I do not know what to write or how to make it long but lately I have experienced 2 cases of online humiliation. Online humiliation as I describe is mostly to do with social networking sites such as Orkut or Facebook where when you send a friend's request whom you know(read acquaintance) either out rightly rejects the request, never accepts or deny it, or accepts and later denies it .
I find this thing very offending and annoying. If you know someone there's no point in denying or keep it pending mode and even if you don't want to add I think sending a polite message stating your inability to do so, is what I think a good gesture but some people really lack basic etiquette though they might be sitting in top notch company or in a developed nation like USA as I most often hear from offenders. I never thought of denying a request even of a stranger if I find some interest which are common like Computer science, electronic gadgetry or pets.
I believe everyone is gifted with something therefore there's no point in showing off that you are more gifted or you are top notch. After 26 years of existence and experiencing a lot of people, hardly any one care who you are. Be good and all will be good with you, this is what I believe.
Life is long, who knows when we bump into each other, when we cross the same road. The best we can do is to be friendly with everyone, who knows when we need someone whom we thought of denying his/her friend's request.
Ending this topic on positive note, I have made tons of strangers as online friends whom I didn't knew and ended up being better buddies than real world friends. So guys it's your wish add or deny, I don't care. You are not more gifted than others and your significance has just dropped more than ever! chow!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Nokia N85 Review
It's been exactly a month since I received my new Nokia N85 phone, which is based on Symbian S60 3rd Edition. I am very impressed with this phone till date thanks to open Symbian platform which enables host of useful 3rd party apps which I will cover later on.
The reason for buying Nokia N85 was simple, which was I needed something new :D. I had before this LG VU and iPhone, ebayed LG VU, got some money from it, had Amazon gift cards and rebates going on this phone, which made it a steal for me to buy. And left with iPhone which is non 3G and where I live it has poor reception quality, I was left with no choice but to look out for a new phone.
The last Nokia phone that I owned was in 2004 which was Nokia 6230 based on Symbian S40 platform. It was a feature packed and it was very revolutionary of it's time, partly because it supported EDGE networks and I use to connect my PC with data cable and for just Rs 500 bucks pm, I had unlimited internet at Edge speed, this was a dream connection for any internet junky at that time.
Nokia N85 is the most underrated but most feature packed Symbian cell phone till date, It has OLED (Organic LED) display which displays colors so bright and crisp and at the same time as each pixel is illuminated by itself, it saves a lot of battery power too as opposed to back lit screens mostly seen today. It is a dual slider just like Nokia N95 but it is so slim and fits easily in the pocket.
Some of the features I liked most about Nokia N85 are-:
1) OLED Screen with 16 million colors [iPhone has 18 bit or 212k color screen].
2) 8 GB of Memory
3) 3G/3.5G capabilty and at the same time doesn't consume whole a lot of battery.
4) Email support, not only it support POP or Exchange but also IMAP which my school email supports, so with internet enabled I can check email wherever I am and also send them too.
5) Plethora of 3rd party apps. I installed 'Joiku Spot' premium app which makes it a WLAN hotspot just like router and one can make it secure too using WEP. So now I am able to connect my laptop to internet using my phone without paying ATT 60$ pm for tethering services. 'Fring' is also a cool app which lets me connected to different IMs such as GTalk, MSN, Yahoo, Skype and Social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Orkut etc.
6) Since it has inbuilt GPS chip, I installed Garmin XT mobile, I found it so useful, specially when you are in a new city and you want to go to some particular location; just enter the destination address and it's voice activated turn by turn software will help you reach there.
7) It has Skyfire browser which support Flash, which iPhone is missing and now I realize how important is flash, Hulu is flash based, CNN videos are flash based and most of the online movies are flash based and all can be easily be watched on Nokia.
8) From Music point of view, it's music capability similar to iPod but it has Internet radio, FM radio which are so much cool and along with it comes FM transmitter which means whatever you are hearing can easily be transmitted to your car's music system using FM frequency.
9) It's Calender and To-Do list is very nice and one can see on home screen, so no more missing of important deadlines.
10) It has search capability just like desktop environment of Mac or Windows. It can search whole cell phone or internet based upon search criterion.
11) It has auto rotating screen depending upon how you are holding your phone.
12) Ability to do multitasking, like music player is running while you are browsing internet or reading email.
13) One can use ATT internet to make VOIP calls such as on Google Talk or Skype and hence saving service minutes.
14) Last but not the least, it has 5 MP Carl Zeiss Optics camera which was my main motivation for buying this cell phone. I don't have to carry dedicated digi cam now. I can shoot pics or record videos and upload to sites such as flickr or picasa right away, which is very cool.
There are some Con's too about this phone-:
1) Back side is plastic so feels cheap.
2) The slider feels unbalanced sometimes.
3) It hangs when many applications are open simultaneously.
4) Should have had Qwerty keyboard.
It's been a month and I am very impressed with this phone, more than calling it has so many features not just one like touchscreen which keeps you occupied. The potential could only be realized if it is internet connected. After owning iPhone, LG VU and Blackberry 8800, I found this one is the best. If one is paying extra for internet with phone service, this phone uses internet potential of mobile device to it's peak.
The reason for buying Nokia N85 was simple, which was I needed something new :D. I had before this LG VU and iPhone, ebayed LG VU, got some money from it, had Amazon gift cards and rebates going on this phone, which made it a steal for me to buy. And left with iPhone which is non 3G and where I live it has poor reception quality, I was left with no choice but to look out for a new phone.
The last Nokia phone that I owned was in 2004 which was Nokia 6230 based on Symbian S40 platform. It was a feature packed and it was very revolutionary of it's time, partly because it supported EDGE networks and I use to connect my PC with data cable and for just Rs 500 bucks pm, I had unlimited internet at Edge speed, this was a dream connection for any internet junky at that time.
Nokia N85 is the most underrated but most feature packed Symbian cell phone till date, It has OLED (Organic LED) display which displays colors so bright and crisp and at the same time as each pixel is illuminated by itself, it saves a lot of battery power too as opposed to back lit screens mostly seen today. It is a dual slider just like Nokia N95 but it is so slim and fits easily in the pocket.
Some of the features I liked most about Nokia N85 are-:
1) OLED Screen with 16 million colors [iPhone has 18 bit or 212k color screen].
2) 8 GB of Memory
3) 3G/3.5G capabilty and at the same time doesn't consume whole a lot of battery.
4) Email support, not only it support POP or Exchange but also IMAP which my school email supports, so with internet enabled I can check email wherever I am and also send them too.
5) Plethora of 3rd party apps. I installed 'Joiku Spot' premium app which makes it a WLAN hotspot just like router and one can make it secure too using WEP. So now I am able to connect my laptop to internet using my phone without paying ATT 60$ pm for tethering services. 'Fring' is also a cool app which lets me connected to different IMs such as GTalk, MSN, Yahoo, Skype and Social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Orkut etc.
6) Since it has inbuilt GPS chip, I installed Garmin XT mobile, I found it so useful, specially when you are in a new city and you want to go to some particular location; just enter the destination address and it's voice activated turn by turn software will help you reach there.
7) It has Skyfire browser which support Flash, which iPhone is missing and now I realize how important is flash, Hulu is flash based, CNN videos are flash based and most of the online movies are flash based and all can be easily be watched on Nokia.
8) From Music point of view, it's music capability similar to iPod but it has Internet radio, FM radio which are so much cool and along with it comes FM transmitter which means whatever you are hearing can easily be transmitted to your car's music system using FM frequency.
9) It's Calender and To-Do list is very nice and one can see on home screen, so no more missing of important deadlines.
10) It has search capability just like desktop environment of Mac or Windows. It can search whole cell phone or internet based upon search criterion.
11) It has auto rotating screen depending upon how you are holding your phone.
12) Ability to do multitasking, like music player is running while you are browsing internet or reading email.
13) One can use ATT internet to make VOIP calls such as on Google Talk or Skype and hence saving service minutes.
14) Last but not the least, it has 5 MP Carl Zeiss Optics camera which was my main motivation for buying this cell phone. I don't have to carry dedicated digi cam now. I can shoot pics or record videos and upload to sites such as flickr or picasa right away, which is very cool.
There are some Con's too about this phone-:
1) Back side is plastic so feels cheap.
2) The slider feels unbalanced sometimes.
3) It hangs when many applications are open simultaneously.
4) Should have had Qwerty keyboard.
It's been a month and I am very impressed with this phone, more than calling it has so many features not just one like touchscreen which keeps you occupied. The potential could only be realized if it is internet connected. After owning iPhone, LG VU and Blackberry 8800, I found this one is the best. If one is paying extra for internet with phone service, this phone uses internet potential of mobile device to it's peak.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, November 23, 2008
How to Connect your Xbox 360 to Xbox Live with a Laptop or PC
Lately, I became utmost desperate to go online on Xbox Live and play games over the internet with other people around the world, plus watching online movies in HD Quality on my LCD TV using the Netflix service which now comes as standard on Xbox NXE(Next Experience). The problem on Xbox 360 is that it doesn't have inbuilt wireless adapter like Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 which means one has to spend like $100 to buy the wireless adapter from Microsoft. Honestly, I never wanted to spend 100 bucks on an add on accesory and therefore was stucked at playing Single player games till now, it's been like 9 months on this mode.
Yesterday night at 3:30 AM, something got into my mind, I started thinking if my laptop has internet can't I connect it to my Xbox and make my Xbox internet enabled(Yeah you are right, I have got no Life).
This is what I did to connect to Xbox Live using my Laptop-:
1) Laptop running on Windows Vista Home Premium with Broadcom 802.11 G Wireless Adapter in it.
2) Got an Ethernet wire, with both end same just like we have ethernet wires in LAN.
3) Connected Ethernet Wire from one side to my Laptop and to other side to Xbox 360 Ethernet port.
4) Then went to Start>Settings>Network Connections.
5) Then in Network Connections. Choose Wireless Network, Right Click on it to go to it's Properties.
6) In Properties window, Click "Sharing Tab", Check "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection". Once you do it, it will ask you to select the network, choose "Local Area Network" since you connected your Xbox to your Laptop using Ethernet Port.
7) You are done, your Xbox 360 is now internet enabled and your are ready to dive into the Xbox Live world without spending 100 bucks on wireless adapter which has no other use than on Xbox.
I have tested this mechanism on Windows Vista laptop with G-Wireless adapter using Trendnet 802.11G 108Mbps Firewall router. I am not sure, will it be able to connect using Mac computer or what if your laptop has 802.11 n wireless card. But one thing is sure my 100 bucks got saved :-). Desperate times, desperate measures; mother of unholy inventions ;-).
Note: Try to reset the Wireless Properties to Non-Sharing if you gonna use Ethernet port(LAN) for internet at workplace or somewhere else, otherwise Ethernet port won't work and will be dependent on Wireless Network.
Yesterday night at 3:30 AM, something got into my mind, I started thinking if my laptop has internet can't I connect it to my Xbox and make my Xbox internet enabled(Yeah you are right, I have got no Life).
This is what I did to connect to Xbox Live using my Laptop-:
1) Laptop running on Windows Vista Home Premium with Broadcom 802.11 G Wireless Adapter in it.
2) Got an Ethernet wire, with both end same just like we have ethernet wires in LAN.
3) Connected Ethernet Wire from one side to my Laptop and to other side to Xbox 360 Ethernet port.
4) Then went to Start>Settings>Network Connections.
5) Then in Network Connections. Choose Wireless Network, Right Click on it to go to it's Properties.
6) In Properties window, Click "Sharing Tab", Check "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection". Once you do it, it will ask you to select the network, choose "Local Area Network" since you connected your Xbox to your Laptop using Ethernet Port.
7) You are done, your Xbox 360 is now internet enabled and your are ready to dive into the Xbox Live world without spending 100 bucks on wireless adapter which has no other use than on Xbox.
I have tested this mechanism on Windows Vista laptop with G-Wireless adapter using Trendnet 802.11G 108Mbps Firewall router. I am not sure, will it be able to connect using Mac computer or what if your laptop has 802.11 n wireless card. But one thing is sure my 100 bucks got saved :-). Desperate times, desperate measures; mother of unholy inventions ;-).
Note: Try to reset the Wireless Properties to Non-Sharing if you gonna use Ethernet port(LAN) for internet at workplace or somewhere else, otherwise Ethernet port won't work and will be dependent on Wireless Network.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
PC vs Console Gaming
I am a fanatic when it comes to video gaming, I am playing since I was just 5 years old thanks to my father's job which requires traveling and with it brings a lot of stuff he bought for me which were not available during late 80's and 90's in India. To name a few my first console Atari(1988) and Nintendo Entertainment System(1991).
Then, we got a computer and started playing games on it. The problem I always faced while playing on computer was that games which were good such as Need for Speed(NFS) or Unreal Tournament(UT) always had glitches reason being computer was not ready to handle requirement because of less RAM and weak Graphics card. I subsequently upgraded my computer's RAM from 32 MB to 64 MB, this is the story of year 1999 this upgrade set me back by Rs 4000(~$100). Then even after upgrade I was able to play NFS in low graphics mode and UT was still unplayable. Then again I spent like Rs 1000 to upgrade my 4MB SiS Video Card to 8MB Intel 740. It was good enough to play the two games but then UT needed more RAM, then again upgraded my system to 128 MB RAM, which again set me back by Rs 4000.
Then, after giving 12th class exams, bought Need for Speed-Porsche Unleashed(NFS-5). This game didn't run for whole six months simply because it needed latest Intel drivers which Intel released after six months of release of this game. In the mean time, I asked my dad to buy a solid top of the line Graphics Card. He did buy an Asus Geforce 2 GTS, which was pretty expensive at that time(~$299). I was happy for like 3-4 months before John Carmack unvieled Doom-3 along with Geforce 3 and he told that even Geforce 3 struggles to cope with the game's graphics. Even with Geforce 2 GPU I saw games were not as good as the card should produce then I realized with this GPU needs Pentium 4 CPU, Rambus Ram(1666Mhz), same 1666Mhz Front Bus to perform at it's peak. Then I finally gave up and thought of not investing money into this PC hardware thing. Though I admit I bought Geforce 4 for my new computer but till then I wasn't a PC gamer anymore.
Now, I play games on my consoles namely Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. I am very much satisfied with my purchase and console's performace. Since developers are making games knowing the hardware configurations/limitations and games have pretty awesome graphics wise and one don't see glitches while playing them since they are tightly coupled with the hardware and the best part of console gaming is hardware is not gonna get outdated in next six months and will be there for atleast next 5 years which means the money you invest in Console hardware is secure.
Plus, these days there is trend of releasing new games on consoles first and then on PC which means 6 months lagging period also some developers don't even release PC version since PC games they know are mostly pirated. One can attach console to any size LCD or Plasma screen and experience true HD(1080p).
To sum it up, I agree with newer hardware such as new CPU and GPU one will have an edge but this thing comes at a very steep price. If one uses right things such as right motherboard, latest GPU, 8-core CPU, high performace gaming RAM's, the cost easily can touch upto $3000 and the worst part is after 6 months the same system could be made/purchased for less than $1000. Plus, even with this superb hardware, one has to install buggy,crapy Windows Vista which has 1000's of it's own problems and crashes whenever it wants and thus ruining the overall experience of the new computer. Console such as Xbox Arcade edition just cost $199 and $249 for Wii are much more fun to play since I have always liked Controllers with rambling than Keyboard and a mice. Carpel tunnel not anymore :D.
Then, we got a computer and started playing games on it. The problem I always faced while playing on computer was that games which were good such as Need for Speed(NFS) or Unreal Tournament(UT) always had glitches reason being computer was not ready to handle requirement because of less RAM and weak Graphics card. I subsequently upgraded my computer's RAM from 32 MB to 64 MB, this is the story of year 1999 this upgrade set me back by Rs 4000(~$100). Then even after upgrade I was able to play NFS in low graphics mode and UT was still unplayable. Then again I spent like Rs 1000 to upgrade my 4MB SiS Video Card to 8MB Intel 740. It was good enough to play the two games but then UT needed more RAM, then again upgraded my system to 128 MB RAM, which again set me back by Rs 4000.
Then, after giving 12th class exams, bought Need for Speed-Porsche Unleashed(NFS-5). This game didn't run for whole six months simply because it needed latest Intel drivers which Intel released after six months of release of this game. In the mean time, I asked my dad to buy a solid top of the line Graphics Card. He did buy an Asus Geforce 2 GTS, which was pretty expensive at that time(~$299). I was happy for like 3-4 months before John Carmack unvieled Doom-3 along with Geforce 3 and he told that even Geforce 3 struggles to cope with the game's graphics. Even with Geforce 2 GPU I saw games were not as good as the card should produce then I realized with this GPU needs Pentium 4 CPU, Rambus Ram(1666Mhz), same 1666Mhz Front Bus to perform at it's peak. Then I finally gave up and thought of not investing money into this PC hardware thing. Though I admit I bought Geforce 4 for my new computer but till then I wasn't a PC gamer anymore.
Now, I play games on my consoles namely Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. I am very much satisfied with my purchase and console's performace. Since developers are making games knowing the hardware configurations/limitations and games have pretty awesome graphics wise and one don't see glitches while playing them since they are tightly coupled with the hardware and the best part of console gaming is hardware is not gonna get outdated in next six months and will be there for atleast next 5 years which means the money you invest in Console hardware is secure.
Plus, these days there is trend of releasing new games on consoles first and then on PC which means 6 months lagging period also some developers don't even release PC version since PC games they know are mostly pirated. One can attach console to any size LCD or Plasma screen and experience true HD(1080p).
To sum it up, I agree with newer hardware such as new CPU and GPU one will have an edge but this thing comes at a very steep price. If one uses right things such as right motherboard, latest GPU, 8-core CPU, high performace gaming RAM's, the cost easily can touch upto $3000 and the worst part is after 6 months the same system could be made/purchased for less than $1000. Plus, even with this superb hardware, one has to install buggy,crapy Windows Vista which has 1000's of it's own problems and crashes whenever it wants and thus ruining the overall experience of the new computer. Console such as Xbox Arcade edition just cost $199 and $249 for Wii are much more fun to play since I have always liked Controllers with rambling than Keyboard and a mice. Carpel tunnel not anymore :D.
Monday, November 3, 2008
When aspirations don't meet reality!
For last one year, I am applying and giving interviews at various companies mostly based in Northeast. I have probably given on-site interviews at the best technology companies such as NetApp, Mathworks, Microsoft(twice), MediaTek, Altair but result has been the same, which is reject from everywhere. In the past, whenever I made a mistake I very quickly rectified the problem since I knew where I was making mistake but when it comes to these interviews I am still not able to figure out exactly where the problem lies.
I have improved tremendously over an year, the problem I initially faced was that the programming knowledge that an undergrad should know very well was fractured, which means fundamentally unsound but don't judge me that I am totally zero since I cleared every screen interviews which companies generally test your fundamentals which in itself is intimidating and hardly 10% of people are able to clear it.
Some things that I see as problems apart from blaming myself are-:
1) Too broad job description, which means a company such as Intel or semi-conductor based needs a Software Engineer who is not only proficient in writing C++ code but also possesses knowledge of embedded systems, VLSI etc., now how can a Computer Science student who has not interned in Semi-conductor company can get fit into above job description. One on-site interview I gave at Altair, they wanted me to know Finite State Analysis(FSA) which is a mechnical thing, how can I know I have no idea?
2) Very limited open positions, most companies are trying to fill in some cases just one position in their department, and for that I thing they are interviewing 50 candidates, even if you are good but someone else who applied has relevant work experience will surely get the job.
3) Too much of a competition, these days market is bad, too many people applying for the same job, when in January I went for Microsoft on-site interviews, the HR told me they are interviewing 80+ candidates daily for last 6 weeks.
4) Local/ Small companies which are located in cities such as Chicago, NYC, Bay Area or NJ don't want to consider anyone else than local candiates to keep their expenses down and sacrificing on the quality of employee they need.
5) This thing pisses me off the most, only US citizens. Why on earth jobs only for US Citizens. Isn't that a kind of discrimination. People with US Citizenship not only get restricted jobs very easily but also when two candidates competing for same position with same credentials, US citizen guy will get the job since company won't have to pay for the H1B filling and all. Sometimes I wonder why Americans cry a lot about International people taking up their job since companies, US government are doing their best to give them the job, now they are so weak than what others can do.
6) This is the last thing, sometimes interviewers who are taking interviews over the phone have no idea about what kind of position they are interviewing for, they never interact with HR and start asking very complex things such as intricate questions on Stack unwinding, thread control-block issues.
7) Too long interview session like 9 interviews a day, the probability of one not knowing everything is quite high and if any one interviewer says no to hiring, the probability of you being hired reaches to zero.
Anyway, these things are part of life and keep on trying is the best thing than doing nothing or getting depressed. I am good enough that's why I am giving interviews even during worst great depression. At the same time, I should start looking for some maim or abcd so that I can become US Citizen asap ;), see I have already found a way to rectify a part of bigger problem while writing this blog :P. Also, if companies are so stringent about hiring, then one should be sincere towards his/her job but should never be loyal to the company and kick them on their back when a new opportunity strikes since you were hired because you were second best to none than why work for a company which is second best to the someone(new opportunity).
I have improved tremendously over an year, the problem I initially faced was that the programming knowledge that an undergrad should know very well was fractured, which means fundamentally unsound but don't judge me that I am totally zero since I cleared every screen interviews which companies generally test your fundamentals which in itself is intimidating and hardly 10% of people are able to clear it.
Some things that I see as problems apart from blaming myself are-:
1) Too broad job description, which means a company such as Intel or semi-conductor based needs a Software Engineer who is not only proficient in writing C++ code but also possesses knowledge of embedded systems, VLSI etc., now how can a Computer Science student who has not interned in Semi-conductor company can get fit into above job description. One on-site interview I gave at Altair, they wanted me to know Finite State Analysis(FSA) which is a mechnical thing, how can I know I have no idea?
2) Very limited open positions, most companies are trying to fill in some cases just one position in their department, and for that I thing they are interviewing 50 candidates, even if you are good but someone else who applied has relevant work experience will surely get the job.
3) Too much of a competition, these days market is bad, too many people applying for the same job, when in January I went for Microsoft on-site interviews, the HR told me they are interviewing 80+ candidates daily for last 6 weeks.
4) Local/ Small companies which are located in cities such as Chicago, NYC, Bay Area or NJ don't want to consider anyone else than local candiates to keep their expenses down and sacrificing on the quality of employee they need.
5) This thing pisses me off the most, only US citizens. Why on earth jobs only for US Citizens. Isn't that a kind of discrimination. People with US Citizenship not only get restricted jobs very easily but also when two candidates competing for same position with same credentials, US citizen guy will get the job since company won't have to pay for the H1B filling and all. Sometimes I wonder why Americans cry a lot about International people taking up their job since companies, US government are doing their best to give them the job, now they are so weak than what others can do.
6) This is the last thing, sometimes interviewers who are taking interviews over the phone have no idea about what kind of position they are interviewing for, they never interact with HR and start asking very complex things such as intricate questions on Stack unwinding, thread control-block issues.
7) Too long interview session like 9 interviews a day, the probability of one not knowing everything is quite high and if any one interviewer says no to hiring, the probability of you being hired reaches to zero.
Anyway, these things are part of life and keep on trying is the best thing than doing nothing or getting depressed. I am good enough that's why I am giving interviews even during worst great depression. At the same time, I should start looking for some maim or abcd so that I can become US Citizen asap ;), see I have already found a way to rectify a part of bigger problem while writing this blog :P. Also, if companies are so stringent about hiring, then one should be sincere towards his/her job but should never be loyal to the company and kick them on their back when a new opportunity strikes since you were hired because you were second best to none than why work for a company which is second best to the someone(new opportunity).
Friday, October 31, 2008
Microsoft SDE interview
Yesterday, I returned from Ithaca, NY(Cornell University). I went there to give Microsoft On-site interview for SDE(Software Design Engineer) position. This was by far the best interview process that I experienced.
Everything happened so fast just within 2 weeks, I cleared preliminary interview over phone which roughly went for 45 minutes.They asked some puzzles, one testing question and one algorithm related question and my projects and previous work experiences.
On Sunday, got an email from Microsoft people stating they have a slot opened on Thursday and I said yes since I don't want to wait a month or two to again visit Redmond headquarters. I was preparing for this interview for last 2 weeks after giving preliminary interview since I knew it went very well and I would be called for on-site interview.
Interview day went like a breeze, only three interviews which consist of one testing and two programming/ algorithm puzzles. In Testing interview, I struggled a lot since I could not assimilate points under sections and I was just giving answers in a very haphazard manner but they were quite right and pertinent to the problem given to me.
Then, 2nd and 3rd interviews were programming, to be specific algorithms related, I impressed interviewers a lot by not only giving more than one solution to the problem but also telling them the algorithm complexities of each one of them in terms of Big-Oh, they were pretty impressed with my conceptual knowledge, I was satisfied since I am convincing people who are Design Engineer Leads at Microsoft for past 12-20 years and graduates of Cornell University(Top 10 Computer Science University in United States). I little bit struggled in writing code, like simulating Hashtable in Java/C# in C++ by constructing a look-up array but somehow managed to make it. After giving these two programming interviews I realized I haven't done any testing on my code and then I realized that I am going to go home empty handed. Testing like empty string and empty array conditions and all.
I was very much satisfied with how my interviews went and was hoping positive outcome. As day passed morning turned to afternoon roughly at 1 PM, one of the managers came to me and he took me to the lobby and told me right now, they won't be selecting me and he was generous enough to give me the feedback, he told the conceptual knowledge of mine was pretty impressive but I suck at testing and in some part I struggled while writing code, they were so right and they are so great they assessed what was in my mind and told me.
Anyway, I am very happy since after this interview I feel so good since I prepared very hard, got many things/concepts cleared and did a lot of problem solving stuff, feels like brain has started working in a very right way :). This was the last time I appeared for Microsoft Interview as a Campus candidate but feeling very gratified with my own personal performance when compared to last on-site interview of Microsoft I gave at Redmond.
Everything happened so fast just within 2 weeks, I cleared preliminary interview over phone which roughly went for 45 minutes.They asked some puzzles, one testing question and one algorithm related question and my projects and previous work experiences.
On Sunday, got an email from Microsoft people stating they have a slot opened on Thursday and I said yes since I don't want to wait a month or two to again visit Redmond headquarters. I was preparing for this interview for last 2 weeks after giving preliminary interview since I knew it went very well and I would be called for on-site interview.
Interview day went like a breeze, only three interviews which consist of one testing and two programming/ algorithm puzzles. In Testing interview, I struggled a lot since I could not assimilate points under sections and I was just giving answers in a very haphazard manner but they were quite right and pertinent to the problem given to me.
Then, 2nd and 3rd interviews were programming, to be specific algorithms related, I impressed interviewers a lot by not only giving more than one solution to the problem but also telling them the algorithm complexities of each one of them in terms of Big-Oh, they were pretty impressed with my conceptual knowledge, I was satisfied since I am convincing people who are Design Engineer Leads at Microsoft for past 12-20 years and graduates of Cornell University(Top 10 Computer Science University in United States). I little bit struggled in writing code, like simulating Hashtable in Java/C# in C++ by constructing a look-up array but somehow managed to make it. After giving these two programming interviews I realized I haven't done any testing on my code and then I realized that I am going to go home empty handed. Testing like empty string and empty array conditions and all.
I was very much satisfied with how my interviews went and was hoping positive outcome. As day passed morning turned to afternoon roughly at 1 PM, one of the managers came to me and he took me to the lobby and told me right now, they won't be selecting me and he was generous enough to give me the feedback, he told the conceptual knowledge of mine was pretty impressive but I suck at testing and in some part I struggled while writing code, they were so right and they are so great they assessed what was in my mind and told me.
Anyway, I am very happy since after this interview I feel so good since I prepared very hard, got many things/concepts cleared and did a lot of problem solving stuff, feels like brain has started working in a very right way :). This was the last time I appeared for Microsoft Interview as a Campus candidate but feeling very gratified with my own personal performance when compared to last on-site interview of Microsoft I gave at Redmond.
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