Life in Balance: Amit D. Chaudhary’s Blog
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The results from the Google CodeJam 2006 are out, but where is the code?

I noticed there is no code from earlier code jams on their main website. One would think the main reason of a competition is to show case the best coders (if I may, though I would prefer Developers or Programmers) and their output. What better way than to show the different approaches and what the points were for.

Maybe it is Google’s secretive behavior taking over areas it is not suppose to or just a high road of saying, our money, we give without explaination. It is definitely not fun or worthwhile reading about it.
As for it might help future contestants, so be it, use your brains to come up with new contest questions.

Ran across an article on the CodingHorror blog: Opting Out of Linked In

In my experience, I have founded Linkedin to be quite useful.

Uses of linkedin:

-It is a good way to find out latest email or phone nos about people one has known earlier but is no longer in regular touch, like after moving to a different place.

-It automatically tells you when known acquaintances change their information on linked in, it was great to know two of my friends moved from being employees to founding their own company.

-If looking for some new contacts (To find someone interested in your company’s product or for referral in a company you are considering employment in), just search on it on linked in and maybe you can just send a forward request. I have not done it yet(Need to seek more aggressively maybe?!!), but know people who have.

So, yes it is worth being on linkedin. It does make networking easier and some part of keeping up with people automatic. It is part of what Chad Fowler says in his book, 52 ways to save your job, Coding is no longer enough.

Some basic guidelines for using linkedin:

-Accept invitations from people you would do atleast a minor favor for (co-workers, general and co-students and so on)

-Send invitations as per the above guideline.

-In your profile, add previous companies you have worked on and atleast some basic information.

Technorati Tags: Linkedin Networking

Update: Guy Kawasaki has written two articles on linkedin that are worth a read, Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn and LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover.

I wrote earlier about Netflix prize: Netflix offers US $1 million and US $50k for improving it’s movie recommendation

As NetFlix user, I believe there are some more ways to a better Netflix. This is not to take away from Netflix’s recommendation system and those of MovieLens.
1. Better text search

The search on netflix is quite average. Searching for anything not popular shows it’s lack of accurate results. Try a search for Sardar which is the exact name of an Indian movie and it is not even on the first 5-10 results.

2. Better category in browse and search

It should be possible to find, say all movies in a category (Anime, Indian\Italian, Independent), or to limit results for movies released within a decade or certain years.
GreenCine, a smaller rental service has better search.
3. More emphasis on ‘add to queue’ and actual rental instead of matching algorithm’s expected movie rating to the actual rating which is what the prize is about.
A two part answer. Part one, It is important to add a movie to queue than to rate a movie correctly before the user does. A typical user, If I may speculate might rate an art movie like Schindler’s List higher than Die Hard With a Vengeance, but is more likely to rent Die Hard or another popular Hollywood fare.

Part two, adding to queue invariably leads to a hugh queue which in turn overflows. It is more important to see what the user ultimately rents than add to queue. This also takes covers the users who do not rate.

4.  Better user list management

The user movie lists\queue  does some have some simple features such as rename, merge, move across queue\lists, remove duplicate, remove rented, etc. This is specially useful for long term netflix customers,
These and other similar user focus will result in a better netflix.

Technorati Tags: Netflix User Interface

I finished reading the book My Job Went to India And All I Got Was This Lousy Book: 52 Ways to Save Your Job by Chad Fowler sometime in the last week or so.

Summary: It is a book for those in the field of software development with some focus on software developers particularly in the field of enterprise software (Java, Web, etc.) The goal of the book seem to be to kickstart thinking about career management and tips on getting better at your job. It reaches these and beyond very well.
Score: 4.5/5

I tried earlier to do a blog series on the book, but it fell off due to lack of time and also I wanted to provide enough information to make the decision on buying the book worth it, but not give the information away.

It was also my first pdf book purchase and found it to be definitely worth it. I still miss the feeling of having a solid book on my bookshelf. But having it in a free and clear pdf, makes it easier to search, read at work or home (Linux systems at both place), restart at the last point, make notes and so on. I would be definitely considering buying my next book in pdf form, especially the Pragmatic Programmer Titles.

Detailed review:

Here is a small portion of the takeway from the book followed by the chapter they are from.
Practices to bring into normal working and career:

-Work in a team with members smarter than you. Ch 8: Be the Worst and Interact with more people in your field using mailing lists or local groups, ch 41: Making the Hang

-Strive to maintain a daily, weekly and monthly todo list and plan. Ch 20: Daily Hit

-Create schedules on your own for how long certain tasks will take and track these. Ch 30: Say It, Do It, Show It

-Be humble, specially with non technical people at work and in life in general. Ch 32: Adventure Tour Guide

-You need to come to work with a mission. ch 36: Change the World

-Follow an alpha geek (Bram Cohen, Linus Torvalds, Steve Yegge or those in your field) and visit book stores to keep an eye on where the market is heading. Ch 46: Watch the Market

-Do self career reviews regularly. Ch 47: That Fat Man in the Mirror
Things to do or learn:

-Make a conscious decision to decide your field of expertise (.Net), it’s demand (Jobs, Salaries and so on) and Supply(Competition around the world). Then do the same for area of work (software developer, tester, manager, etc.) From Ch 1: Supply and demand .

-Understand revenue model, customer usage and other business aspects of your product and company. From Ch 2: Coding Don’t Cut It Anymore

-Every 6 months, take a look at technology field, see what is new and ahead on the curve. Consider learning about it. Java in 2000, Rails in 2005. Ch 3: Lead or Bleed? and ch 42: Already Obsolete

-Ch 12: Find a Mentor and Ch 13: Be a Mentor

-Do lots of work in your field to keep yourself sharp. For example, code code code. Use Code Kata or Programming Pearls From Ch 14: Practice, Practice, Practice

-Consider learning some methodology like Agile. Ch 15: The Way That You Do It

-Find areas of big gaps in your product and fix them. Ch 19: Mind Reader

-Learn to write and properly: emails, IMs, technical documents. Use a development diary to explain decisions, design, tradeoffs. Write articles for magazines. Learn to touch type. Ch 33: Me Rite Reel Nice

-Search for youself on Google and see what it tells about you and your skills to someone who does not know you. Ch. 38: Build Your Brand

-Be remarkable in your field, the authority. Ch 40: Remarkability

-Create a map so far of my career and plan future map. Ch 45: Make Yourself a Map

Technorati Tags: Software Development Programming Career

As part of working for Granite Edge Networks, I made changes to PF_RING, originally by Luca Deri. Over the last year or so, I have sent changes as patches to the ntop-misc mailing list, though that has not been possible of late. On a recent request, I have put up the latest PF_RING version with bug fixes and one feature on the Software and Projects page and also sent it to the mailing list.

I will follow up with a changelog later.

Technorati Tags: Linux PF_RING Networking

Google brought YouTube for $1.65 billion and the blogsphere is buzzing with posts on the topic.

Robert Scoble speculates What if Microsoft bought YouTube? and there is a Seattle Times blog with the post What Google’s YouTube deal means for Microsoft?

IMO, the key though is that YouTube runs Linux and probably has developers with Linux skills. This runs against both the Microsoft Corporate DNA and the derived Microsoft Employee DNA.

The Corporate DNA shuns all Non-Windows Companies, the key being that buying Windows only companies means among other things:

• it encourages other startups to develop on and buy Microsoft Software Windows and Servers(SQL, IIS, etc)
• Having brought a Windows startup means they can move developers around with minimal learning curve.
• Most Linux\Unix developers anyways hate Microsoft and would leave anyways. I have heard this from more than one person.

This might be one the the reasons Microsoft has so few silicon valley acquisitions. As far as I have noticed they rarely even buy hardware running on non-Windows platform, the only exception being from F5 Networks.It also means they will redevelop a website or product in\on Windows rather than buy it on Non-Windows OS. Don Dodge of Microsoft suggests reasons that is better.
I have seen signs of these in the last one year or so of discussing with Microsoft employees, for startups they would prefer Windows Server 2003\SQL Server over Linux\MySQL without regard to cost, etc, For personal development .Net over Rails due to syntax highlighting and makefile support in Visual Studio and that it is 80% discounted to them and so on.

So, that is another reason, Microsoft\MSN\Live (Or Microsoft MSN’s Live Division as Torres mentions it is) will not buy Zillow which again runs Linux or change it to Windows when they do buy it.
Technorati Tags: Linux Microsoft YouTube

Update: Roughly Drafted has an article on Microsoft’s failures: The Secret Failures of Microsoft

Update 2: Someone I know correctly pointed out Hotmail use to run on Unix(FreeBSD) when it was brought by Microsoft,

Don Dodge offers to send anyone’s resume as a referral to the Microsoft HR. Want a job at Microsoft? I can help

The problem with it is, the hiring manager is going to ask Don if he knows you and get a negative answer. So, it in the end means, you might get a quicker or better shot at an interview call, but miss on a real referral benefit of a recommendation. However, since the company (Microsoft) will know it has to pay Don, it will affect your pay or signon bonus reducing or eliminating it. The same happens when you go through a third party recruiter.

It is nevertheless an option, a signon bonus or a better shot at an interview call.

Technorati Tags: Interviewing Microsoft Referrals Job Search

Update: I have changed my view on this topic, Don’s option is a good one and worth going for instead of directly applying through Microsoft website. Some openings are bound to have thousands of applications per month, a employee referral can take your resume close to the top giving it visibility. At the same time, Microsoft referral bonus is a pretty small amount($1k or so), so it would not matter in the salary equation.

As part of writing about the Amazon Data Center management tool Maya, Storage Mojo which is an excellent and a unique storage blog contains details about credit for inventions in Amazon being incorrectly distributed or rather being falsely attributed to others.

I cannot be sure of the above case, but from Brocade days, it brought back memories. Brocade had few good practises and many bad ones. In Brocade, on patent applications, names of managers and others were added who had nothing to do with inventions except maybe manage the engineers who created it and sometimes not even that. Some actual examples.

Publication US20040028063: For patent “Host bus adaptor-based virtualization switch”, which has everyone from the VP, Managers to Hardware engineer’s names, but created and work done by Subhojit and Naveen.

Gayatri Mantra in Battlestar Galactica

It is back.

Probably the best Sci-Fi TV serial on air, Battlestar Galactica is back, though Doctor Who and Heroes are strong contenders. The link is for Wikipedia as the original website on scifi does not display at all on firefox and linux showing only the ads and not the contents.

Which brings me to the Gayatri Mantra which is the theme song of Battlestar Galactica. For those who do not know about it, it comes from ancient Indian (Sanskrit) books called Upanishads. From Wikipedia

• In Devanagari:

ॐ भूर्भुवस्वः ।

तत् सवितुर्वरेण्यं ।

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।

धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥

• In IAST

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

(a) tát savitúr váren_iyaṃ

(b) bhárgo devásya dhīmahi

(c) dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt

• In English by Gayatri Pariwar

O God, Thou art the giver of life, the remover of pain and sorrow, the bestower of happiness; O Creator of the Universe, may we receive Thy supreme, sin destroying light; may Thou guide our intellect in the right direction

Here it is incase you have not watched it yet.

I prefer the version in Chants of India created by Ravi Shankar, George Harrison and team due to the normal tempo and classical indian background music, it is refreshing to hear Indian music during my normal TV viewing. If you prefer the Battlestar Galactica version it is available on the composer Richard Gibb’s website and for sale as a CD.

Chaiya Chaiya in Spike Lee’s Inside Man

The other Indian music in the mix has been Chaiya Chaiya song from the movie “Dil Se” with music from A.R. Rahman which was in Spike Lee’s movie Inside Man and in the first episode of the TV series, Smith. Link for lyrics and translation in English of Chaiya chaiya

Jaan Pehechaan Ho in Ghostworld

And then there was Jaan Pehechaan Ho in the fabulous movie, GhostWorld from an old Indian movie Gumnaam.

The lyrics translated roughly mean “If we come to know each other, life will be a little easier”
Here’s to more Indian music, it is getting to be a good mix.

Technorati Tags: Bollywood Indian Music Sanskrit

Update: Sepia mutiny has an article on something similar,Battlestar Galactica is desi friendly. They do have a point about ignorance in US TV serial,s the unit had the CIA department head ‘detecting’ the off shore call center employee and telling her that he knows she is in “Karachi, India” and the list goes on.

Update Feb 2007: Added YouTube videos

Netflix announced the Netflix Prize today which will offer US $1 million for anyone to improve their recommendation system by greater than 10%. Every year, the most progress greater than 1% will get US $50k.

They have made available their data with 100 million ratings and 2.5 million customer-movie test pair (700 MB) to use to create the system. The ideas can be ready as early as 3 months and as late as 1 year for the first year. Detailed Rules.
Greg of Findory recommends thinking about mashups with IMDB, Amazon.

I believe, Netflix is looking more for algorithms or more specifically paying for a small recommendation startup. Kind of the rumors are of how Google rewards it’s big projects (GMail, etc.)

Should be interesting to say the least. The first non-trivial programming contest has began.
Technorati Tags: Netflix Algorithms