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For decades, the standard corporate playbook was simple: hire for experience. A dense resume was a badge of reliability, and a decade or two in the industry was seen as the ultimate insurance against failure. But walk into a modern hiring board today, and you’ll find a radical shift in philosophy. The "seasoned pro" is no longer the default gold standard; instead, the spotlight has shifted toward junior, hungry, and younger talent. This isn’t just a cost-cutting measure—it’s a fundamental change in how we value skill. From "Proven Record" to "Infinite Agility" In the past, business moved at a pace where yesterday’s solutions usually solved today’s problems. Experience was a library of answers. Today, however, the half-life of technical skills is shrinking. Companies are increasingly finding that long-term experience can sometimes come with "mental debt"—a tendency to rely on legacy systems or outdated workflows. Junior talent, by contrast, enters...

I went to Sydney on a business trip for 2-3 weeks. Since, it was a business trip I was going to travel alone and miss my family. Therefore, I appreciated the short duration of the trip but it did not feel like a short one. Most of it was work only and some time for me during the two weekends. I had decided to make the most of available time instead of idling and feel more homesick. Also, I was going to stay in the CBD area so it was a big advantageous factor since not much effort was to be spent for sightseeing. The journey began with the longest flight I’ve ever been on (17 hours) with a stopover at Bangkok for 2 hours. I had a terrible time in the flight from Delhi to Bangkok; I was struggling a lot in the airplane seats and couldn’t sleep at all. However, the flight from Bangkok to Sydney was much better. On my flight from Bangkok to Sydney, an Australian lady was seated at the window seat on my right hand side. She asked me if I wanted to swap my seat with hers as I had starte...

I was able to manage my iPod Nano using Ubuntu until now. When I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty which was a clean install, a weird problem started. I could not synchronize my iPod using any application like Banshee, Rhythmbox, gtkpod, Amarok etc. On closer look, I realized that when I transferred any file, it was copied to the iPod but the database on iPod was not updated. None of the applications seemed to work and it was same error in each case. Since the iPod database was not updated, iPod could not see the file and was unable to play it. It was an iPod Nano generation 5, which comes with a video camera on the back side. To debug the issue, I executed Banshee in debug mode (banshee -debug on the terminal), and I noticed the following error when trying to transfer any file on iPod. ‘Failed to save iPod database – GLib.GException: Failed to generate sqlite database (in `libgpod-sharp)’ I searched for solutions on Internet but was confused at various solutions suggest...

Either of the two. But that’s been the case after my wedding. I’ve not done a blog post, neither I did anything on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ for that matter. Whatever! Better late than never. So, in order of priority, I wanted to write down a few important events that happened since my last post - We were blessed with a baby daughter – Naisha. Literal meaning of Naisha is ‘Special’ and she justifies this meaning completely. She’s beautiful, cranky and a fighter. She’s awesome! Naisha is one creature in the house. She just celebrated her first birthday dressed up as a Barbie, which was cute. All the day she’s running around the house and interpreting various things and objects in her unique style. I cannot understand much of it, but most of it appears very logical somehow. I switched from X to Y organization. It was a long pending decision for me and thankfully it worked out this time. It took its own time and I was recruited after long six months of interviewing process. A...

I just installed Ubuntu 10.04 (clean install from 9.04) and was dazzled with its performance & looks. The installation process is simpler than simple and everything just works. Best experience with Ubuntu so far! The only issue I have encountered so far is the negative color/hue balance while playing videos. I use Totem Movie Player with totem-xine as the backend for playing videos. However the hue balance was not correct even when I used MPlayer or VLC. I have described the simple resolution to resolve this issue below: Type Alt-F2, launch gstreamer-properties -> Video Tab -> Default Output -> Change “Autodetect” to “X Window System (No Xv) ” option. That’s it and it just works! Hope it helps.  System Configuration: Dell Inspiron 1520, Intel(R) Core(TM)2Duo Processor T5250, NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 8400M GS with 128MB GDDR2 dedicated graphic memory, Ubuntu 10.04, kernel – 2.6.32-22-generic

It’s been almost a year now. I was busy with a lot of things all this while but Hindustan Institute of Technology & Management(HITM) has been the most important one. This year, we (my family) started a new project - Hindustan Institute of Technology & Management (HITM), an engineering college in the District Ambala, Haryana (India). Though it was always under the plans but then it materialized only this year. Presently, the college is offering B.Tech. course in 4 streams namely - Information Technology, Computer Science, Electronics and Mechanical with 60 seats per course with a total of 240 seats. Further, we are planning to start a management course as well by next year. We started the project around January’08 with the construction of the college and completed Phase I of the construction after 7 months by August’08. Soon after the college construction was completed, we started the first batch of the college. The first day of the college was quite an event with lot of student...

I tried configuring Gnus/Emacs to send/receive mails through Gmail using IMAP/SMTP protocol on my Ubuntu-Gutsy Linux Box. Emacs Version: 22.1.1 Gnus Version: 5.11 I performed the following steps: I had to install sendmail and starttls programs using apt-get first and start sendmail service. Enable IMAP support for your Gmail account online as described here : http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77695 Create a file named .gnus.el in your home directory and copy the configuration as given below: ;; Configuration of ~/.gnus.el ;; Customize the next three lines with your ISP information. (load "starttls") (load-library "smtpmail") (setq user-mail-address "username@gmail.com") (setq user-full-name "User Name") ;; Configure incoming mail (IMAP) (setq gnus-select-method '(nnimap "gmail" (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com") (nnimap-server-port 993) ...

Please go through the previous post , in case sound is not working correctly for you on Feisty/Gutsy. First you need to setup the sound card correctly. I was facing problems with Internal Microphone on Ubuntu Feisty, so when Gutsy was released, I upgraded to it. Status did not change even after upgrading to Gutsy. Anyway, I tried reinstalling ALSA, but it did not help either. For Gutsy, there are not much different solutions available. So, I tried various settings in the Sound Mixer again. Finally, I got the Internal Microphone working. I used Audacity/Skype to test the microphone. Those facing the same issue with similar hardware (Sigmatel STAC9205), may try the same settings. It might help. Attached is the screenshot of the gnome-mixer settings that worked for me.

It’s been quite sometime that I installed Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on Dell Inspiron 1520. My experience with this Ubuntu installation has been good and I have got Compiz Fusion working this time (something I could not do before). Installation was slightly problematic with Feisty, since the Live CD did not boot at all. It failed after I pressed “Enter to Install” and I had to search for available solutions for this problem. I solved the problem by following the steps provided here . The workaround provided helped me out and I could boot using Live CD and installed Ubuntu Feisty subsequently. No problems after the boot process. Installation was simple and straightforward and completed in 18-20 minutes. Now, since many essential features were missing, so first thing I had to do was to install those missing packages. So, I needed to update the packages list or apt-get should I say. But I did not choose apt-get, instead I selected Smart Package Manager this time. I have had a very good exp...

Yes! I bought a laptop for myself, the Dell Inspiron 1520 (Black). Must say, it’s quite a beauty with the matte finish. Though delivery time was a bit long (13 days), I got it finally with all the accessories as mentioned in the order, so no surprises. I bought the following configuration : Intel(R) Core(TM)2Duo Processor T5250 1.5Ghz 2MB Cache, 667Mhz FSB 1 GB (2×512MB) DDR2 SDRAM 15.4 Widescreen WXGA+ Display 160 GB SATA HDD (5400 RPM) Nvidia(R) Geforce(TM) 8400M GS - 128MB GDDR2 Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy Advanced HD Audio Software Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module Intel Pro Wireless 3945 Dual Band 802.11a/g Wirless Mini Card Camera Dell (TM) Remote Control Internal 8X DVD+/-RW combination drive with dual layer write capabilities 6-cell 53 WHr Lithium Ion Primary Battery Windows Vista (with Aero) runs fine, although I don’t see much difference between Vista and XP. There are some unrequired features that you may want to turn off. See this link for some help. All the har...