India trip May 2010

I had been to India for my bro's wedding for only 7 days (rather 6 and you will know why). The flight was from Dallas - London - Mumbai - London - Dallas with a 12 hour hault at London while going. At first i was inquiring about various options to optimize my stay at the london airport. Did not want to watch movies and sleep on the couches at the airport. i tried calling the uk embassy and also tried to read all the information about stepping outside the heathrow airport and into the city. since i am a student at the United States i though that i may need a visitor in transit visa or something similar, to visit london even for a period of 9 - 12 hours. eventually, i had to leave dallas with little or no information about stepping outside the london airport. once i got through the security check at the london airport, I was asked to visit the uk immigration control and within a few minutes i was given a stamp on my passport confirming that i can visit london and return within 9 hours in order to catch my connecting flight to mumbai. i was able to visit some good tourist places within the city.

Upon arrival to mumbai, i was greeted by my parents and was very happy to see them after a year and a half. Then while going home, i had first visited a punjabi dhaba and helped myself with some spicy food.

I was very busy meeting relatives, friends and visitors during the wedding and it went well. Again got to eat delicious home made food. after the hustle and bustle of the wedding i realized that my flight was at early in the morning at 2:30 am and not 2:30 pm (the time was in 24 hour format !). So this reduced my trip from 7 to 6 days and everyone started helping me with the packing (indian spices, sweets, clothes etc) and came to see me off at the mumbai international airport. it was a very short yet memorable india trip wherein i got to meet all my near and dear ones, rode my bike and also drove a manual car. Most importantly attended the wedding and wished the married couple a happy life.

After some "random checks" at the airport i arrived back to dallas safely yet a little tired.

Its that time of the year !

Well ...now that I'm done with all the submissions, assignments, projects, exams and work ...its that time of the year to relax for a while. Wait !! Actually it is time to do all the nice things to advance my Career.

I wish to find a job that is the most appropriate for me (a Dream job !)....one that would really fit my profile and my Career choice. I believe one should work at a company where you think your future is and where you can find personal and professional growth, good colleagues and motivational managers and leaders to work with.
This semester, I learned a lot of things especially about new technologies and new companies. Of course all the three courses that I took this semester were fabulous especially the level of collaboration and research that was needed to advance in each one of these.

AITP UT Dallas had a fabulous semester as well. We had 4 guest lecture sessions from prominent speakers. The very first session about "The Role of FBI in CyberSpace" let us know how FBI works in the cyberspace tracking down cyber crime and intrusions.

Then we had a guest lecture on "How to develop your Networking skills" and I was amazed to learn some of the facts about Networking. We got to know about the IT Infrastructure at JP Morgan and about Career opportunities for students with them. The final lecture was very interesting and we learned about creating visually appealing dashboards and charts from Chris Giametta of the AppFoundation technology group who discussed about Adobe Flex and Flash development.

Thanks to AITP UT Dallas officers, I was nominated for the best Student leader of the year award organized by the Student Organization Forum (SOF) UT Dallas.

Spring 2010 semester !

The first week of classes just got over and I am very much back to school with Assignments, Projects, Group discussions and as always what I like doing the most -- On Campus job !

December was a great month filled with Birthday Celebration, Vacation, Travel and Holidays. This time I had been to Tampa, Florida which was a much needed vacation after a long time in School.

I just have to say that the Tampa Bay area is beautiful. I had been driving along this area for most of the time and been at the Clearwater and St. Pete's beach. Ybor city is the place to be if one needs to stay up during the night with streets lightened up during the Holiday season.

Later after coming back, had been to Houston, San Antonio and Austin where I had a great time and spent the last week of 2009.

Getting ready to study Strategic Management and also some Organizational Consulting and for our first guest lecture session on Cybercrime and Cybersecurity for AITP UT Dallas.

PS3 Vs XBOX 360

Trying to decide between the two.....Going to get a console on this Thanks giving for sure. I have an inclination towards the PS3 because of the inbuilt Blu Ray player and access to the Play Station Network

Found this article very useful while making my decision.


Performance

Here’s a tough one. On paper, the Playstation 3’s Cell engine is more capable than XBOX 360’s triple-core Xenon CPU. However, as our developer alluded to last year, the XBOX 360 is much easier to develop for. In other words, a lot of the Cell’s power is going to waste. Although that is expected to change eventually, as always seems to happen with Sony’s consoles (compare early PS2 games to current games, and the same goes for PS1), one year later we’re still waiting for someone to fully exploit the system. Another indication that the PS3 is harder to develop for is the fact that almost all multiplatform games arrive weeks – if not months – after their 360 versions.

As we said last year, we fully expect the PS3 to win this category – eventually. To what extent, we’re not sure (very likely it’s only going to be the blockbuster first-party titles that take full advantage of Cell), and when this will occur, we’re not sure either. Obviously, one full year wasn’t enough.

Graphics

This is a sticky subject for a lot of fanboys. A very common argument in most flame wars is that the Playstation 3 simply “has better graphics”. I’m not sure where that argument came from; Sony obviously did a good job of marketing the system. However, the argument is entirely false. The Xenos GPU on the XBOX 360 is superior the RSX on the PS3. This is one thing that didn’t change in the past year.

Xenos simply has more power – higher fillrate, higher pixel processing power, higher vertex processing power, and better memory architecture. If you look at multiplatform games and contrast the graphics on the two consoles, XBOX 360 almost always leads. Whether they use a higher resolution or higher quality antialiasing, games often look better and/or play smoother on the 360. We looked at a handful of multiplatform games a while back, and this was always the case.

Again, we have to consider that Cell has the potential to help with graphics on the Playstation 3. As developers become more familiar with the platform, they are going to come up with new tricks to help games run smoother, and allow them to look better. However, one year after its introduction we aren’t seeing huge leaps (or even baby steps) towards this, except on a couple exclusive titles.

Playstation Network Store vs. XBOX Live Arcade

The initial interface of Sony’s online store was, to say the least, crap. However they revised it last year, and it is now very easy to find games, demos, and other extra goodies. There are even ‘branded stores’ for companies like Capcom who offer many titles.

Big titles like Mega Man and Street Fighter HD are available on both programs, and usually run well on both consoles. Both consoles have good indy support as well, with all the PixelJunk games and such on PSN, and games like Braid on XBLA.

Microsoft tends to do a better job of adding retro games, while Sony only occasionally adds the odd PS1 title, and has a few arcade games available. This is one thing that drives retro fans like
myself crazy; with hundreds of great games that can easily be made available on PSN for little cost, it’s frustrating that there are so few.

As far as demos go, both PSN and XBLA have time fee-based demo exclusivity. For XBLA, it’s in the form of XBOX Live membership, where if you’re a paying member (which all online gamers are), you get early access to demos. For Playstation Network, you have to subscribe to their “video magazine” Qore to get monthly exclusive demos, the value of which is questionable.

Conclusion

So, which is better, XBOX 360 or PS3?

The answer is……. Neither! Look, each console has its “pros and cons”. If you primarily play online games, you will want to get an XBOX 360. If you have a nice HDTV and want to enjoy beautiful Blu-Ray movies, you will want to get a PS3. If you are an “achievement whore” you will want a 360. If you like to play import games, you will want a PS3. If you want to easily stream near-HD quality movies and TV shows, get a 360. It goes on and on. If you like Halo games, get a 360. If you are more of a Killzone kinda guy, get a PS3. If you want to spend less than $400, get a 360.
If you think the PS3 has “better graphics” get a PS3. If you think the XBOX 360
has “better graphics” then get an XBOX 360.

The fact is, the decisions that influence your purchasing decision are entirely up to you. What matters to you may not matter to the next person. But hopefully you have a clearer picture of “what matters” to you, and how the consoles compare after reading this article. If it’s exclusive titles, fine. Go with the console that has the games you like. If it’s “which multiplatform games play
better on this console” the answer is… Well the 360 is a bit better, but the PS3 is improving in this regard (and buggy games do get patched).

I’ll finish off with some comments that are purely subjective. It is my personal opinion that it just ‘feels’ better to play games on the Playstation 3. After reading this entire article, the PS3 has some advantages and some disadvantages, but for some reason I just like playing games on it better. It’s quiet, I don’t have to worry about it Red Ringing on me, and I actually prefer the DualShock 3 controller (when the connection is not cutting out, which seems to happen with less frequency now that I think about it). I am more of an offline gamer when it comes to consoles, so the XBOX 360’s huge advantage of being the superior online gaming
system doesn’t apply to me. I just want a console that will do what it’s supposed to do, and do so quietly. Other people will feel just the opposite, and that is perfectly fine. I have my reasons, and you have yours. And neither of those should affect one another. That’s the whole point of writing this article in the manner that I have.

Comments are welcome, keeping in mind that fanboy crap will not remotely be tolerated. If you have a comment to make, try to do so in a respectable manner.

Citations: http://www.hardcoreware.net/playstation-3-vs-xbox-360-two-years-later/

Presentation on Business Ethics

Have a Presentation next week on Business Ethics in my Organizational Behavior class. We are a group of three and collectively we are studying this topic and then individually we will be collecting materials for the presentation.

I am working on finding some videos, definitions and facts and figures around the world about Business Ethics.

This topic is relatively new to me and have never studied about this during my Engineering or Work life....Though I understand that we all know about Business Ethics in a broad sense and practice it in our Professional life.

Have shortlisted some interesting videos about the same:


Business Ethics: My Life in Headlines

This videos is from the serial 'The Office'

Business Society and Business Ethics

Still searching for some more stuff on this ....

Association of IT Professionals Region 3 conference at UT Dallas.

Last week, I presented on the history and structure of the Association of IT Professionals to the UT Dallas student members and guests. Also mentioned about the AITP Region 3 conference that will be hosted by AITP UT Dallas student chapter from Oct 22 - 24 at the school of management, UT Dallas.

All students are welcome to participate. The event will have several $$$ prizes for competitions such as Systems analysis and design, Database design, PC Troubleshooting, Microsoft Office solutions and more.

We will also have speakers from Microsoft and IBM and a visit to the closest Texas Instruments plant.

I have designed the website and details about the schedule and registration can be found at http://www.aitputd.org/conference

AITP UT Dallas now has its first sponsor 'John Neibel' who owns Mirrored Storage (http://www.mirroredstorage.com)

We are glad to have John on board and are thankful to him for sponsoring us.