Catch (IntellectualException ie)

Out of IBM

2011-12-11T22:08:00.001+05:30

12 yrs, 6 months and 2 days later I move out of IBM. Gr8 place to be in but then India is different, in both kind of work and management style. My aspirations were different from the companies strategy and therefore decided to part ways.

Will miss the culture n ppl with whom I had got used to working with at the big blue.

Last few months were hard. The client needed dumb (one who does not speak) kind of ppl, rather than a partner n it was getting tough to act that way. Their unrealistic demands n expectation showed their complete lack of either knowledge or common sense. Their visions were myopic n leadership absent. Whistle blowers or giver of bad news were quickly sidelined. A culture of croonies is prevalent who all bow to the autocrat.

Why should a fish climb a tree?

2011-12-07T09:21:00.001+05:30

Just read this interesting article: Personal Blog - Posted by Namratha Jaisimha

Why Should a Fish Climb a Tree? “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will go its whole life believing it is stupid.” This is so true. Over the years I have received feedback from my managers, parents and mentors. Some of the feedback has been very useful and some has been totally useless. One of the most important roles of a manager is to give the right feedback at the right time. I have seen managers giving feedback only when they are forced due to company policy, say at the annual review. I like to get feedback from a person who is observing me on a daily basis and giving me pointers. Pointing out how to make things better with the right examples and right time would make feedback very useful. I have had my “A-ha” moments with feedback given this way. The feedback has to be meaningful to the employee. The idea of giving feedback is to help your employees improve themselves. Calling names such as “Bully”, “Stupid” does not give any insight to the employee unless good examples are given. Even worse is when the feedback is contradictory. As an employee getting such feedback, you are left wondering what your manager meant. A common mistake that I have seen managers make (I am also guilty of this and I see parents making it also) is to try to make their employee someone they are not – making them fit to a preset mold. This brings me to the starting point of this blog –why do we make the fish climb a tree? Why do we try to turn the fish into a monkey? Even if it tried its whole life, it would not excel. Instead, if we believed that each of our employees is a genius and brings a special value to the team and then make full use of their talents, the team will benefit. I learnt this the hard way when my son was 4 years old. Wanting to make him a math genius, I signed him up for Kumon classes which emphasizes learning math through repetitive activities. I learnt that it is impossible to make my son do repetitive jobs. He is good at math but he cannot learn it the Kumon way. Each person has an inherent personality and talent. I have had to be very creative in recognizing and bringing out his talents. One piece of feedback I have recently received is that my English is bad. At 40+ years of age, it is going to be very difficult to fix this. I agree that my English isn’t the best, but the bigger question is - is it good enough? I seem to be able to connect to hundreds of people with the language I have. One of the best speakers I know mixes languages almost every other sentence but boy, is she a good speaker!! She kept the 400 people crowd engrossed in her speech. One of the authors I like is Chetan Bhagat. He has very vibrant characters in his stories – he mentions that his language is not technically the best and would never win a Bookers award but his books sell. As a manager, as a parent you need to get the best out of people. Focus on enhancing people’s positive points. Reiterating what they are incapable of doing is not going to achieve results. If you notice that the feedback to your employee is the same year after year, probably the feedback is not being meaningful to the employee. Make a fish flip and do a somersault in the water but don’t make it a clumsy tree climber. Don’t make the fish think it is stupid because it is a clumsy tree climber. Make it believe it is a great swimmer and can do even better.

Android sdk n me

2011-11-26T20:49:00.001+05:30

Hv been off the sdk for so long. Need to get back.... not sure when. Baby is 4 months now. Maybe after 2 more months :(

My Android App List

2011-07-21T15:46:00.003+05:30

I have given some links. Please search market.android.com and find the application using the keyword. Loginto Google with the same account as used on phone and you can install directly

* My phone is rooted so I can run all these apps. Many need root (*). If you don't know what rooted mean skip the entries with * in them !

PIM:

Business Calendar (Better than stock and has a nice widget)
CalWidget (With stock calendar. Good widget)
SMSBackup (Backups all SMS to google with a tag)

Launchers:

LauncherPro (Too heavy now but had paid :( !)
Zeam (Really small and works)

Though using the stock launcher now !

Social:

Tweetdeck
Tweetdark (Black themed version of Tweetdeck)
G+ (As tweetdeck still does not support this)
If I had space would have used (FB/Twitter/Foursquare)
Blogger (Haven't yet posting anything using it due to bad keyboard)

News:

NewsRob with Google Reader Account
Greader
Google Reader

Media:

QuickPic (as the pics come fast though for picasa I have to use the Gallery)
Color Flashlight (Love the cop light and siren) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.socialnmobile.flashlight
QQPlayer (Supports a lot of formats)

Books:

FBReader (support all non DRM books). Lot of free ebooks are there to read
Google Books (only works in US)

System Utils:

*App2Sd https://market.android.com/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.app2sd
*SetCPU (If you are on xda-dev then you can get it free ;) )
*Quick Reboot
*Chainfire3D https://market.android.com/details?id=eu.chainfire.cf3d&feature=order_history
AndExplorer (Used by the TypeFresh font changer. I use Ubuntu font now) https://market.android.com/details?id=lysesoft.andexplorer&feature=order_history
SpareParts for faster animation and other settings
Battery Indicator (As the stock android I have does not show % properly !)
*Battery Calibration (Charge to full and click this. Will reset the battery. Then proper reading are shown for battery)
*AdFree (No ads please)

VOIP:

Google Voice (Got the account somehow and now use it for SMS to US)
Skype (Works well though really resource hungry)
Viber (Works pretty well though resource hungry)
Linphone Video (Works really well with by Spokn account)

My Own:

FalakCallerID (Shows a popup with the location and operator in India Only.)

Tomcat 7 APR

2011-07-14T10:21:00.003+05:30

Tomcat 7 with APR

After a long time (must be 5 years or so) decided to play with Tomcat 7. Have a RHEL6 and so wanted the APR too. Just had to do some more things to get it up and working. Good I have the gcc/make etc already configured on my Linux (for VMware and NVidia native driver).

First downloaded Tomcat 7
Then followed the steps to set JAVA_HOME and JRE_HOME
Startup.sh and it worked. Stopped it
Extract the native from bin gz file.
Tried compiling, didn't work. Said APR not there
Checked a blog, found the APR source, built that one and installed it using 'sudo'
Built tomcat native with the APR above, it worked. Installed it too using 'sudo'
Start Tomcat and it did not pick up the APR
Ah...had forgot to update the LD_LIBRARY_PATH. So updated it and viola it works.
5 years and still I can do it (well just followed instructions)

Next steps: Need to setup as a daemon.

Here the log where it loaded the things.

1 Jul 12, 2011 8:25:40 PM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init

2 INFO: Loaded APR based Apache Tomcat Native library 1.1.20.

And the admin web page

"ajp-apr-8009"

Max threads: 200 Current thread count: 0 Current thread busy: 0 Keeped alive sockets count: 0
Max processing time: 0 ms Processing time: 0.0 s Request count: 0 Error count: 0 Bytes received: 0.00 MB Bytes sent: 0.00 MB

Stage	Time	B Sent	B Recv	Client	VHost	Request

P: Parse and prepare request S: Service F: Finishing R: Ready K: Keepalive

"http-apr-8080"

Max threads: 200 Current thread count: 5 Current thread busy: 3 Keeped alive sockets count: 0
Max processing time: 1769 ms Processing time: 1.967 s Request count: 2 Error count: 1 Bytes received: 0.00 MB Bytes sent: 0.01 MB

Stage	Time	B Sent	B Recv	Client	VHost	Request
P	?	?	?	?	?	?
S	28 ms	0 KB	0 KB	127.0.0.1	localhost	GET /manager/status HTTP/1.1
P	?	?	?	?	?	?

P: Parse and prepare request S: Service F: Finishing R: Ready K: Keepalive

Live Writer using Unity

2011-06-30T11:13:00.001+05:30

Loved live writer so much that had to use VMware unity and XP to use it again. Still have the old machines VM and it works cool.

Virtualization has saved the day again.

Moved to RHEL6 to use the 4G RAM on my T61P

What is innovation?

2011-03-03T15:32:00.000+05:30

What is innovation?

HP Veer Hands-On

2011-02-11T07:55:00.001+05:30

HP Veer Hands-On

This is really small and looks good. The specs are also interesting.

Still we are trying to solve social problems with technical solutions

2010-11-09T15:25:00.001+05:30

As an engineer I always thought we can implemented this technology here and there and get this done. There were lot of technical solutions available, why can’t we just use it and solve issues ?

Well that’s how an engineer thinks. He thinks life is about problems and solutions. If engineers could solve all problems (and if at all, all were really problems it could be solved) then we wont need any other professions right ?

But then some are basic needs not issues and not problems. Say for example energy. This is a nice article I read. http://www.pluggd.in/power-theft-smart-grid-solution-hameshaon-297/

Just implement this and power theft will stop. Well we also though by moving to private sector we can solve power theft but did we ? The problem is social and not technical.

Yes, we can use IT here to do analytics and predict the amount of power needed and thus router the right amount of power to the right region via intelligent and smart grids.

But can we automatically detect theft and stop it. The answer is no. When the employee from power companies go to check, the hooks are removed (someone tips off the thieves and that someone is an insider) and the hooks come back once the check is complete. If you detect a theft using some form of technical means what can you do

Check the place ? Hooks are gone
Cut power ? You are penalizing the legal customers too

In developed countries when someone complains (has the guts to complain firstly) he/she knows that action will be taken. Here firstly he/she wont have guts to complain (most power thieves are anti social elements or protected people*. Also whoever can put hooks can easily pull a connection out too). Even if they complain, all the power supply will do is come and remove the connection. To do that they would need police escorts else they might be killed.

India also provides free power (or for $1/month) to poor people and free to farmers so that their kids can read and water pumps can run. These people think its their right and thus waste power. Where a rich, bill paying person makes sure he/she efficiently uses power, the free boarders use it indiscriminately. In Gujarat just for analytical purposes when government wanted to install meters in farmer’s homes they had to involve the local police else employees where beaten up. Now the question is how many of these meters will be allowed to operate correctly.

The problem is enforcement and law and order related. Whether its India’s traffic discipline, energy theft or governance, its all how much rule of law stands and how much they are enforced. An do this, first society has to change and obey the law of land.

My struggle with Corby pro

2010-08-11T20:21:00.001+05:30

OK supposedly (acc to Samsung), this is a pro phone or a professional phone i.e.

In all the pain I have gone through it is not. I dropped my E71 and so it became unreliable to use (signal issues, battery not charging et al).

So I though why not touch screen phone. This one said, syncs easy, SNS is there etc etc so I get it. If I never did the following, this phone is good. If I did do this its useless. These were easily done by Nokia E71

Sync my

Google and Notes calendar as one
Notes Address book with photos which show up as caller ID

Connect to my laptop using cable or Bluetooth. Somehow Corby supports only cable, no BT. E71 was clever. Come near and it synched auto
E71 had smart-connect S/W, so if it found a wifi, it hoped on to it and synched my emails/SNS etc. No data charges. Here i have to manually configure the settings. If wifi is there and accessible still it will use by data plan
No call management s/w here like in E71
Themes, no fonts, no shortcuts of your own applications. Basically no ways you can customize the pho
GPS is way off by a good 2 KM.
Multitasking is there but most of the time it will run out of memory and then will auto close some apps as it wishes !
Emails are same though I would love to see the status even when its locked. I now only see SMSes
No status of upcoming appointments (A mandatory pro feature)
Sync with outlook but there are a lot of fields which it says are “not supported” including title. And in my case it reversed first and last names on all my contacts for some strange reason. Also have to sync manually. It doesn't sync auto.

Is it worth the 60% retail of E71. Yes it is , provided the ‘Pro’ is removed. It is never meant to be a professional phone and never can be. Nokia S60 5th edition are always better.

Not happy, suggest avoid the Corby family unless buying for someone who does not bother about the above 10 things. Also don’t buy it for SNS, they are crap. I use Snaptu for Twitter and Facebook anyway.

Hoping Samsung dumps their own OS here and releases a Corby with Android, then it will be appealing. Else its a piece of *** (IMHO).

Have to use it though till my e71 reaches a useable state after repairs. Hopefully the local geeks can do some magic there as Nokia Service center does do cosmetic surgery on phone and the screen/lcd/keypad are cosmetic parts and not covered by warranty !

Good Consultant Vs Best Consultant

2010-05-15T06:57:00.001+05:30

All through my career of 10+ years have worked with developers, testers and managers. Then during the days when I become the architect, I have had the opportunities to work with the big shots of any company. They are called as product and industry consultants. They work with the sales people in working with the customer before a deal has been signed. They make sure that we sell the maximum amount of our products and services and we ‘fit’ the sale with customer requirement, thus getting high customer satisfaction later on. I asked what differentiate them from me. Is it just a piece of paper called as MBA degree ? or is it also something else.

As an architect I am trained to think. Well that is why we go through something called as ‘Introduction to Architectural Thinking” as the first course. So I thought and came with this basic differentiators

A consultant understand the peculiarities of that business model or that Line of Business, say for example retail or finance or banking …
A consultant is supposed to keep himself/herself aware of any new business processes, models that have come into their domain/space. They should anyway be aware of standard processes
He or She should at first listen to the customer to understand the pain the customer wants us to remove. Customer never ever gives requirements, they tell their pains. The difficulty they are having to do their business in the same way they are doing it. It might be a

Business process problem
Model problem
Implementation problem. This can be IT or non IT
Anything I cannot think of now

A consultant should understand the domain, scope and type of the problem before he can advise on the situation. The advise may not lead to a IT solution being sold at all.
A consultant should also gauge the problems he foresees after analyzing the business model or environment, and inform the customer of remedial steps.
Bottom line is that the consultant should never be the sales person who has gone there to sell whatever possible. A customer who is made to buy stuff he does not need and so will never use is a really pissed off customer !

Based on the above I once looked at a extract of data from a customer and had a talk with the consultant. This doesn’t look right. Even though the system will work with this data but the model of the data is not complete. There are some entries missing. These entries are used for product management and will really help in supply chain analysis, merchandising and business intelligence later on if they would have been present. I do recommend we tell it to the customer.

He said, huh, they will never change their model, they have been using for the last 20 years ! There is no point.

Two Things came to my mind. First is this consultant is pessimistic, bad bad bad.Second, he assumes that if someone used it long then its right. This is first thing a consultant is supposed to not believe in.

I checked some more. I did my job by telling them that but why they were not doing theirs. Arrrggh !

A consultant is not sales person. Here the consultant is acting as one and thinks he might loose business if he says anything. He is not confident of the reason because of which the client has chosen our company. He has no clue about this
He just did his MBA and become a consultant. Was a programmer or some IT person before that. Which means he has no experience in this field. Experience adds knowledge, teaches tact and thus brings in confidence. Once you have that then you know what you are thinking is right, you have an idea of how to implement it and thus using proper communication you will somehow pass that message along

Thus, a consultant whether he is from business or IT plays a very important role. They are the outsiders, the third trained eye, who sees the problem as a whole, sees the building facade from outside and the structure/beams/floor/basement from inside and then can say where the problems are, the steps we can take to fix them and the plan which we can execute to take those steps in the most economical and non-destructive manner.

Industry experience, positive attitude, the eye that sees things as one, a mind that always thinks and a mouth that is not shy to point out the wrongs makes a damn good consultant.

Business mobility from IBM

2010-03-30T20:37:00.001+05:30

Shows what IBM is up to

Business mobility from IBM

Virtualization for development

2010-03-11T11:41:00.001+05:30

When I joined this industry in 1999, we always had issue with developing on Windows and testing/deploying on Unix. We still have the same issues now but from the verification and validation side of things we are better off now due to virtualization and also due to maturity of Linux. The maturity of Linux has made it the platform of choice at least for its Enterprise flavors from Redhat and Suse. Also testing has become so easy using VMware images of the two OSes. Create a virtual test environment and test your product on Linux or even Solaris. Though for commercial UX you will still need their physical box but I guess you can get it free if you tell them its either their OS/box or Linux on their competitors !

Virtualization has made life simple for developers too. Earlier, lot of time was wasted when developers had to first install the tools, configure them, load data into the DB, which were time wasters. Now you can create a whole image of the developer desktop, deploy it on the cloud and developers can use it on demand. At night, the developer desktop will go to sleep, the same server now starts the build/test environment and starts running the build or the test scripts. OS Patches also effect the product and that also can be factored in now by keeping versions and snapshots of the images.

We though need to be careful about licenses. Remember a windows image still need a license, so if you company has 50 licenses it means physical + virtual. Better have a good deal with MS on the licenses front. MS does bundle them. Like you can run 4 Win2k3 on the server which is running Win2k3/VMware Server. Win2k8 natively supports virtualization.

Lastly, for a Linux enthusiast like me, I can get a Linux environment on my Windows XP using VMWare player and do not need the Xserver or a telnet client. I can just switch over to the Linux desktop and work the way I like to work on remote Unix/Linux boxes as if I am on the console. I can learn Linux or just do development on Linux.

Career Options in India

2010-03-11T11:15:00.001+05:30

List is not complete. There are still other options available. Click on it to be forwarded to the M-Power page.

http://techrepublic.com.com/

2010-03-09T11:27:00.001+05:30

Love this and subscribe to this too.

TechRepublic : A ZDNet Tech Community

Must read: Consultants, know how the IRS determines employee status

2010-03-09T11:24:00.001+05:30

Chip Camden offers independent consultants tips on how to be savvy when it comes to the IRS’s 20 factors for determining whether a worker is an employee under common law rules.

How IRS determines a Employee-Employer relationship

Is determined as employee the tax liability comes in which can cause penalties too so better be aware of what criteria are used by IRS to determine this. Important for freelance and independent software consultants working in USA.

Performance testing with no $$

2010-03-08T18:09:00.001+05:30

Yes I know there are enough tools that can do automated testing but they do cost a lot of $ + you need a person who charges a lot of $ to use them. Before spending $ on that and them check this out once and see if your project requirement can be met using JMeter, a free performance testing tool. You do need some background on performance testing though and out friends at MS have given this paper for that. Read it first, then understand it, then decide what you want to do and the try executing in in JMeter. If it fits the requirement you are good, at least you would know what to use if it doesn’t.

MS Link

Performance Testing for web applications

Google Tech talk about OS tools for performance testing

Eclipse for Java Beginnings

2010-03-08T18:02:00.001+05:30

Yes I know that you think you know Eclipse IDE but please go through this once so that next time when some senior person talks something like why don’t we create a breakpoint and watch the RS object to see the cursor position and RS object you don’t have a blank on your face !

Go to you-tube and make an effort to see the videos, helps a lot even for someone who has worked a lot on eclipse.

UML – The Visual language

2010-03-08T17:58:00.001+05:30

The required language to know to interact with Clients, Engineers and managers !

Architects in Software

2010-03-08T17:53:00.001+05:30

Its difficult to get why they are needed + the numerous kinds also add to confusion. Luckily people are understanding the need now. here is one more for the cause.

Enterprise Architect, Solution Architect and Infrastructure Architect.

2009-01-04T08:46:00.001+05:30

Just trying to figure out how to get latest software on my PDA and also maintain its on board memory to a decent running level.

2008-11-23T12:11:00.000+05:30

Something that cheers me a lot.....

CalPlus Calendar +

2008-11-23T12:04:00.000+05:30

The today plugin for calendar stinks. So we need another one to show us the details using less real estate on the WinMO today screen. This one does exactly that.

A_C S2P and S2V

2008-11-23T12:02:00.000+05:30

This Guy makes great stuff for WINMO. A_C is the code name. S2P and S2V are the products. They allow you to play music and manage pictures using your thumb.

ThrottleLock

2008-11-23T12:01:00.000+05:30

Throttlelock from the same guys who made ThrottleLauncher. This one is inspired by android.
Search for this in google.

iContact

2008-11-23T11:59:00.000+05:30

Finger friendly contact manager for winmo. With kinetic scrolling. A dialer is also coming out. I hope they come with callerid and incall app.
Awesome.

Search for iContact and iDialer

PocketCM Keyboard

2008-11-23T11:57:00.000+05:30

Very nice keyboard replacement for Winmo, can be customized a lot. Inspired by the iphone fever. I love it since it allows me to type using one hand and thumb (thank God for opposing THUMB, mankind still needs it, thumbs up dude.)

Seach for pocketCM, will reach a site that has a lot of products. Download the keyboard and dont be lazy, read the manual....and use it....

BeyondPod

2008-11-23T11:55:00.000+05:30

Want to read rss feed and also receive podcasts on mobile. This application is the answer. Though we would need support of telecom operator to reduce the data charge else while you are unaware this guy will download your $$$$ to the telecom operator.

Suggested use over a wifi connection with unlimited net usage. As for link search google for beyondpod and then match the above imaged.

ThrottleLauncher

2008-11-23T11:48:00.000+05:30

Check this out. The best replacement ( huh !) for the missing functionality (ya missing) in all winmo where the geeks (no no please !) at microsoft forgot to figure out how people will use the phone. They did such a great job of just figuring that out when making windows that its a very usable and unstable platform. Usability won there. Here winmo is neither usable nor stable but this one will make it.
Prod:
Great, functional, says what it does
Cons:
Slow, needs .NET CF 2.0 and above preferably on main mem.

Still good.

All free desktop apps

2008-05-24T14:20:00.005+05:30

Reduce cost for software on home PC

When I first bought a Laptop my greatest concern was where do I get the software from, since I also wanted to work from home. My company did provide me an old one but once I started getting used to the speed of my personal laptop, I find that one really slow. Also here laptop means notebook for some people who wanna just be different.

Since I already used to spend (constructively pass) my time learning and knowing about open source movement, GPL, LGPL and stuffs like that I scanned, searched, googled (this should be a new word added to the English dictionary), checked out sourceforge.net and freshmeat and many other open source sites to find softwares I can use.
First when I was looking for software I categorized them into these basic categorize:

Security:
First and the most important concern. I wanted an anti-virus, that was free and had subscription. I got Symantec with the HP laptop so I am using it until the subscription expires. Then maybe I will search some anti-virus which is free for personal use. AVG is fine and there are others free for personal use.
I wanted a firewall (my XP came with one but I wanted one more, industrial strength) so I got the free personal Sygate personal firewall.
I wanted a spy-ware removal tool and I read somewhere that keeping oe is asking for trouble so I wanted a suite. So I got the Lavasoft Ad-aware, Microsoft anti-Spyware and Spyware Search &. All 3, you must be thinking that I am paranoid. But hey who doesn't want to be carefully these days. There are kids hacking and phreaking these days, even before they know what values are. Sometimes they don't know ethics being brought up in an ethically illiterate family.
Office/Word Processing:
Then I needed a office product in which I can open word, excel and powerpoint documents and edit them also. MS office is a very expensive software. So I went ahead and installed OpenOffice. Its good but it lacks the mail client. But I got that from IE because they bundle outlook express with any windows. I am writing this using OpenOffice.
Multimedia/Entertainment:
The I wanted a audio player. Yes, media player is there, but I wanted something in which I can burn. Choose itunes, guess because I am attracted to the apple look and feel. Can't afford and apple computer, so I guess I should get the looks. Also it was free. I did try winamp, but I don't why it has become slow to load and all its other problem. Also these two can play most of the formats, except maybe real , but I don't use audio or video so I guess I am safe. Anytime I need it I have the installable. But then mplayer is always there.
Also for images, I love Irfanview. I am a fan of Irfanview. Its awesome, loads fast and can open any media file if you install the plugins for it.
I use the windvd for dvd as that came with the laptop which has the dvd drive. I also am a fan of Media Center though I did try to configure the Media Portal but ran out of patience.
Once you install the codecs even media player can play dvds.

Desktop:
I love the apple dock which comes in Mac. So I got the rockedock, so that I can get to my programs without having to pop up the start menu.
I like to see the emails coming in and weather and IM, so I also installed the desktop side bar from desktopsidebar.com.
For archiving (zipping and unzipping) I use 7-zip, an open source software that can handle Unix and Linux format also. Its interface is also great and easy to handle. Winzip has a nicest interface, but I don't want to pay for anything. I have already paid the dues to the industry by buying the hardware and the OS. I wanted Linux, but it has some limitations, the one being I do less work and start hacking it around and then end up with a dead machine. So I decided, I will not play with Linux on my laptop. Don't know if I can get support from HP if something goes wrong.
I use yahoo/goocal as a place to store all my PIM data. I can sync it up with outlook and I can sync my outlook with my Xda. So I keep my outlook (to do, address book and calendar) in sync with my outlook and Palm. I use intellisync from yahoo to sync outlook and yahoo. I get reminded when on road when my treo beeps and I get remind on my laptop when my outlook reminds me.
IM/ Chat:
I am logged in almost all the IM tools. Yahoo, MSN, Google, AIM, ICQ and even some jabber servers. So i needed one (other than the one offered by them). So I use gaim and Miranda. The later as it integrates with the sidebar very nicely. Both can connect to all the services. I also have their native clients whenever I want to have a audio or video chat I use them.
Networking:
I use putty to telnet to Unix servers. Its free and open source. I have even modified the code to get the interface I wanted. Guess the many other users don't want that so I haven't sent the source to the author. The source with me and I don't distribute the binary alone anyway.
I use Filezilla for connecting to ftp server. It has an easy interface and is way faster than ws-ftp. Guys in schools use this instead of buying any other software. This can also support secure ftp.
Development:
For project management and scheduling I use Ganttproject. It can read from Microsoft project files thought still editing is a problem and Microsoft project does some crazy with the schedule which may look perfect with Ganttproject. Its written in Java so it does consumes memory, then what the heck, it no money.
For development I use Eclipse, the head of IDEs. Netbeans is also good but I haven't coded in C++ in it so I chose eclipse. It hoges memory but don't all the development tool do that. I have eclipse configured with JDT (for Java development), checklipse, CDT ( for C/C++ tools), ME, webdav tools, CVS, SVS and ftp plugins. I keep adding and removing plugins whenever released. I love this IDE, its simple and I also wanted a database plugin. I would love if the people of Squirrel can have a plugin for this. Then I don't have to run eclipse and sql client.
For database as I have already hinted I use Squirrel sql client. It can connect to any RDBMS that can provide you a JDBC driver. You can fire sql with code complete so you don't have to remember the table names. It can also draw you ER diagram of existing tables and their relationships. Whats missing is database modeling. I guess that can be added as this tools also support plugins.
For conversion of video file, there is no other software than mediacoder from sourceforge. Awesome, easy and quick. I like my Core 2 Duos to do and this software makes sure they get the crunching to do.

I hope this helps people who want to do what they can do in office, at home and that also in the no. I am aware of all the things about IP and patents but come on there are many stupid patents granted for non-intellectual stuffs that I had to use my intellect to get around it. I found open source software as a very good alternative. Think about the fact if all the great scientist on whose work our life depends on. They never were able to see what great things they have made. If they wanted they could have kept it closed.