Rescued Cat Became Part of Our Family

It was almost 8 pm when I went back home after work. I could hear a kitten 'meowing' at the back of my house. I ignored it for a while thinking that its mother will rescue the kitten. But the noise never stopped. The weather was not that good. It was almost raining. Thinking that something bad will happen to the kitten, I started to find where the noise is coming from. I noticed, it was coming from the drain. It was dark, and I could not see clearly inside the drain.I tried to take the kitten out but it almost bit my hand. It was also moving along the drain.

I left it until the next morning, when it was brighter and I could see the kitten clearly. Luckily, the kitten was still alive. I took it out, gave it a bath. Dried the kitten with a hair dryer. It was crying a lot. I gave it some milk, but it refused to drink. I had no choice but to feed it with a spoon. I gave it a cosy and warm place to rest. It still cried a lot.

I guessed it was my neighbor's kitten. I left the kitten in my neighbors house compound, thinking that its mother will find for it. I could still hear the kitten making noise after almost a day. Then I checked with my neighbor, and they said it is not their kitten.

I took it back again. I have no idea, how old is the kitten. I was not sure, whether it could eat by its own or only knows how to drink breast milk. Every time, I carried the kitten or pampered it, it will search for milk on me. It still refused to drink milk on its own from a bowl. I fed it with a spoon again.

The second day, my son suggested to me to try to feed some fish. I fried some fish, mixed it with some rice and left it in a bowl. To my surprise, the kitten started to eat. I and my children were so happy to see it eat. It slowly got stronger day by day. It started to walk and run and play. It likes to climb everywhere from the sofa to the windows. It likes to bite our hands and legs and anything moving. Our whole family, got fond of the kitten and we named it "Sophie"

Sophie The Kitten

Mistakes An Experienced Programmer Makes

Computer programming is a very challenging profession that not many enjoy doing them. But there are handful of us whom are passionate about it. The ever changing technologies makes this profession dynamic and interesting.

I have been a systems analyst, designer and  programmer for 20 years and still am in love with it. I work and program because I love to learn. When the program runs and the output shows correctly, the satisfaction is so overwhelming. I have worked on many systems ranging from retail, manufacturing and lately Internet Of Things. One of the important factor that decides on the success of the system, is the user acceptance.

After being in this industry for so long, I have build the knowledge on making the correct decisions to make feasible systems. When I work on analyzing systems and working with other programmers, I do notice some common mistakes and decision causing a system to go down the drain. Sometimes, some systems are build with high vision and when it is not accepted by the users well, all the investments are wasted.

These are some of the criteria:
a) The System Architect are blue collar professionals, and sometimes are too ego to go down to the real user to understand their requirement and their problems.
b) Sometimes, the decisions are made by management without involvement from the users that uses the systems.
c) The system are too complicated for normal users to use.
d) Less interaction between the developers and the users during development that all the designs and improvements are not discussed during development.
e) For general systems, proper market research are not conducted.

Programmer's have to understand that we are only programmers, the users are the specialist on the business. We have to listen and capture their requirement properly. We have to discuss any suggestion with the users, if we feel some of the process can be improved.

Involvement from the users will give them some ownership of the system during development, and it will ease the acceptance of the systems and process change.

Programmers have to understand that the normal users will require simplicity. No matter how sophisticated the system is, the system's interaction with the user have to be simple. User friendly and easy to use systems will be accepted better.

Sometimes we might face with users on various levels, and we have to look into different windows to accommodate their requirements.

If we have all this in mind when we build our systems, our system will be more feasible.

Teaching My Son How to Blog

Today my son is learning to create his first blog.

His name is Umesh Prasad and he is 11 years old.

He is an intelligent kid but wearing glasses since young age. Worried to get him exposed to computer too long. Glad he got this exposure.

I am a systems developer. I have developed a lot of systems but never took blogging seriously. This is the first time I am blogging as well. Surprised to learn that it is so simple.

I am writing this blog adhoc. Interesting to share my thoughts to everyone around the world.