College project started

As part of MTech Sem 2 I will have to submit a programing project (a minor one), So I have started working on it.

Because If I will delay the development of this one, I will not have any time left for other activities in that period of time.

I am creating a portal that can send notifications to the receivers. It can store a message and then send it to predefined single user or user lists via SMS, email, push notification (Mobile app), Browser notifications.

This project is coming out really well and can be utilized by my university department to communicate with students, or to manage email campaigns, marketing campaigns etc.

Right now the repository is private, Once I submit the project in college, I will make the repository publicly visible.

If you are interested and want to join me in the development of this project, please use contact form of this website and send a message to me, I will contact you.

Rainy season diaries

What is your favorite type of weather?

You like rains 🌧️ ? If you are from western countries, you will say no. If you are from India, i cannot predict your answer.

I love rainy season for a ton of reasons.

First is obviously because I love to feel the rainfall and prefer not to use an umbrella if I have dry clothes available.

There are few more :

God sent help in gardening – i have a small garden and i do not have to care about it in rainy season. It just grows big and green because of the season.

No dust, cleaner air – all dust settles during rainy season and we get the cleanest air and better visibility. It’s best for the health.

💚 everywhere – it’s a perfect heaven to visit Rajsamand and Chittorgarh during this season. Cannot describe in words.

And i am a tea lover – ☕ chay pakoda 👍

Pro tip: How to handle the invitations where you do not want to go?

In many cases, we get the invitation, and we do not want to go there. The reason could be anything. But sometimes we do not have a choice to not go there.

So in this case, do something which makes the host himself revoke the invitation. Just annoy him.

The recent example is, India and Pakistan at SCO meeting. India does not really cares about Pakistan and its existence. And Pakistan does not want to recognize India as a leader in the region. But India is forced to send the invitation to Pakistan as it is a member state and India is hosting it.

So it was like India does not want to invite, Pakistan do not want to go.

Pakistanis came up with a clever solution. They released a map of Pakistan which shows Kashmir as part of Pakistan. Everybody knew that it will annoy India. And India was waiting for a reason to cancel the invite.

India made it an issue as per the plan and cancelled the invitation itself. Win win for both India and Pakistan.

This is one more reason to believe that Diplomats are smarter than rest of us most of the time.

So now we have learnt the trick. Now if you are in such situation, you can apply the same trick.

Bank sold for 1 dollar, airlines for 2

Today I was hanging out with my friend, we were talking about news. He told me that a Bank sold only for 1 dollar, if he knew earlier he could have bought like 100 of such banks.

Well I was unable to convince him, he is looking out for a similar opportunity in near future, i will not break his dream.

I have some information about it so let me clarify this for you, yes reader, for you.

It is like buying a car from owner who have not paid his EMIs. He will sell it only for the downpayment he paid to the dealer. You have to pay back the EMIs and any penalty associated with it.

When a Bank is sold for 1 dollar, the bank is actually saying that i cannot payback my liabilities and please come and take this responsibility from me.

A sell contract cannot have a transaction with 0 dollar, it will come under gift and another set of laws will be applicable for this gift scenario. So they take a dollar as a token, so it becomes a financial transaction and the sell will be complete.

So in short , when you buy such bank for 1 dollar. You are buying actually for 1 dollar+ any liabilities that bank had – which means it is a billions dollar deal.

But what happens is when such a big guy take over a Bank. The depositor will not panick and withdraw their money. So no liability will appear immediately. For example – if SBI buys a regional bank , no one will panick and withdraw the money, but I buy the same bank (just imagine OK), everyone will panick and withdraw their money and send me to hell.

So, hold your horses, there is no such thing as one dollar bank sell.

Are you a possessive developer?

We write code, we love to write code and sometimes we love the code we write.

At times, i feel so connected to my code that when product owner decides to change the feature or let go of it, i cannot say good bye to my code.

With experience, I’ve found that it’s ok to comment out or even completely remove the code i have written if it is no longer meaningful.

Sometimes a task that i developed in front end can be offloaded to backend for performance gains. Though it took me 3 days to write it in front end. I just share the snippet i wrote in JavaScript to backend, so that he can translate it in his language and then improve it.

Backend can utilise the multi threaded capabilities and is usually faster than browser.

Don’t stick to your code if it doesn’t serve the purpose or a new implementation comes which can improve the whole product.

Its not your girlfriend, let it go. Ghar ki kheti he.

Things UI/UX do not design but are absolutely necessary.

All the pages we develop are created first by a UX designer (most of the times). Sometimes the designs are created well before a project starts.

In my experience i have seen designers and developers commit these mistakes while designing.

1. Not thinking about the responsiveness

This one is most commonly known mistake. Designer creates a beautiful page, but when it came to client he hated it. The reason is designer is gonna have the best screen available and almost same case for the developer who codes it. But business people work of screens of different size and resolution.

If the desinger does not design for the various screens. It’s gonna look odd on smaller or bigger screens.

One more thing, you have to create svgs for image and avoid tables.

2. No design for empty state

This is also occurs most of the time. Designer gives you a good screen with all the data on it. But what to show when no data is available? An image? Some text ? Nothing?

Designer must start the design with creating and empty state screen first and then he can design screen with the content on it.

3. No design for content overflow

It does not occur frequently but sometimes designer forgets to accomodate content overflow. For example, what if the the title of a card is too long, will it be shown? Hidden ? Clipped ? Or shown ellipsis?

You must design for the situations where content can overflow the component and handle by truncating/ showing pagination/hiding unnecessary details etc

4. No design for intermediate state – loading state

You know it. You should add this also. Maybe show a loader. Or a progress bar or a skeleton of the component to be loaded.

Last is communication, you need to communicate with the stakeholders and developers and make sure that the correct design is implemented.

If you have any more tips please feel to comment.

Penguins of Madagascar!!

Where is my analysis Kowalski?

So, we are talking about the penguins here. I like their characters so much. It is just a movie and all fake but It teaches us so much.

I will start with the adorable one – Private. Little soldier accompanying the gang everywhere they go. He is like the baby Groot. but baby Groot is stubborn. Private got the optimistic vision and he believes in things that a child will believe. He is a little kid anyway.

Next comes the Storage guy, we call him Rico. He is rough, He is quick and a Yogi who doesn’t care much about this world. He likes to eat and I suppose he can eat literally anything. Some people say he is a dark hole 😉 He plays the role of the provider in need to the gang. Be it food or weapons or just imagine it. And yeah, He does not talk much.

Third one is Engineer/Problem solver and the scientist. He has invented things that many prominent scientist dream to achieve. Just like all the major scientists and researchers He could be from Israel or Russia. I like him a lot because after all, He is an engineer just like me. Hey Kowalski.

Behold, for the king. bold, confident and kind – Skipper. Just like his name, He skips a lot of drama and have do it already attitude. Thinking twice is not his way. He does what he wants to do. He leads the team and with his will power, and team spirit they always succeed. well most of the times.

Bill me 😉