Some words about TCS

 

These days my best pastime is exploring about TCS.
Only 10 days are remaining before I join the company. So, I am curious to have a closer look at TCS. About salary hikes, about designations, about discounts as a TCS employee.
I also heard the rumor that if a we(TCS'ers) marry among our colleagues then will be gifted Rs. 1 lakh each from TCS. But after surfing the net I found that its really a rumor and 0% truth is there in it. U can check the the truth in the comments of the post posted Here.
Now as far as hike in salary is concerned, the employees are given ratings according to their performance.
There are four bands A, B, C & D. Based on our performance we will be assigned anyone of them. Those who will be in assigned A band will enjoy the best hike in his/her salary & D band will also get salary hike but it will be less as compared to A, B & C people.
Now the tough part is, the band is based on Guassian curve. So, to get the A band we will have to work really hard. Say, if there are 10 people in a project then only 1 or 2 will be assigned A band.
Tensed!!! Don't worry this is not the end, hike in salary also depends on the designation. Right now, I will join TCS a ASE-T. After 1 yr my designation will be promoted to ASE with some obvious hike in my salary. After that I will be promoted to SE and then IT A with some good amount of hike in salary(hopefully).

In some blog I read that, After 5-6 years...if You are top performer...Continuously..if u got 5 RATING(A BAND)...u will be a Project lead..You..pay wise...will be around...9 lakhs..if u r a top performer..If u r an average performer..U may stay as a team member also..and ur package will be around..6.5 lacs...
I don't know how much truth is there in these statements but sill I am really happy after reading this. Hoping for the best :) :)
And as an employee of such a renowned brand i.e. TATA  we will certainly get good discounts in all the TATA products. Don't worry TATA is everywhere so we are going to get discounts in a wide range of products in the market. :) :)

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Happy Birthday Rajan

This post is dedicated to one of my best friends ever, Rajan. Today is his birthday. I know him from Std. XI. And he was also my roomie for the 4 yrs of my college life. Really last night I was missing all the Masti that we have done while celebrating all the b’days in Shyamalima(The place we spent the last 2yrs of college life). Those whole night masti, those candles, funny names on the cake, everyone’s  face coloured with cake, reckless dancing, b’day bumps[rarely :)], and many more... Really those moments we will never get back.
Anyways, wishing you a very very very happy birthday. May all your dreams come true.

**@Rajan, All of us(those who were in the conference call) are waiting for the treat.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

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Waiting for ICS

 

As the ICS update for my phone is available, I am eagerly waiting to connect my phone to a good speed internet connection. Instead, Currently Gingerbread is the most popular android version. Still more than 60% of the people use Gingerbread.

Version	Codename	Distribution
1.5	Cupcake	0.2%
1.6	Donut	0.5%
2.1	Eclair	4.2%
2.2	Froyo	15.5%
2.3.x	Gingerbread	60.3%
3.1	Honeycomb	0.5%
3.2	Honeycomb	1.8%
4.0.x	Ice Cream Sandwich	15.8%
4.1	Jelly Bean	0.8%

Current Distribution of Android Versions as on August 1, 2012

ICS  comes with some added features :

• Smart Lockscreen - Now we can interact with messages & recent events, play & manage tracks without even unlocking the phone.
• Face Recognition - Now we can unlock the phone using the face recognition. But for this your phone must have a front facing camera. Unfortunately, my phone lacks it so I won't be able to use this feature. :(

• Modified Dialer - When you start typing your friends’ numbers, your phonebook will automatically start finding them for you.

 

• Quick response for incoming calls - When you are busy you can reject calls with a text messege & let the people know what are you doing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Well, there are many other changes made in ICS but these are the changes that I found most interesting & waiting to use these features asap.

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USB 3.0

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It came into existence in January 1996 as USB 1.0. After that USB 1.1 & USB 2.0 were released. Now the era of USB 3.0 has arrived. USB 3.0 was released way back in 2008 but its still not so popular.

The major advantages of USB 3.0 are :-

• Super-Speed - USB 3.0 works at Super-Speed ( i.e. 5Gbps ~ 625MB/sec ) unlike USB 2.0 which works at High-Speed ( i.e. 60MB/sec ).
• Bidirectional - Unlike previous versions where data can only be piped in one direction at a time, USB 3.0 can read and write data simultaneously.
• Backward compatibility - Our existing USB 2.0 gear will work on version 3.0 ports and vice versa. We will be able to maximize our bandwidth when using a USB 3.0 cable with USB 3.0 devices and ports, otherwise plugging a 3.0 device into a 2.0 port or a 2.0 device into 3.0 a port will get us standard USB 2.0 data rates.
  Since the new interface has been carefully planned from the start to peacefully co-exist with its predecessor, the connector itself remains mostly the same with the four USB 2.0 contacts in the exact same location as before. Extra pins for the new lanes dedicated to transmit and receive SuperSpeed data are located on the back and only come into contact when mated with a proper USB 3.0 port.

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Full Screen Command Prompt in Windows 7.

I am sure that many of us may know this trick. But I think the small form of command prompt may be still annoying some people. This will be helpful for those who don't know how to enable full screen command prompt in windows 7.


Just follow these simple steps :

1. Open the Command Prompt.
2. Enter the command wmic & hit Enter.
3. Click the maximize button to get a real full screen window of Command Prompt.
4. Right click the maximized Command Prompt window title bar and select “Properties“, tick the “Quick edit mode” check-box followed by clicking OK button.
5. Close the Command Prompt window (ie execute exit command twice to exit from WMIC as well as cmd.exe).
6. Open the Command Prompt again. Hurray! U r Done!! The Command Prompt that will appear before you will be in full screen mode.

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Login to your Facebook account with different passwords.

As we all know that we can login to our facebook accounts by different usernames like your email id, registered mobile no. or your username. But do you know that we can also login to our accounts by using different passwords. Yes, its true. I found it on a blog. We can use three different passwords to login.

1. The main password that you use to login.
2. Now if u toggle your password between upper case & lower case then also it will work fine. Say, if your password is "ItsMeSumit" then if you toggle the cases as "iTSmEsUMIT" then also it will work.
   This facility is provided by facebook because in case, your caps lock is accidentally on then the password typed by you will be toggled. So, facebook allows these type of human errors.
3. If your password starts with a lower case character, then if u type the first character in upper case, then also it will work. Say, if your password is "itsmesumit" then "Itsmesumit" will also work. This facility is provided to resolve the issue with some handheld devices. Since some mobiles automatically convert the first character you type to the upper case.

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Introducing Command Prompt option to the Right-Click Menu.

This will be helpful especially to the programmers who use the command prompt too often. You can do this by simply editing your registry.

Steps :

1. Start > Run
   
2. Enter "regedit" and hit Enter
   
3. Expand to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\DesktopBackground\Shell"
   
4. Right-click on "Shell" and select New > Key
   Make sure a new key is created under "shell". Change the name of this key to "Command Prompt"
   
5. Right-click on this new key "Command Prompt" and select New > Key
   Change the name of this key to "command"
   
   
   
   
6. Double-click on the "(Default)" text on the right window to bring up the edit box
   
7. Enter this text into the Value Data field : cmd.exe
   
8. Click OK and close the registry.

**Try this at your own risk**

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2G! 3G! GPRS! GSM! Edge! HSDPA! A Brief Explanation.

Mobile networks! Right now it has become a part of our lives. We can't think of life without mobile networks. However most of the people are confused with the differences between them. I was also confused about all these things. But now these things are quite clear to me.
Right now the most important & the most widely used is the GPRS.

 

GSM

Initially GSM modems came into existence. Does anyone remeber the times we used those horrible 56K modems to connect your desktop to the internet by plugging it into your phone line?  Well at first thats how it was done!  Very low data rates of 10kbps and also the fact that we paid for the time we used the service were the main down points of this.

 

2G/GPRS

However with the take up on mobile phones rapidly increasing we saw the switch to digital networks which allowed for better call quality and the SMS service. We started to see the potential for data to be sent using them. 2G was born in the form of GPRS. This allowed data to be sent over a network that was a lot more optimised for data communication.
GPRS was and still is a little bit slow at no more than about 114kbps and unless you have a class 3 device, it can’t support sending data at the same time as a GSM voice call is in session.  However this is more than enough for many peoples needs, even today and to add weight to that, the first iPhone was a GPRS device.

 

Edge/2.5G

3G was on the way but we saw one more incremental step before this was rolled out.  Edge, eGPRS or 2.5G was a technology that gave us 3 fold better data rates with typical 400kbps being heralded by Cingular in the USA by using better coding methods than GPRS.  However 120-200kbps is probably more realistic.

 

3G

Finally full 3G was released and it not only gave us more reliable faster data rates of up to 384kbps but it’sbased upon a far better better platform that allows syncronous voice and data usage.  With 3G browing the web performing more media intensive data work becamse a reality and in some cases still rivals some broadband connections we have in out homes.

 

HSDPA and 3.5G, 3.75, 4G

Currently HSDPA is the standard for most mobile phones.  Running at 1.3mbps it rivals most broadband connections and networks are being upgraded across the UK to run at speeds of up to 7.2mbps, coined 4G.
We’re now even starting to see our first 4G devices in the HTC 4G MAX, although we’re actuallky seeing a trend in 3.75G HSUPA devices being released at the moment, which are actually HSDPA devices but with improved upload speeds too.

 

HSPA is it a spelling mistake!

Well no and HSPA and also evolved HSPA or HSPA+ are all new acronyms in the 3G world.  I’m not going to get technical here, but these protocols are basically the next step in the mobile networks upgrade path.  HSPA (Downlaod) and HSUPA (Upload) are pretty much implemented now and devices taking advantage of this can now theoretically reach speeds of 14MBPs on the downlink and 6MBPS up, some networks in the world have reported even more than this.  HSPA+ further enhances this up to 80 & 22 MBPS which is now surpassing broadband speeds.
With 3.5G, 3.75G, 4G and now HSPA we really now have no excuse to be connected to the Internet where-ever we go and its only a matter of time before the PDA or mobile phone truly becomes the data tool of choice as our lives become ever mobile.

To go to the original Source of this post Click Here.

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One Month to Go. The Countdown Begins.

Finally the countdown begins as only 1 month to go before I will enter into the corporate world. I am eagerly waiting for that day when I will officially become a TCS'er.
When this long vacation(Almost 3 months) started, I thought how these days will pass by. But today when only one month is remaining, the days are starting to fly. I am also a bit scared about the life to come, when I think of those who have already joined like Abhay, Debraj, etc. They are so busy in Accenture that their social life has just ended.

When this vacation started I planned so much, that I will atleast complete 3 subjects Operating System, Java & DBMS but when only 1 month is remaining I am not in a position to say that even I have read more than 2-3 chapters of any of these subjects. Yesterday, when I opened the DBMS book & had a look over what are the things that need to be read, I found that there are lots of chapters & I don't have that much time to study all those. Really I have wasted 2 months. I am sure that this last month will also be a waste.

These days I am generally spending my time on Facebook, viewing features & reading reviews of mobiles phones & laptops on flipkart. Sometimes I am also searching different different things on google like
Internet TV, Tablet PCs, etc. I was using the term BRAVIA for so long but yesterday I knew that its an acronym & it stands for "Best Resolution Audio Video Integrated Architecture". Most of the time I am googling the salaries of different companies especially TCS, about Salary hikes, etc.
The best timepass is browsing various smart phones...

As a preparatory step in waking up early in the morning, from today Me & Sourish started morning walk. I don't know exactly the distance covered by us today but it took nearly 1hr 30mins. Don't know how many days it will continue. But hoping for the best. :)

I guess this last month will not be too long for me. After this I am going to be screwed literally... I will try to enjoy the most of this last month.

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