Kumanan Murugesan's Web Log

Are Indian I.T Companies Chop Shops?

2010-08-13T16:18:00.006-04:00

There has been a lot of news about a comment made by a US Senator on Indian Software Companies. Related links about the comments are

Chop shop?

America's High-tech Sweatshops.

My Opinion about the articles and the comment is.

They are absolutely true. Being an Indian and having lived in the US for 10 years, I have seen and worked with lot of friends and co workers who were working for one of the so called top companies in India. The normal day start like this.

These guys come to work at the client side in the day as rest of us. But the day does not end for them when they reach home. Immediately after 9 p.m, they will be having an off shore call with their counter parts in India. The call will go on until 1 a.m. This poor guy would have only a few hours of sleep and then gets ready for work the next day and deal with the onsite Manager.

This is considered OK if this happens once a week. But this happens almost every day including the weekends. Just because these guys were a select few out of a 50 thousand employees and were sent to US for on-site opportunity, their Managers in India and On-site have all the rights to disturb them even in the middle of the night... Why? THEY ARE PAID IN DOLLARS. Don't assume that they are paid a hefty salary. Its not even the minimum salary. There have been multiple instances that Indian companies like Cognizant Technologies and Patni computers have been fined by the Labor department for not giving minimum wages. Are they practicing the American Labor Laws. Absolutely no.

If what I am saying is true, one may think, why nobody has complained to the Labor department, because they are all bonded in the name of Visa and a agreement signed by these guys before leaving India. They will threaten the employees with law suits even though it is not valid in many instances.

The typical employee working in these kind of companies work on an average 60-65 hours a week. Even with all these difficulties, these guys manage to save some money and send it back home.

There is nobody to fight for the Indian IT worker both here and in India. I am coining a new term for the Indian IT workers. They are the new Bluish-White Collar worker.
Why don't the media agencies interview me? I am not joking here. I can talk for hours about this.

What will happen to these workers 10 years from now?

India has a huge workforce which will work against these guys. These guys are not supermen. They are also ordinary human beings. These guys will be worn out by then like a sugar cane after the juice has been extracted. The recession has already taught a lesson to many of the Indian software engineers. Hiring and Firing happens in India too.

Value Investing: Following the foot steps of Warren Buffet

2009-10-02T18:32:00.015-04:00

Besides my academic qualification in Finance (M.B.A) in India, I used to read lot of magazines and financial news papers. I learnt this from my old friend Mustafa in chennai, India. At that time, he was considered as the master of financial information. You ask him anything, he will give you instant answer(of course the correct one). Since I came from an engineering background, getting a grasp of those concepts was quite a task for me. Slowly I started getting interest in finance.

Then my financial reading fell off the cliff as I had to learn software to get a job in software industry. After I came to US as a software engineer in 2000, I had both money and little bit financial knowledge. I started investing in finance at the peak of the market. NASDAQ reached its highest 5000 mark in April. Luckily I was reading this this book "
24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success" . It said

Do not have emotional attachment to any stock.
If the price of any stock goes down by 8% in your portfolio, simply sell it

I don't remember any of the other steps.I simply sold all the stocks that I had as all of them met those criteria. In the end I got a $700 loss. I only bought well known companies like oracle,cisco,coco cola,nokia,sun micro systems.

The mistake I made was

I did not really do any fundamental analysis. The companies are still great companies but are the price of the stock worth the value?

The price of the stock was so high when compared to the earnings. Since every company was having the same trend. I simply overlooked.

Now I just finished reading an excellent book "Getting started in Value Investing". That book deserves a 5 star rating.

I believe everybody should read that book if they want to invest in stocks.

You dont need to have a Phd in finance to invest in stock market.

I know many of my friends simply invest in stocks with no reasoning on why they are buying that particular stock.

After reading that book, I have disciplined myself in investing stocks. I am going to sincerely follow the investment principles of Mr Buffet.

Pay all your debt
You have to be patient
Invest the money that you don't need for the next five years
Do not put all eggs in one basket. Diversify Diversify Diversify
Invest in well known companies and huge companies(>10 billion)
Analyse their fundamentals( P/E, EPS, Operating margin, consistent dividends, rich in cash reserves and less debt, consistent increase in earnings, return on shareholder equity, ).

Compare this with the industry that they belong to and with their competitors.

If you ask me how you can know what all these ratios and how to intrepret them buy the book that I mentioned in this post.

Here is my portfolio and I am going to wait for 5 years. Lets see what happens.

Here are the other books in personal finance that I liked

Intelligent Investor
Mortgage rip-Offs and Money Savers
The Warren Buffet Way
Sensible Stock Investing
Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying your First Home.

Encrypting Connection Strings using RSA

2008-11-04T09:08:00.003-05:00

ASP.NET has built-in tool to encrypt sections of the config file. The tool that is used to encrypt sections of the web.config file is ASPNET_REGIIS.EXE . It can be found in
%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727

The following are some of the sections that can be encrypted.

<appSettings>. This section contains custom application settings.
<connectionStrings>. This section contains connection strings.
<identity>. This section can contain impersonation credentials.
<sessionState>. This section contains the connection string for the out-of-process session state provider.

The following are some of the sections that cannot be encrypted.

<processModel>
<runtime>
<mscorlib>
<startup>
<system.runtime.remoting>
<configProtectedData>
<satelliteassemblies>
<cryptographySettings>
<cryptoNameMapping>
<cryptoClasses>

There are two providers available in the .NET Framework to encrypt. They are

○ DataProtectionConfigurationProvider
○ RSAProtectedConfigurationProvider( The default provider )

There are two containers used to encrypt. They are

○ Machine level container
○ User level container

Machine level container will be available for all users and User level key containers will be available for that user only.

In this post, the objective is to encrypt the connectionStrings section of the web.config file.

There are two options to encrypt

○ Virtual Directory
○ File System

Assuming the virtual directory name is "MachineRSA" and it is located in C:\Projects\MachineRSA

The command to encrypt the virtual directory is

aspnet_regiis -pe "connectionStrings" -app "/MachineRSA"

Pasted from

The command to encrypt the file system is

aspnet_regiis.exe -pef "connectionStrings" C:\Projects\MachineRSA

Pasted from

The -pe switch specifies the configuration section to encrypt.

The -pef switch specifies the configuration section to encrypt and allows you to supply the physical directory path for your configuration file.

My Links at Del.Icio.US

2008-07-02T13:58:00.002-04:00

I-485 Checklist of Supporting Documents

2007-07-27T16:38:00.000-04:00

ALL CHECKS PAYABLE TO THE US DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

I-485 ($395) I-485 ($225 under 14)
G-325A G-325A G-325A (if 14 and older)
I-693 Immigration Medical I-693 Immigration Medical I-693 Immigration Medical
I-693 Supp – Immunization Chart I-693 Supp – Immunization Chart I-693 Supp – Immunization Chart
I-765 ($180) I-765 (optional) I-765 (optional)
I-131 ($170) I-131 (optional) I-131 (optional)
I-134 (if filing for dependents too)
**I-134 Affidavit of Support: Principal alien is required to complete, sign and have notarized a separate I-134 for each dependent.

Click the link below for USCIS Civil Surgeon Locator
Civil Surgeon locator

Principal Alien:

Photocopy of I-140 Approval Notice
Two Passport Size Photographs per application–Instruction sheet attached
Photocopy of I-94 Arrival Departure Record – front and back away from passport
Photocopy of all immigration status documents (I-20 / IAP-66 (DS2019) / EAD / I-797 Approval Notices)
Photocopy of all Passports used to enter the U.S. – all pages (color copies if possible)
Photocopy of Birth Document
Photocopy of Marriage Document
Photocopy of Divorce Documents – if Applicable
Last year of Tax documents – 1040 & W2 forms
Current proof of employment – employer letter and/or 3 most recent pay stubs

Spouse:

Two Passport size photographs per application
Photocopy of all passports used to enter the U.S. – all pages (color copies if possible)
Photocopy of current arrival/departure record (I-94) – separated form passport, front and back
Photocopy of all U.S. Status documents – Approval Notices, Receipt Notices, I-20, IAP66 (DS2019)
Photocopy of birth document
Photocopy of marriage document
Photocopy of termination of marriage documents – if applicable.

Child:

Two Passport size photographs per application
Photocopy of all passports used to enter the U.S. – all pages (color copies if possible)
Photocopy of current arrival/departure record (I-94) – separated form passport, front and back
Photocopy of all U.S. Status documents – Approval Notices, Receipt Notices, I-20, IAP66 (DS2019)
Photocopy of birth document

**Please forward a certified English translation for all documents not originally issued in English

*** Please put name and date of birth on back of all photos in pencil

Design Patterns Cheatsheet

2007-07-09T08:53:00.000-04:00

I recently joined one more user group in Boston and that is the "Boston .NET Architecture Study Group".

This group meets every third Wednesday of the month at the Microsoft's waltham office in Boston. After going to the .Net user group at the same place, I gained valuable knowledge and attended some weekend code camps too. I happened to meet a lot of technical gurus and book authors and of course the technical recruiters. I found this design patterns cheat sheet in the forum.

From Design Patterns in C#

Adapter - Provide the interface that a client expects, using the services of a class with a different interface.

Façade - Provide an interface that makes a subsystem easy to use.

Composite - Allow clients to treat individual objects and compositions of objects uniformly

Bridge - Decouple an abstraction (a class that relies on abstract operations) from the implementation of its abstract operations so that the abstraction and its implementation can vary independently.

Singleton - Ensure that a class has only one instance, and provide a global point of access to it.

Observer - Define a one-to-many dependency among objects so that when on object changes state, all of its dependents are notified and updated automatically.

Mediator - Define an object that encapsulates the way a set of object interact. This keeps the objects from referring to each other explicitly and lets you vary their interaction independently.

Proxy - Provide a placeholder for another object to control access to it.

Chain of Responsibility - Avoid coupling the sender of a request to its receiver by giving more than one object a chance to handle the request.

Flyweight - Use sharing to support large numbers of fine-grained objects efficiently.

Builder - Move the construction logic for an object outside the class to instantiate

Factory Method - Define the interface for creating an object while retaining control of which class to instantiate.

Abstract Factory - Provide for the creation of a family of related or dependent objects.

Prototype - Provide new objects by copying an example.

Memento - Provide for the storage and restoration of an object’s state.

Template Method - Implement and algorithm in a method, deferring the definition of some steps of the algorithm so that other classes can supply them.

State - Distribute stat-specific logic across classes that represents an object’s state.

Strategy - Encapsulate alternative strategies (or approaches) in separate classes that each implement a common operation.

I also became a member of the OpenGroup which is a open standards group for architecture and other technology related stuff. Visit their site if you want to know more about the TOGAF(The Open Architecture Group Architecture Framework. Did you learn something new today :) Have a good one.

Who is a Software Architect?

2007-06-15T13:54:00.000-04:00

Though I have been working the Software Industry for over 8 years, I am yet to become an architect. I have interacted with many architects in my previous assignments. Each one of them had different background,different academic qualifications but one thing was common. That was EXPERIENCE . I am sure many of you would wondering what it takes to be an Architect. These are following responsibilities of an Architect. This is not all inclusive.

Support business visioning and scoping activities
Translate between business and IT requirements
communicate with stakeholders both within business and IT
Weigh different interests
Determine solution alternatives
Create viable and feasible design
Choose solutions
Manage quality
Manage Complexity
Mitigate Risks
Communicate

I got these points from the Microsoft Architcture Journal. One more interesting website to note. It is the Skyscrapr. This is from Microsoft. Lots of articles are there. Have fun....

Krithick and Sandhana: Jan 2007

2007-03-20T11:20:00.000-04:00

Krithick is my Brother Ezhil's eldest son.

Sandhana's Latest Picture - Jan 2007

2007-03-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

Interesting Podcast about .NET architectures and ASP.NET from Polymorphic Podcast.

2007-03-19T22:06:00.000-04:00

I recently joined as a .NET consultant in Boston with mercer.com. My commute was around 40 miles one way which will take at least an hour to reach my work place. My new ipod somehow stopped working. So I bought a Nokia 5300 mobile which had 1GB of memory. I remember bookmarking a podcasting site for .NET(http://polymorphicpodcast.com ) at my social bookmarking site(http://del.icio.us/kumanan12). Just went to that site and downloaded a couple of podcasts to my nokia mobile phone.

In just two days time, I became very comfortable at some of the design patterns. Not just theory but how and where those patterns are applied and best situations to apply those patterns. I listened to one more podcast on user experience. It looks like you will really get something out of it.

The interviews are given by the experts in the .NET and business domain. So next time you do something different and somebody questions you, you could definitely say that Scott Guthrie advises to use typed datasets or something.

so check out this site for more podcasts on .NET technology .

http://polymorphicpodcast.com

Over working and under paid

2007-02-09T05:12:00.000-05:00

Having worked in the U.S for six years, I just returned to India to get my VISA stamped.Unfortunately I got my visa appointment only after six months. I took an independent work with a company in the US and hired a couple of programmers. Since I was working independently, I just followed the US work culture. Eight hour job and weekend off. The software development work is never ending. You have to keep on working. By pacing yourself for eight hours a day and having enough time to go to gym and spend time with your family, you can be very productive.

This happened for six months. The project was over. I got my visa stamped too. I couldn't got back to US immediately due to personal reasons. So I took up a job with Birlasoft Ltd as Project leader. It is a CMM level 5 company. I immediately felt the pressure. 75% of the company stay in the work place for more than 11 hours. People just stay late even if they dont have any work to do. If you come to work at 9 AM and leave by 6 PM, your manager may ask why are you leaving early??

People just stay for fear or impress their PM/PL. Managers usually come around 10.30 A.M and leave by 9 PM.

Overall the net effect is productivity is reduced a lot and nothing worked as per plan.

One more interesting thing to note is "One project manager's qualification is B.com (distance learning) .

How come a company can hire a candidate like this to manage a team of technical people. There was a lot of emotional talk going on in that team.

I made sure that none of my team members stay late unnecessarily. We as a team went out for trip to ooty and discussed a lot about each others problems.

I dont know whether this is the trend in Birlasoft only or everywhere. If this trend continues, employees will wear out very soon.

Hope you dont do the same thing in your office.

Work smart is the slogan for software developers

Books I read recently

2005-10-31T12:04:00.000-05:00

There is so much going on in the open source world. lots of tools/technologies have sprung up in the past few years. If someone wants to get it into java platform, there are a host of technologies that one have to learn. some of the hot technologies are struts, JSF, spring. Apart from these, one have to learn to develop applications in commercial/open source Application Servers. BEA's Weblogic, IBM's Websphere, JBOSS are some of the popular application Servers.

I read a couple of books recently. They were interesting and easy to understand. Yes. Its the Head First Series. I bought 3 books from the series.

Head First Java
Head First Servlets and JSP.
Head First EJB.

Even though I am fundamentally very good in the java language, the Head First Java book was very good. I really like the authors approach to teaching. I would suggest to read these books

This really helped me. I go to Barnes and Nobles to check whether the books are worth buying. Why dont you try !!!

Have fun Reading !!!

My Daughter Sandhana

2005-10-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

My baby girl Sandhana was born on Aug 23, 2005 in Charleston, South Carolina. Sandhana means "Fragrance of sandal wood.. She is now 2 months old. She is keeping us very busy. This is the most recent picture of Sandhana. It was taken on the day she first started wearing her traditional Indian jewels :-)

My wife savitha while pregnant

2005-07-30T22:42:00.000-04:00

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Picture taken in Charleston Battery on July 4, 2005

My Basket ball days

2005-04-19T16:29:00.000-04:00

I started playing basket ball when I was in 4th grade. Basket ball was everything to me until I realised that sports in India will not take you to a high level either monetarily or socially. But I had a lot of fun in those days that I will never regret in my life about not having a very good childhood. Being a sportsman gives a lot of skills to be successful in life. You will become competitive, learn to accept failure, prepare to become strong, become famous in school/college and the list will go on .........

In my small town chengalpattu, near Chennai,India , most of the people either played basket ball or knew basket ball. Cas there were only few games played at the local school( st. Josephs)

I learnt very quickly and started playing with bigger boys who were 3 years older than me. I got selected for the state team in Under 13 age group when I was sixth grade. I felt like I got selected to play for the Olympics. I still remember my first vist outside the state. We went to Jamshedpur, Bihar. When I went to the National Championship, all the guys were BIG and I was so little. I was'nt even scared at all.
The first lesson I learned in sports is "Never fear" . I 'll consider my opponent as nothing, even he is a very good and strong player. Otherwise you will not get confidence. I did'nt get a chance to play in the court because I was not experienced and very tiny. Overall I liked the tour.
When I came back from that tour, All I saw was success for years. I got lots of friends from all over the state. I became famous in school. i still remember my tamil teacher telling about me to the sixth grade students that I bring lots of Trophies to school and make the school proud.
Overall I represented my state Tamilnadu for 14 times and represnted my University 3 times.That was great achivement to me. All went well until I joined college. I got selected for B.E in the famous Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India through sports quota. The college was very good except it did'nt have a good basket ball team. I thought I could go n play with my friends in other colleges and improve my game. But that did'nt happen. But I still played well in the tournaments. My performance slowly started to decline. I did'nt realise. When I came into the final year, I realised that I have to get a job thru sports. So I met a very famous coach Mr.Kamalagar Rao to get training from him. I would say that the training he gave me in 4 months was the best in my life.He was a very good mentor too. He gave lots and lots of live examples. Then with a very good training I graduated from CIT and started looking for a job in govt. The scenario was'nt that good. In 1995 I went to my first job selection in chennai for a central govt job.
With all my skills and training, I played a terrible game and it looked like I was a very amateur player there. I slipped on the ground so mant times. Overall I gave a lousy performance. That was the single major blow in my whole life. I felt so bad and decided immediately to quit basket ball. But my dad gave me very good advice and moral support. He helped me to go the next job selection. There I performed very well and went up to the final round and got rejected.

Then I decided to quit basket ball and started thinking about my next move with my friends in pondicherry, India.

I would never forget the following people in my basket ball life
1. Benjamin ( without him, I would'nt have achieved anything in life)
2. Raja annan, Chengalpattu, India
3. Valluvan, My school physical Director
4. Kamalakar Rao

I cannot write all my friends name here. Its a very big list.

My favourite basket ball player in India is Tony leslie. He is from chengalpattu, too.