This is a post... is personal, took a long time coming and it took me lot of courage to put my words together for it. But I felt it would be nice, if I put it out there, if not for any one's sake but mine.
My grandmother - Mrs. Anima Banerjea passed away on August 4, 2007, in New Delhi, INDIA. To be joined with her departed companion, my grandfather late Mr. Subimal Chandra Banerjea after about 16 years and few weeks to the date of his passing. I was as disconnected from her passing away as can be. Sitting in my home in metro Atlanta, (GA, USA), praying as hard as I could, calling up every day and night trying to find out if she was doing better in the hospital. Sometimes glimmer of home and sometimes not so much. I was probably hoping against hope that my prayers would make a difference this time. (In 1991, when my grandfather had died in Lucknow, I was not told about his sad demise, till I got to Lucknow and was praying all the way as I only knew that he was seriously ill). But as inevitable as it was, she passed away and as I was told for her own good as her physical self was enduring a lot of pain.
This blog entry is about what I learned from her life.
I learnt to put - your family, your loved ones before self. Dadima worked tirelessly to make sure everybody in the family was well fed and safe in the bed when night came along. Her speciality was - the Indian desserts and snacks. Home made and in bulk. There was always some personal touch to what she came up with. Near the festive season, the efforts doubled and tripled because guests were expected.
Techniques she learnt from generations before her she tried to pass down the cooks and orderlies in the family. She also was constantly updating her skills with new recipes which she learnt from reading magazines or saw on television. I remember one particularly was chili panner, which has been my favorite for years. Note: I did not like Panner till that culinary delight prepared by my grandma came along.
Dadima grew up in the 1920s, in pre-independent India. India where was caste system was very prevalent and more strict than what I have come know as I turned teen. Lucky enough to be born in a high caste (in fact the highest - Brahmin's), she had some reservations on certain things but overall she was a kind hearted person. Always open to helping out people in distress and treated everybody with respect.
She insisted on asking anybody who came to our door for a glass of water or some drink. Be it a postman delivering mail or a labourer working on some project at home. Any guest visiting us would get his or her share of the home made dessert or snack. There was always plenty of it go around. If not, you can be sure, she would have saved some her favorite grandchild!
Her father was a Superintendent of Police in pre-independent India. Not a easy post to have in colonial India for a man of his skin color. So, not only it was an envious position to have back then and somewhat privileged but maybe today - 60 years after India's independence, it may be looked down upon as being aiding the British rule the country. However, Dadima was proud of her father public service.
She did have stories on her father chasing down hardened criminals but may be sometime miscreants who would damage public property and risk their lives and others. But never did I hear say any ill words about the independence fighters or swadeshi's. I have a feeling deep down even then she was deeply patriotic even then but little afraid to show it. I am also sure in those days - my late great grandfather (paternal-maternal) would have seen that a job, a means to get by and take care of the family. Being good and hard working at what he did, he got promoted and deserved the privileges. I guess - "One man's freedom fighter is another man's militant." The same holds true today too. But the lesson learnt here was that you always look up to hands that feed you and arms that shelter you. She maintained her father legacy with great pride.
Dadima got married to my grandfather (Late Shri Subimal Chandra Banerjea) in her early teens and was settled in Lucknow. A house built by my great grandfather (paternal - paternal) "Purimal Kutir" or 15, Nazarbagh, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh was where she would spend most of her life. It is now the older part of Lucknow's neighbourhood. Close to Hazartganj, Lucknow's business district.
From then on, the most dominant person in her life became her mother-in-law. A person whom I came affectionately remember as Deeli-ma. In Dadima's admittance, she was very afraid of Deeli-ma. However, my memories of Deeli-ma (my late great grandmother (paternal-paternal)), somewhat faint, of a frail loving woman, nothing like what Dadima would have known in her younger years. (Deeli-ma passed away in a stormy night in May 1984 in New Delhi, INDIA. Unfortunately, that's a night I remember too well and also recall some of the suffering that old age can bring, even in the best of circumstances.)
But back to Dadima, from her I learnt to respect her elders and absorb the advice like a sponge. There is always wisdom, years of experience and most of all care for you when they speak.
Yes, I will truly miss her. There will also be a regret (among tons of others) I will carry more than anything is that Dadima could not meet Mishti (aka Akriti Banerjea)- her great granddaughter, my daughter - in person. Dadima only knew Mishti through the pictures, phone conversations, VoIP and web cam encounters.
It is for me to now to make sure that Mishti would learn about her great grandmother more than what she sees in old pictures. I will not be able give the half the selfless love that Dadima would have showered on Mishti, but I hope to still teach Mishti what Dadima's life represented to her off springs and beyond...
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Sponge-Worthy: Tips for obtaining Free PDUs for Continuing PMP Certification
Lo and Behold... People... I'm PMI re-certified (or almost there at least).
I completed my PMI certification in April 2004 and was expected to collect 60 PDUs in next 3 years to remain a PMI certified. Happy to share with you that I managed to acquire, report and obtain approval for 64 PDUs for the period of 2004 - 2007 and I get to carry over 4 PDUs for the next cycle. Only just I should say... razor thin gap and in time for my annual appraisal.
Next part is most important and free loader like me really enjoy - all the PDUs were obtained without spending any money other than time and fuel to travel. Honestly I did learn quite a few things on the way, which I would not have, if getting the PDUs were not a goal. So, thank you PMI for motivating me. (and of course, my employer - Software Paradigms International)
Also, getting PDUs is not very hard. It's matter of tracking it properly and then remembering to report it correctly.
In the next few paras, I'll talk about how I went about doing it and then in the next section, I will offer more avenues, I plan to explore for next cycle (and you can too!)
Being what you are: 15 PDUs
Good news... if you are project manager or play a role in managing projects. One-quarter of your work is already done.
Being a PMP certified Project Management Practitioner, I earned 5 PDUs every year. So from year 2004 - 2007, I earned 15 PDUs.
Report that under category - 2H (Practitioner of Professional Project Management Services)
Sharing your knowledge: 30 PDUs
Become a trainer, a mentor and/or a speaker on Project Management and PMP certification. You get high marks for this. Sharing and spreading the skills and knowledge of Project Management is important part of being a PMP.
I earned that as :
(a) A guest speaker on Project Management Professional training class
I spoke on how I prepared for PMP exam and took up the topic of Project Scheduling and Critical Path Calculation with the participants. (Special Credits to my colleague - Jitendra Ram here inviting me to be a guest speaker) - 10 Points
(b) Trainer for Microsoft Project 2003
I extensively use Microsoft Project for planning and tracking project resources and schedules, in addition to my employer's own Enterprise Project Management tool - spiProject. But I was surprised to learn not many project managers use MS Project effectively or if at all.
So, using some real life examples that I use on my project and armed with some advanced techniques in Microsoft Project, I trained my peers in use of MS Project. - 10 points
(c) A presenter on Project Management topic at the company strategy meeting.
My employer is in strategic partnership with several channel partners and it place special level of responsibility on end customer facing resources. My topic was the common pitfalls, I faced during my assignment and how I overcame that and specifically highlight how being a PMP and specific project management techniques helped. - 10 points
Reading and sharing - Self Learning: 15 PDUs
It helps if you are a avid reader and a good notes taker.
Over the past of couple of years, I read on project management and business. Notable of there being
- World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
- Reimagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age by Tom Peters.
Both are excellent reads and deservingly best sellers. It is possible to relate these books to several key areas in project management especially communication, resource management and risk.
Free Seminars and Local PMI Chapter Dinner Meetings: 4 PDUs
Both these events are excellent sources of earning PDUs.
I must admit about PMI Atlanta dinner, I did get lucky. My employer was the gold sponsor for the PMI monthly dinner and I got the benefit of that to attend one of most interesting seminars (How to be a better consultant/Carl Pritchard ) and show off my sales acumen. - 1 PDU.
The second seminar I attended was sponsored by Dekker Ltd. It was a half day course on Earned Value Management and how to apply MS Project and software tools from Dekker to it. It was long drive to south side of Atlanta for me, but it was worth it. Check out their website for more half day seminars.
The ones, I missed
Now, these are events, I missed reporting because I did not keep good notes on them.
Other Avenues to try
I plan to explore these avenues this cycle as well the tried and tested ones too.
Of course, as always... .START EARLY.... !!!
That always helps to cut down on the last minute rush. Of course, you would know the benefit of planning, after all you are PMP...:)
Hope you find this blog entry shared something useful for you and should get you started on the PDU hunt...
GOOD LUCK!
I completed my PMI certification in April 2004 and was expected to collect 60 PDUs in next 3 years to remain a PMI certified. Happy to share with you that I managed to acquire, report and obtain approval for 64 PDUs for the period of 2004 - 2007 and I get to carry over 4 PDUs for the next cycle. Only just I should say... razor thin gap and in time for my annual appraisal.
Next part is most important and free loader like me really enjoy - all the PDUs were obtained without spending any money other than time and fuel to travel. Honestly I did learn quite a few things on the way, which I would not have, if getting the PDUs were not a goal. So, thank you PMI for motivating me. (and of course, my employer - Software Paradigms International)
Also, getting PDUs is not very hard. It's matter of tracking it properly and then remembering to report it correctly.
In the next few paras, I'll talk about how I went about doing it and then in the next section, I will offer more avenues, I plan to explore for next cycle (and you can too!)
Being what you are: 15 PDUs
Good news... if you are project manager or play a role in managing projects. One-quarter of your work is already done.
Being a PMP certified Project Management Practitioner, I earned 5 PDUs every year. So from year 2004 - 2007, I earned 15 PDUs.
Report that under category - 2H (Practitioner of Professional Project Management Services)
Sharing your knowledge: 30 PDUs
Become a trainer, a mentor and/or a speaker on Project Management and PMP certification. You get high marks for this. Sharing and spreading the skills and knowledge of Project Management is important part of being a PMP.
I earned that as :
(a) A guest speaker on Project Management Professional training class
I spoke on how I prepared for PMP exam and took up the topic of Project Scheduling and Critical Path Calculation with the participants. (Special Credits to my colleague - Jitendra Ram here inviting me to be a guest speaker) - 10 Points
(b) Trainer for Microsoft Project 2003
I extensively use Microsoft Project for planning and tracking project resources and schedules, in addition to my employer's own Enterprise Project Management tool - spiProject. But I was surprised to learn not many project managers use MS Project effectively or if at all.
So, using some real life examples that I use on my project and armed with some advanced techniques in Microsoft Project, I trained my peers in use of MS Project. - 10 points
(c) A presenter on Project Management topic at the company strategy meeting.
My employer is in strategic partnership with several channel partners and it place special level of responsibility on end customer facing resources. My topic was the common pitfalls, I faced during my assignment and how I overcame that and specifically highlight how being a PMP and specific project management techniques helped. - 10 points
Reading and sharing - Self Learning: 15 PDUs
It helps if you are a avid reader and a good notes taker.
Over the past of couple of years, I read on project management and business. Notable of there being
- World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
- Reimagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age by Tom Peters.
Both are excellent reads and deservingly best sellers. It is possible to relate these books to several key areas in project management especially communication, resource management and risk.
Free Seminars and Local PMI Chapter Dinner Meetings: 4 PDUs
Both these events are excellent sources of earning PDUs.
I must admit about PMI Atlanta dinner, I did get lucky. My employer was the gold sponsor for the PMI monthly dinner and I got the benefit of that to attend one of most interesting seminars (How to be a better consultant/Carl Pritchard ) and show off my sales acumen. - 1 PDU.
The second seminar I attended was sponsored by Dekker Ltd. It was a half day course on Earned Value Management and how to apply MS Project and software tools from Dekker to it. It was long drive to south side of Atlanta for me, but it was worth it. Check out their website for more half day seminars.
The ones, I missed
Now, these are events, I missed reporting because I did not keep good notes on them.
- Seminar on Microsoft Project 2003 server - Atlanta Microsoft Project User Group monthly meeting in early 2005. (Worth: 1-2 PDUs)
- Free Executive Seminars by Matrix Resources. I attended and actively participated in couple of them in 2006 and 2007. (Worth: 1-2 PDUs each)
Other Avenues to try
I plan to explore these avenues this cycle as well the tried and tested ones too.
- Free Webinars: Nothing better than to learn sitting at your desk. There are several vendors offering these free webinars in order to entice new customers for their products or services.
- Example - International Institute of Learning (IIL) has several such webinars. Check out their website - http://www.iil.com/webinars/
- Volunteering Opportunities: Find some at your local PMI chapters.
Of course, as always... .START EARLY.... !!!
That always helps to cut down on the last minute rush. Of course, you would know the benefit of planning, after all you are PMP...:)
Hope you find this blog entry shared something useful for you and should get you started on the PDU hunt...
GOOD LUCK!
Sunday, December 02, 2007
WAMPing now: My First Pure Open Source project
I have been working with Microsoft .NET technologies for a while (6 years now), so it is easy for people to assume that that live and breath... in CLR (Common Language Runtime) world... :D and probably despise the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) planets and all the revolves around OSS (Open Source Software) planet systems.
Well the truth is, I do... do lots of my day-to-day work using .NET because that's the assignments I have been put on to win my "daily" bread. I use lots of Open Source .NET technologies like NAnt, NUnit, NHibernate to name a few, which has their in the Java/OSS world. Add to the fact, I did lots of J2ME and J2EE work before moving over to Microsoft's .NET platform.
Besides, it always pays to keep an eye out to the "dishes on the other table".
Dishes on the other table being - Java and J2EE being the obvious choice, but there are lot of open source technology to watch out for including dynamic languages and their associated frameworks like Ruby, PHP, Perl etc.
So, late last week - I delivered my first production ready - xAMP product, which I hope will go live in next couple of weeks.
xAMP stands for:
x - OS of choice.
A - Apache Web Server
M - MySQL database
P - PHP language
The two most known flavors of xAMP - LAMP (Linux based AMP) and WAMP (Windows based AMP). Honestly, about two weeks prior to completing the project (Delivery date: Nov/30/2007) I did not know much about MySQL and had limited knowledge on PHP. But Being a Linux enthusiast, I have played around Apache technologies since college (1997-98).
Anyway the point being I was amazed at how mature the tool set around xAMP platform is and how easy it is pick up.
The development environment I used was Microsoft Vista Home Premium Edition. I feel that Home Premium is more ideal of the Vista platforms as it did not have the IIS Server installed. So, I had to install "A" of the xAMP platform - Apache Web server. Of course, it is not as dysfunctional as Home BASIC and that is just my humble opinion. Also, add to the fact that I did not have much choice. All the other computers at my disposal had issues of HDD space or were just not powerful enough support development tools.
The Vista platform comes with a caveat though and that is its famous User Access Control feature (UAC), which is incorrigibly mistrusting and highly irritating. After much bruises and cuts fighting UAC, I was forced to turn it OFF.
So note to self: Real developers don't need UAC unless you are developing for the Vista box.
That was probably the only glitch I faced in setting up the development tools. (Touch wood!)
The development tool of choice - Eclipse Europa (v3.2 + Goodies in September/October 2007). Downloaded from a link on the IBM website. Additionally downloaded - PHP Development Tools (PDT) add in.
The next step was to download PHP and configure it with the Apache server. Thankfully again this step is well documented on the web. Tons of site offering advice and troubleshooting guidance. Fortunately, I had to face none and nothing in Vista OS conflicted either.
Now for the missing "M". No James Bond story here. (Read "M" is 007's secretive boss). MySQL website was the place to go. I recommend downloading the Community Edition as well as the GUI tool for it.
Also required is the glue between MySQL and PHP - the MySQL PHP connector. That is also available on the MySQL website.
With my limited knowledge of MySQL, I went with default settings. But by the time I got around to building the third table (the first two being lookup value tables), I realized that ISAM engine for the tables will not be correct as it did not support foreign key constraints (FK).
Coming from a SQL Server and Oracle background, I had taken the FK constraint for granted in all databases. Now MySQL does support FKs but only in certain Engines.
Also the idea of being able to use different engines to access and store the table was new to me. It really depends on the type of application that is being planned but this is another level of optimization available to the users in MySQL. I still have to research if MySQL can have tables stored with different engines interact. (Any answers from readers are welcome). But once I shifted the tables to InnoDB Engine, I was in a familiar world.
So off I went developing the application in about 5 -6 days. Honestly, I had made it hard of myself as I had been procrastinating and sidetracked on the project for over 6 weeks and started working on it very close to the deadline.
All said and done, the project was up and running, the user acceptance testing and the demo to the stakeholders went really well.
The application has been delivered with installation instructions from ground up. Just waiting for the application to go live in next couple of weeks and get the mullah... :D
Just to keep the record straight, knowledge of legacy ASP (Active Server Pages) and JSP (Java Server Pages) did help in learning PHP faster as it follows a similar syntax and embedded HTML layout.
I would recommend xAMP platform anybody who is transitioning from a non web background to a web based development. Tools are easy and free to obtain and lots of readily available Internet resources being the major reasons.
Please feel free to drop line, if you have any questions/comments/suggestions/brickbats.
Till next time...hopefully with a story on Ruby...
Footnote - Some Important Links:
Well the truth is, I do... do lots of my day-to-day work using .NET because that's the assignments I have been put on to win my "daily" bread. I use lots of Open Source .NET technologies like NAnt, NUnit, NHibernate to name a few, which has their in the Java/OSS world. Add to the fact, I did lots of J2ME and J2EE work before moving over to Microsoft's .NET platform.
Besides, it always pays to keep an eye out to the "dishes on the other table".
Dishes on the other table being - Java and J2EE being the obvious choice, but there are lot of open source technology to watch out for including dynamic languages and their associated frameworks like Ruby, PHP, Perl etc.
So, late last week - I delivered my first production ready - xAMP product, which I hope will go live in next couple of weeks.
xAMP stands for:
x - OS of choice.
A - Apache Web Server
M - MySQL database
P - PHP language
The two most known flavors of xAMP - LAMP (Linux based AMP) and WAMP (Windows based AMP). Honestly, about two weeks prior to completing the project (Delivery date: Nov/30/2007) I did not know much about MySQL and had limited knowledge on PHP. But Being a Linux enthusiast, I have played around Apache technologies since college (1997-98).
Anyway the point being I was amazed at how mature the tool set around xAMP platform is and how easy it is pick up.
The development environment I used was Microsoft Vista Home Premium Edition. I feel that Home Premium is more ideal of the Vista platforms as it did not have the IIS Server installed. So, I had to install "A" of the xAMP platform - Apache Web server. Of course, it is not as dysfunctional as Home BASIC and that is just my humble opinion. Also, add to the fact that I did not have much choice. All the other computers at my disposal had issues of HDD space or were just not powerful enough support development tools.
The Vista platform comes with a caveat though and that is its famous User Access Control feature (UAC), which is incorrigibly mistrusting and highly irritating. After much bruises and cuts fighting UAC, I was forced to turn it OFF.
So note to self: Real developers don't need UAC unless you are developing for the Vista box.
That was probably the only glitch I faced in setting up the development tools. (Touch wood!)
The development tool of choice - Eclipse Europa (v3.2 + Goodies in September/October 2007). Downloaded from a link on the IBM website. Additionally downloaded - PHP Development Tools (PDT) add in.
The next step was to download PHP and configure it with the Apache server. Thankfully again this step is well documented on the web. Tons of site offering advice and troubleshooting guidance. Fortunately, I had to face none and nothing in Vista OS conflicted either.
Now for the missing "M". No James Bond story here. (Read "M" is 007's secretive boss). MySQL website was the place to go. I recommend downloading the Community Edition as well as the GUI tool for it.
Also required is the glue between MySQL and PHP - the MySQL PHP connector. That is also available on the MySQL website.
With my limited knowledge of MySQL, I went with default settings. But by the time I got around to building the third table (the first two being lookup value tables), I realized that ISAM engine for the tables will not be correct as it did not support foreign key constraints (FK).
Coming from a SQL Server and Oracle background, I had taken the FK constraint for granted in all databases. Now MySQL does support FKs but only in certain Engines.
Also the idea of being able to use different engines to access and store the table was new to me. It really depends on the type of application that is being planned but this is another level of optimization available to the users in MySQL. I still have to research if MySQL can have tables stored with different engines interact. (Any answers from readers are welcome). But once I shifted the tables to InnoDB Engine, I was in a familiar world.
So off I went developing the application in about 5 -6 days. Honestly, I had made it hard of myself as I had been procrastinating and sidetracked on the project for over 6 weeks and started working on it very close to the deadline.
All said and done, the project was up and running, the user acceptance testing and the demo to the stakeholders went really well.
The application has been delivered with installation instructions from ground up. Just waiting for the application to go live in next couple of weeks and get the mullah... :D
Just to keep the record straight, knowledge of legacy ASP (Active Server Pages) and JSP (Java Server Pages) did help in learning PHP faster as it follows a similar syntax and embedded HTML layout.
I would recommend xAMP platform anybody who is transitioning from a non web background to a web based development. Tools are easy and free to obtain and lots of readily available Internet resources being the major reasons.
Please feel free to drop line, if you have any questions/comments/suggestions/brickbats.
Till next time...hopefully with a story on Ruby...
Footnote - Some Important Links:
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