Srikanth Technologies

Looking back at 2014

Well, another year is gone and it is time for me to recollect and share my moments of this year with my readers.

Facebook Page for Srikanth Technologies

The first target of Srikanth Technologies page on Facebook is to reach 1000 likes. It was accomplished in this year. We have just a little more than 1000 likes for this page.

This page is used to inform students about batch schedule in the form of events. I am also using boosting facility for events on Facebook to reach out more. I don't know how effective that has been but I want to let as many students as possible to know about commencement of batches.

I request students to stay connected to Srikanth Technologies by liking this page at https://www.facebook.com/srikanthtechnologies. This page also reflects my Twitter posts.

Pongal at Nellore

Pongal is a big break for me as I give a week of holidays to students.

This time we made a last minute plan to go to my friend's house at Nellore by Car. We left for Nellore from Vizag at 6:00 am on 12th Jan and reached Nellore by 5:00 PM. It was a smooth ride.

On 14th Morning we all got ready for Bhogi Fire, followed by Volleyball and Cricket. Enjoyed Volleyball a lot. It has been a long time since I played Volleyball. Cricket was to follow it and it has always been fun to play with kids no matter which game we play. Make no mistake, we play hard. Sometimes things get heated up and voice rises. But all is forgotten after the game is over.

Playing dumb-charades, watching movies and flying kites were other major activties.

Flying kites had been very competitive as we got involved in cutting others kites and of course losing a few of ours as well. The whole unit (a couple of families) was on the terrace to enjoy flying and cutting kites.

We didn't have enough of flying kites there so we continued that at Vizag on my terrace. But this time we were the only ones to fly kites and no threat to our kites.

For me a flying kite is a great site. I always enjoy that. But cutting kites of others is real joy but when our kite is cut by others that is real pain. It is all part of the game.

Flying kite in Nellore

Flying kite in Vizag

Exclusive Batch For Ethiopians

I had opportunity to take up an exclusive batch for Ethiopians who are doing course at Andhra University. The course consisted of Oracle, Java SE and Java EE.

I found them to be very enthusiastic and possessing good programming skills. Though at times it is difficult to understand their accent, it is quite manageable as I spent enough time with them.

Here is a photo taken at the end of the course.

Me with my students from Ethiopia

Ethiopian Students

VSP Corporate Training (Feb & March)

In this year I took up two topics Android and HTML5 + jQuery. This year's Android was second training program on Android as we had one last year.

HTML5 and jQuery are always a treat to teach. Especially jQuery really lives up to the tag line - write less, do more. Some jQuery based plugins like JTable and HighChart can make a very complex job easy. I guess they are the highlights of the course.

I also talked about how MVVM (MVW) frameworks work by using Knockout.

It has been another wonderful experience for me.

Me with trainees of Android in VSP

Singapore, Malyasia and Thailand (April)

In April we had been to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We flew to Chennai and then from there went to Singapore via Malaysia.

It was first flight for Pranav and Praneeth. They were excited and axious about their first flight. But in less than 10 days we travelled by 7 flights.

We reached Chennai at 5:00 pm and had to wait till 11:00 pm to enter into International Airport.

The transaction from Domestic Airport to International Airport is quite painful as we had to wait for hours outside the Airport because of large time gap between domestic and international flights on both onward and return journey.

We visited Singapore first then Malaysia and finally Pattaya and Bangkok in Thailand.

We found Singapore extremely neat and well-designed. Though we didn't spend much time there as we stayed only for 2 days in Singapore, we could go to my friend's house and spend good amount of time with my friend, who took us to some places that were not covered in our itinerary.

The best part of Malaysia has been Genting Highlands and Cruise in Star Libra at Penang. Cruise is the best experience of all. It was a great joy to see a huge ship moving on water almost noiseless. Activities and food were just superb. Genting highlands, which is famous for Casino, has the world's biggest hotel called First World Hotel. It has 6118 rooms and we had the privilege to stay there. At Genting Hightlands, we had great time with 4D movie, rides and dashing cars.

Pattaya is where we became a little adventurous with Parasailing (Sailing on the sea with Parachute) and under water walking (go under sea and walk there with oxygen mask, of course).

Water at Pattaya beach is pretty clear and impressive. Though for people from Vizag beach is not new, the water in Pattaya beach is quite clean.

We didn't find anything in Bangkok very impressive. May be good for buying some electronic goods (original and duplicates).

At Merlion, Singapore

At Garden by the bay, Singapore

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Enjoying rides in Genting Highlands, Malaysia

My family during sunset in SuperStar Libra

My family and in-laws in SuperStar Libra

During wee hours on SuperStar Libra

At Safari World, Bangkok

Revised C Book (May)

Last printing of my C book was in 2001. This year I modified my C book and reprinted it. It is available for sale at my institute.

For more information on this book, visit http://www.srikanthtechnologies.com/books/cbook.aspx

Online Course - JavaScript (July)

I had a webcast in the last year on HTML5 for a few hours. This year I offered a complete course on JavaScript online. I used Adobe Connect software to take up classes. Found that software easy to use and adequate to my needs. Enjoyed those sessions at morning 7-8 AM. Internet bandwidth is still a concern to schedule more online courses. Hoping to offer more courses this year.

Honda Brio (14-August)

We have decided to buy Honda Brio. Actually, it was Padmaja's choice. Both car and color were selected by Padmaja. After all it is her car so it must be according to her liking. I always prefer white and all my cars had and have been white.

We drove home cute Brio on 14th Aug. It is a treat to drive Brio. I generally use my Honda City, but never miss opportunity to drive Brio.

It bears the same numbers as Honda City - 1133.

At Honda Showroom (Sundaram Honda)

At cellar with Brio

Java8 New Course Material (September)

Java8 was released in the month of March,2014. The most important additions are Lambda expressions and Streams. I revised my Java SE course material to include features of Java8. Dropped some outdated topics like Applets and included new ones like Lambda expressions, new date api and Streams. Exam is removed from course material and made available in website along with answers for exercises.

Hud Hud Cyclone (October)

On October 11th I cancelled evening classes considering wind and rain prevailing on that evening. But it was not that devastating. Me, Padmaja and kids went to movie on 11th night and on return felt the cyclone was not as severe as written and predicted.

On 12th morning I planned to go to Institute at 8:00 am. As I woke up at around 7:00 am I could sense the severity and difference in wind. Slowly wind gained speed and started blowing everything by 10:00 am.

Never before in my life I experienced such a strong wind. Trees all around the house were falling. It was a few hours of frightening wind and rain. It just devastated Vizag. It was heart breaking to see the kind of damage it has done by 12:00pm and then it gave a small interval and resumed its fury.

It took almost 10 days for all operations to resume. We lost 7 days of classes. No power at either office or home for a few days. I could use free time to read books (hard copies) during day time. There was no better way to spend time. Fortunately Vizag as a whole bounced back quickly. Normalcy restored quicker than expected. Thanks to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who oversaw restoration work for days.

What no one can restore is the belief that vizagites have that cyclone cannot effect them. Now we fear every cyclone. We wish there would never be another Hud Hud kind of cyclone in our lives. No great human loss took place this time but we can't afford to have the kind of infrastructural damage cyclone did.

Hud hud devastation from balcony of my house

No Train

Surprisingly I missed train journey this year. For long distances, I travelled by flights and short distances I travelled by Car. So I missed trains this year.

I always enjoy train journey more than any other mode of journey. There is a huge joy in watching people pass by, sunrise, sunset and green fields from a moving train.

Other Important Developments

The following are other important events of this year in my life.

Seminar at Vignan College

Enjoying rain in Aruku

Books Read

The following are the non-technical books that I have read in this year. I set myself a target of 15 books in this year. I just crossed that figure. Though it is tempting to raise bar to 20 for year 2015, I still keep it at 15 as I have to read a lot of technical material and books. All in all, I am very happy about 19 books read in this year. Being a cricketer, I enjoyed reading Sachin's Biography more than the rest among the books in this year. Of course Long walk to freedom of Nelson Mandela makes one stop and think how valuable freedom is. I read more fiction (some interesting and some uninteresting) in this year than I ever read before.