust on me and also make best use of this opportunity!

I now blog at my Sun blog - Jay's Weblog. See you there!

Cheers!!

- Jay Mahadeokar
Sun Campus Ambassador,
SRKNEC, Nagpur, India.

Campus recruitment and Interviews!!!! Most important time of a student life! Here I will tell you how you can screw it up!

Well... The US based Informatica - The Data Integration Company, came to our campus yesterday! About 100 students were eligible to appear according to their eligibility criteria.

Stage 1: Technical Aptitude Test + Theory Paper!

Duration: 45 + 30 min.

Topics: Database (Major), Operating Systems, Unix, C language, General Aptitude.

Students Shortlisted: 13. (I was among them)

Stage 2: Technical Interview:

The interview lasted for almost an hour. Database questions were fired like anything. (I have only basic understanding of databases and queries). I could not answer the higher concepts.
Unix commands and architecture was asked - It was ok! I told them I won prizes in Sun MS blogging contests. He was very impressed!

Students Short listed -4. (I was again one of them).

Stage 3: Technical Interview + HR:

Now comes the most interesting part.... (The interview was conducted by John Sir)
In the beginning I was asked about the database I had designed long back (For storing student -teacher academic data). He was very impressed again.

Then he came to my field!!!! Programming....

I answered almost everything... We discussed some of the projects I had undertaken before (I keep on doing small projects and exploring new technologies.) He also asked base Software Engineering concepts and OS! Everything going so smoothly!!!

Next....

John Sir: So, you are good at programming.. not at database...

Me: Sir I know the basics. I am not an expert in it...

John Sir: See... We do not expected you to be an expert. If you are capable of learning new things we can train you as we like. Its every companies responsibility.. right?

Me: Right Sir!

John Sir: So what are you basically most interested in?

Me: (Without thinking anything) Programming!!!!!!!!!!!


.......... Now !! Here I am... In front of the HR from the Most reputed Data Integration and Solutions Company... I have cleared all the hurdles. He asks me what I am interested in...

I say - I am not interested in what the company is doing! I like programming!!!

Thats the end....

He explains me that it is very difficult to get anything related to code in their job! The core team is far away....


The Concluding remarks...

One guy - really good at databases finally got selected. I was handed a T- Shirt and a pen!!
Not just that - There was this concluding remark:

"You are very good at what you do and you will get selected in other companies. Its just that your interest and our interest don't match!!!!"

Question is - Was it a mistake or a boon in disguise?

I don't know the answer as of today. One thing is for sure.... I cant sit for years typing in same old mugged up SQL Queries - So I think I did the right thing!!!

Everybody around me thinks - I am wrong!! 5.6 Lakh per annum (Indian Rupees) is not a small amount right?

But what about job satisfaction? I would love to get less than that for doing what I love to do - To PROGRAM! To think about things - To try and innovate!

I hope I am not proved wrong in the long run..... But am I too inexperienced to keep preferences at this stage of my carrier?

Hello all!

As I had mentioned in my last blog, me and Varun Nischal have started working on the community docs support within netbeans. As a part of the project, we have made a small utility plug-in Snap It.


This will allow you to take screen-shots from within the IDE.

All you have to do is install the plug-in and do the following:

1. Goto Tools > Capture...
2. Click on Browse and locate the directory, where you want to store.
3. Enter filename, don't mention extenstion, its PNG by default
4. Leave Save Folder checkbox as it is, enter delay time >= 5, its in seconds.
5. Click Capture, make your IDE look anyway you want as in the image, within stipulated time.