Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Everything Happens For The Good

Everything Happens For The Good

There was once a King who had a wise advisor. The advisor followed the King everywhere, and his favorite advice was, “Everything happens for the good”. One day the King went hunting and had a little accident. He shot an arrow at his own foot and was injured. He asked the advisor what he thought about the accident, to which the advisor replied, “Everything happens for the good”. This time the King was really upset and ordered for his advisor to be put in prison. The King asked his advisor, “Now, what do you think?” The advisor again replied, “Everything happens for the good”. So the advisor remained in prison.

The King later went on a hunting trip, this time without the advisor. The King was then captured by some cannibals. He was taken to the cannibals' camp where he was to be the evening meal for the cannibals. Before putting him into the cooking pot he was thoroughly inspected. The cannibals saw the wound on the King’s foot and decided to throw him back into the jungle. According to the cannibals' tradition, they would not eat anything that was imperfect. As a result the King was spared. The King suddenly realized what his advisor said was true. The advisor also escaped death because had he not been in prison, he would have followed the King on the hunting trip, and would have ended up in the cooking pot.

Moral:

It is true that everything in life happens for a purpose, and always for our own good. If you think about it, all our past experiences actually happened to bring us to where we are today, and it is always for the good. All the past experiences makes us a better person. So, whatever challenges that we may face today, consider it happening to bring us to the next level.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Win Merge: File, Folder Comparison and Merge

Often in a development environment, a developer is posed with issues with comparing files and folders. Even though, the Software Configuration management tools offer file comparison utilities, they often do not serve the full purpose of the developer and lack the best features of File Comparison Tools.

Beyond Compare from Scooter Software will the Number 1 choice of any developer for File/Folder comparison, merge. But, this is a paid software.

As usual, I always look for some opensource/freeware stuff whereby I can get all these facilities without purchasing any software.

One such great software from OpenSource is "WinMerge". It gives all the facilities of Beyond Compare.

  • File and Folder Comparison
  • Merge
  • Tree View [basic version] (wow!! i was waiting for this BeyonCompare feature on winmerge for a long time.)
  • Plugin Support
  • xdocdiff plugin: with this you can compare Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and some more files.
read more on winmerge @ winmerge.com


~R.A.V.I.N.D.E.R
There's much more... keep visiting

Monday, May 4, 2009

Initiative: A short story

Employee "A" in a company walked up to his manager and asked what my job is for the day? The manager took "A" to the bank of a river and asked him to cross the river and reach the other side of the bank. ” A" completed this task successfully and reported back to the manager about the completion of the task assigned. The manager smiled and said “GOOD JOB ".

Next day Employee "B" reported to the same manager and asked him the job for the day. The manager assigned the same task as above to this person also.
The Employee "B' before starting the task saw Employee "C" struggling in the river to reach the other side of the bank. He realized "C" has the same task. Now "B" not only crossed the river but also helped "C" to cross the river. "B" reported back to the manager and the manager smiled and said “VERY GOOD JOB "

The following day Employee "Q" reported to the same manager and asked him the job for the day. The manager assigned the same task again.
Employee "Q" before starting the work did some home work and realized "A", "B" & "C" all has done this task before. He met them and understood how they performed. He realized that there is a need for a guide and training for doing this task.

He sat first and wrote down the procedure for crossing the river, he documented the common mistakes people made, and tricks to do the task efficiently and effortlessly. Using the methodology he had written down he crossed the river and reported back to the manager along with documented procedure and training material. The manger said "Q" you have done an “EXCELLENT JOB “.

The following day Employee "O' reported to the manager and asked him the job for the day. The manager assigned the same task again.
"O" studied the procedure written down by "Q" and sat and thought about the whole task.He realized company is spending lot of money in getting this task completed. He decided not to cross the river, but sat and designed and implemented a bridge across the river and went back to his manager and said, "You no longer need to assign this task to any one".

The manager smiled and said " Outstanding job 'O'. I am very proud of you."

What is the difference between A, B, Q & O????????

Many a times in life we get tasks to be done at home, at office, at play.,
Most of us end up doing what is expected out of us. Do we feel happy? Most probably yes. We would be often disappointed when the recognition is not meeting our expectation.

Let us compare ourselves with "B". Helping some one else the problem often improves our own skills. There is an old proverb "learn to teach and teach to learn". From a company point of view "B" has demonstrated much better skills than "A" since one more task for the company is completed.

"Q" created knowledge base for the team. More often than not, we do the task assigned to us without checking history. Learning from other's mistake is the best way to improve efficiency. This knowledge creation for the team is of immense help. Re-usability reduces cost there by increases productivity of the team. "Q" demonstrated good "team-player" skills,

Now to the outstanding person, "O" made the task irrelevant; he created a Permanent Asset to the team.
If you notice B, Q and O all have demonstrated "team performance" over an above individual performance; also they have demonstrated a very invaluable characteristic known as "INITIATIVE" .

Initiative pays of every where whether at work or at personal life. If you put initiative you will succeed. Initiative is a continual process and it never ends. This is because this year's achievement is next year's task. You cannot use the same success story every year.

The story provides an instance of performance, where as measurement needs to be spread across at least 6-12 months. Consequently performance should be consistent and evenly spread.

Out-of-Box thinkers are always premium and that is what every one constantly looks out for.

Initiative, Out-of-Box thinking and commitment are the stepping stone to success.