Reading it out loud with Adobe

Today I stumbled across the Read Out Loud feature of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Microsoft Sam (the default Windows voice) can read paragraphs or pages at a time. In the middle of a long paragraph, I ventured out to the next room to grab a glass of water. The robotic voice from the other room almost sounded freaky. I remember how 3-4 years ago, one needed proprietary software to do any text-to-speech conversion.

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Answering the question behind the question

I came across this excellent resource on consulting. The articles on the site gives an insight into some of the challenges faced when dealing with different stakeholders in a project. This article reveals how the questions posed often have a different motivation behind it, and how to answer the question behind the question. The carrot and stick analogy is so true!

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Heads up to attend Thoughtworks assessment day

After the code submission (2 weeks back), I got a call today giving an advance timeline for the next round of assessments. The feedback of my coding submission was “positive” and hence the invitation to attend the next round. The exact date is not confirmed yet, but it would generally be sometime mid next week.

This part of the assessment is likely to contain psychometric tests, logical puzzles and perhaps a code pairing session. I am thrilled to be presented with such a fantastic opportunity.

Update: It’s going to be Thu arvo and Friday of next week.

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Reading blogs using Feedreader

I’ve been recommended this software a long time back, but never got around to using it – until now. Reading blogs maintained by TW developers was essentially my research and preparation for the interview mentioned in a previous post. I became interested in the concept of blogging since, and have started this blog as a result.

And now, Feedreader allows me to keep track of the blogs that I care about. Some are very prolific, with posts every day whereas others don’t post for months together. I’ve also stumbled upon blogs about non-technical topics – personal development in particular, which I used to love reading during by undergraduate years. Feedreader allows viewing/categorizing of posts similar to email clients. I’ve also enabled the Unread count
(not enabled by default) to give a quick overview of the posts left to read.  And since the blogs are categorized into custom categories, I can see the number of posts per category as well. Overall a very useful application.

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Nandos Hobart – Hit the spot

Today Achint, Ameet and I visited the new Nandos restaurant that has opened in North Hobart. Having been to the Swanston St Nandos in Melbourne, we were expecting to have a good meal. And it turned out to be a good one indeed.

I tried the Chicken breast pita with coleslaw, but eventually had the better option – flame grilled half chicken. The taste was heavenly, with the chicken nicely marinated and cooked. It was similar to Tandoori chicken – marinated with a different sauce, called peri-peri. I am sure I’ll be going back again…..

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Printing reports generated from Oracle Reports

We use Oracle reports to design the reports/printed material. At present, the pdf generated was sent back to the user interface, from which they were printed via the windows printing mechanism. This was all fine and dandy from small reports/statements, but was getting unsustainable for large print jobs.

Apparently Oracle reports has an option to print directly to the default printer. earlier as a solution to this problem, I had suggested using CUPS for massive print jobs. My concept from initial research was that CUPS could be used a print job management solution. But as it turns out, CUPS is used by most Unix/Linux systems to manage printing by acting like a logical printer.

So my task for this week is to investigate whether automated printing can be set within Oracle reports.

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Julian and the gang

Met the former System architect of our project during lunch break, having a stroll around the city with his “gang” – his three adorable kids. I’ve had a chance to work with him during my testing days, and what impressed me most about him was his easy, casual way of explaining complex concepts. He was a good developer as well, which is a rare combination. He was replaced by an equally impressive guy under whom I am currently undergoing training.

Wish you good luck in your new role, Julian…..

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Why go through the report-explain-fix cycle, when you can do it yourself…

Yes, I forget sometimes that I have moved from testing into development! I had reported two defects today, which later came up in discussion with a senior developer and as it turns out all that was missing was 3 lines of code. I wrote it in 2 minutes or so, which saved hours of the current process.

I guess my general reluctance to venture into bugfixing is my fear that I may end up breaking more code than I fix. But with a few pointers, and assistance from the more experienced crew, I am beginning to feel that it is not such a bad idea after all. As they say, learning-on-the-job is the best training.

Lesson learnt.

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Indians in Hobart

There is a small community of Indian professionals, here in Hobart. Of the few present here, you tend to know everybody soon enough. So it was no surprise, that when venturing out for lunch today, I came across Nitin, Niral and Piya (hope I got the name right).

While talking to them today, I remembered the time that I’d first met them, and how over the years, their attitude and topics of discussion have changed. Some have found solace here, whereas others like me, think the grass is greener on the other side (read mainland Australia).

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Autistic Spectrum

Today evening on the 7:30 report, was a small segment on autistic children. The many symptoms described in such children struck a chord with me, as sounding similar to the stories described by my parents about my early development. I had developed language skills very late and was always engrossed in my own world. Throughout my life, I’ve had trouble making friends. Perhaps it is time I read more about this condition, and see if I can take some action to remedy this.

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