Introduction

The BbyB Beacon is an electronic publication to keep the members of Bit by Bit informed about the current affairs of the company. It contains announcements of important events like training programmes, Management Review Meetings, etc.

Contact Information
 Any contributions to the newsletter in the form of technical articles, or items of general interest, are welcome. Please send them to padmabaliga@bbyb.sdc.int or padmabaliga@bbyb.com

Editorial                                                                                                                    (top)

The Incredible Taj!

What can be said about the Taj Mahal that hasn't already been said? Ever since it was unveiled to the world, almost four centuries ago, praise for the marble wonder has never ceased.

Always counted among the man-made marvels of the world by its admirers, the Taj Mahal found pride of place in a new list of seven wonders polled by people around the globe, which was announced at a gala ceremony in the Portuguese capital Lisbon to coincide with the date 07.07.07.

Not only did the Taj bag a position in the new list but also stood first, as far as the number of people rooting for it is concerned. When Shah Jahan conceptualized it, he wanted his monument to be unique. The main marble tomb stands on a square pedestal, with four minarets on each corner of the plinth, giving it a symmetrical design. The project was begun in 1631 and was finished in 1653, and even now it is in the news. The value and equity of the Taj through the centuries is not about how long it took to build, how many thousand labourers slaved at bringing it into being, or how many million rupees were splurged on it but is about what the Taj stands for and what emotions it evokes in each of us.

Shah Jahan, himself in his Badshahnama, wrote ‘the sight of its beauty creates sorrowing sighs and makes the sun and moon shed tears from their eyes.' Other poets, writers and artists too outdid themselves, for instance Rabindranath Tagore called the Taj 'a tear drop upon the cheek of time.' The British painter Hodges compared it to 'a perfect pearl on an azure ground - with an effect so dazzling that no other work of art can ever produce.'

But, now it is being wounded even as you read this. Environmentalists claim that the sulphur dioxide fumes emitted by the factories in Mathura will drift down to Agra, crumbling the Taj Mahal’s marble facade and that might bring about the worst for the beautiful structure within 30 years.

The Indian government has laid down some rules including banning vehicles within a 500-metre range of the Taj. Those allowed are mostly eco-friendly using batteries and electricity, tonga-carts and horse-drawn carriages. Well, at least something is being done about it. As responsible citizens, it is upto us to protect not only the Taj but all our other historical monuments from the damage inflicted by man as well as nature. Think of Hampi, where precious sculptures are being stolen everyday, the Ajantha Ellora caves, where tourist infiltration is steadily destroying the paintings, or the Mahabalipuram Shore

Temples which are being steadily eroded by the salty sea air. These monuments are from our past, but we should save them for our future.


From The Management                                                                                       (top)

Dear All,

July 31st marks the 1st anniversary of our moving over to this new software development centre. Like most of you, even I had apprehensions about the move – the distance, the new location etc. I guess there were a few hurdles that we had to cross once we moved here – running of a generator for the first few months, working on a 64 KBPS satellite connection, no landlines ... but things progressively improved and today most of these issues are now behind us.

I would like to thank all of you for your co-operation is making the move over to the new premises the success that it has been.

Regards,
Raghu

Projects News

StaffBank                                                                                                               (top)

It has been a busy month for the StaffBank-StaffRoster team. To help push StaffRoster, we have started development on a new version, called "StaffRoster Lite". This version incorporates all the functionality of StaffRoster, except for the auto-generation of Rosters. Raghu, Chaitanya and I have been busy for the better part of the month with this version. Besides this we are also getting the pilot release for Guys and St. Thomas ready for the end of this month.

StaffBank has been running along smoothly with Prathibha looking into the day-to-day issues that arose and Usha implementing York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the introduction of TUPE and SPOT calculation rules into StaffBank. The 2 of them also guided Jaya and Smitha as they started working on change controls and design documents for StaffBank. Besides this, Usha also started on the Rule Based Predictor changes in .NET, which will be a part of the Auto-fill module, which in turn is part of the proposed StaffBank .NET version, which, as with StaffRoster before it, will be a complete re-write from scratch using OOP and .NET.

Deepak addressed a few issues that cropped up in the test version of StaffBank on the Web at NHSP, which includes revamped functionality for the Ward Clerk login, as well as incorporating a new level of security in the form of the "Senior Admin" login in StaffBank Web. He was also involved in the ESR Absence Export, which was also what Dilna worked with this month.

The latest recruit into our team, Rachana, started developing a class for dealing with Requests in StaffRoster, when the client doesn't use StaffBank. Essentially, we are looking at one integrated system that comprises of StaffBank and StaffRoster. However, there will be clients who use only one or the other. In a scenario where the client uses StaffRoster but a different Bank system, StaffRoster will need to provide a basic facility to link the requests made on the Bank system into StaffRoster. Rachana is working on the class to enable this.

Omprakash was busy with prepping data provided by Guys and St. Thomas into a StaffRoster database for their pilot, besides working on dataprepping for MESaLS.

Manu was busy developing reports for the BbyB Information System and the Timesheets.

This month we say farewell to Yogita who has resigned from BbyB. She will be leaving for Amravathi. We wish her all the best for the bundle of joy that is about to fall into her lap!

Sreedhar for StaffBank

MESaLS                                                                                                                  (top)

This month has been a quiet month for Mesals as far as releases are concerned. There have been no releases, and many enhancements are coming in for version 4.03. Mesals development team was busy working on these enhancements. The testing team was also busy writing test cases and closing issues related to the released versions.

A hearty thanks to Shashi for taking the entire Mesals team for a 'Dinner and Movie' outing. We enjoyed the evening out with DieHard 4.0 at PVR Cinemas.

Looking forward to August and hoping it will be a great time for Mesals team. Next month we are going to celebrate our Independence Day and begin the 61st year of nationhood.Let's salute the brave souls of our motherland and contribute our mite to the creation of a Parishrami Bharat (Industrious India), Parakrami Bharat (Achieving India), and a Vijayi Bharat (Winning India).

Wish you all a Happy Independence Day in advance!!!

JaiHind!

Ram for Team MESaLS

pFACT                                                                                                                    (top)

For the month of July, pFACT had two releases, 2.01.g for SQL and 2.01.h for Oracle. At present, the whole team is working on the integrated version of pFACT and also on the 2.02 enhancements. pFACT testing team is working on the first integrated version beta release, along with writing test cases and test reports.

Sukanya for pFACT

Sepia                                                                                                                      (top)

It has been a rather quiet month for Sepia. There were few changes requested by Dorset in the middle of the month and there were some bugs reported in the current live version. These were fixed and a new version was released. The changes requested by Dorset are being currently developed and should be completed sometime in August. Check out next month on what happened with Sepia in August.

Shashidhar for Sepia

Other News                                                                                                          (top)

Farewell to Devaki and Yogita

We bid farewell to Devaki and Yogita this month.

Devaki joined BbyB in February 2001. She was part of the Sepia team and was also its Project Leader. Sepia was in fact, her first baby, before Sandeep her son was born. Devaki’s dedication and efficiency has been a by-word at BbyB. She has joined Accenture and we wish her all the very best.

Yogita joined BbyB in July 2006. She became part of the StaffBank team after completing a 3 month training period at BbyB. Yogita who is Chaitanya’s wife will be returning to her home state, Maharashtra and is also expecting the birth of her baby in October. We wish her all the very best.

Thank God it’s July 27th

Fun day or TGILF was celebrated with a lot of spirit like last month. It was a different fun day this time, as a Quiz was conducted to test our GK quotient, for a change!!. The Quiz was organized by Shashi and Padma. Shashi was the Quiz Master and prepared all the questions too.

Work came to a standstill at 5:30 and all the BbyBers gathered in the Dining Hall. The place was already arranged to accommodate four different teams- ‘Mad Max’, ‘Jumbo’ ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Pigeon’. A draw of lots determined who would go into which team. Soft drinks and potato crisps were kept ready on the tables inviting the players to munch and sip away the cloudy-cozy evening and keep their enthusiasm high.

The fun day started with a welcoming question “What do all these team names stand for?” The Pigeon team answer immediately - “These team names are names of cricket players” and got the first set of bonus points. Then, started the first round, which covered questions from different areas like politics, sports, movies, etc. There was a lot of curiosity on everyone’s face as they wondered what question Shashi was going to attack them with next. All the team members were involved in guessing and discussing the right answers. And there were some funny answers also coming out keeping everyone entertained as when Team Jumbo felt that James Gosling should have invented GASOLINE rather than Java. At the end of every round the team points were displayed on the board. Altogether there were 28 questions and most of the questions were answered correctly. Finally, Pigeon scored 18 points and bagged the first prize - a gift pack of pens.

Chocolates were given to all the four teams as Participation prizes. And, Shashi was given a special gift for conducting the whole programme.

At the end of the quiz, we also celebrated the first anniversary of moving into our new office with cheers and cake slices. The fun day ended at 6:15 and there was a lot of cheer on everyone’s face as they prepared to enjoy the weekend ahead too.

Here are a few pictures of 'TGILF'

Holidays                                                                                                                 (top)

August 15, Wednesday will be a holiday as India gears up to celebrate 60 years of freedom and nationhood

Colleagues Cognizant                                                                                          (top)

Mr. Hrishikesh Bhat who joined Bit by Bit in June 2003 has been associated with our MD and his family for a long time. A very unassuming man, he is nevertheless a treasure-house of anecdotes, wisdom, wit and humour. For many years now, he was Shenoy Uncle’s Man Friday and recently, has joined us at the SDC. Those of us who interact with him quite often are sometimes amazed to discover the depths of his knowledge and have enjoyed many a hearty laugh thanks to his dry humour. The Beacon decided to shine the limelight on this wonderful many-faceted individual. Tell us about yourself and your family I hail from a small village by name DURGA, about 6 kms from Karkala town in Udupi district. I am the only son of my late parents Smt. Bhagirathi Bai and Sri. Ram Bhat. I have two sons. The elder one is a graduate in Commerce with a Fellowship in General Insurance, and is working in a Switzerland based Insurance Company. The younger one has just completed his engineering in Mechanical stream.

hen did you get married?
I got married to my wife, Anusuya Bhat in 1981.

How long have you been associated with Shenoy? Tell us something about Shenoy as you first knew him.
I knew Raghu when he was still in school as I was associated with his father. My direct association with Raghu is since 1991. I always think of him as ‘A firing sphere with a golden pot, filled with nectar at the centre.’

You are a very unusual person – an entrepreneur, a priest, an astrologer and an employee of BbyB. How come you have such a wide range of interests and accomplishments?
When I was very young, about 2 years old, I lost my father. At the age of 6, my mother got me admitted to Sri. Ramakrishna Mission, Mangalore. I was taught ‘Yajurveda’ by Guru Shri. Harshananda Maharajjee, now the President of Sri. Ramakrishna Mutt, Bangalore. Simultaneously I did my SSLC in Cascia High School, Mangalore. Subsequent to this I joined Udupi Pejawar Mutt. Here, I was taught ‘Rigveda’ and ‘Jyothishya – Hora Shastra– Poorvadha’.

I did my B.Sc in Mathematics in Poornaprajna College (PPC). Later in Sringeri I completed ‘Jyothishya – Uttarardha’. But, I feel that after having studied all this, finally, I am master of none.

Who is your favourite politician and why?
Nobody.

What is your philosophy of life?
Simple living without harming and hurting others.

What would you like to do when you retire?
After retirement, I would like to teach Vedas and Mathematics to those who are interested.

Your fondness for sweets is well-known. Which is your favourite sweet?
Any sweet. Worse comes to worst, at least a piece of jaggery will be my paradise.

How do you best remember Shenoy Uncle? Can you tell us an anecdote from the time you spent with him?
He was a Godly person. I have come across this term in literature but I have experienced it practically in my life during the 30 years of my association with Mr. R.B. Shenoy.                                                                                     

Birthdays                                                                                                             (top)

The Beacon wishes Jayaraj, Dattathreya, Sreedhara, Om and Usha a rocking birthday and an enchanted life that is richly blessed with family and friends.

Jayaraj C.N	11-Aug
Dattathreya	24-Aug
Sreedhara	28-Aug
Usha V.K./Om Prakash	31-Aug

Here are a few pictures of birthdays celebrated last month.

Chaitanya's Birthday Snaps

Padma and Sunitha's Birthday Snaps