Trip to Chikaldara

From last few days my office friends were planning to go out of Nagpur along with hubbies. After lot of discussions on Venue, availability of all members we decided to go to Chikaldara. We decided to book Winger but it was not available. So thought to go by personal cars.

Ready for journey

We started on 3rd Sept at 6 p.m. We followed the route Nagpur >> Katol>> Warud >> Morshi >> Partwada. We reached Partwada at 12 PM night. After paratwada almost 15 kms patch is narrow ghat roads with sharp left and right turns. It was really getting difficult to drive in such roads. Full of fog and without any lights. We reached Chilkdara around 12.30 at night. We were finding way to reach MTDC resorts but due to fog we could not see any directions nothing. We spent almost 45 mins searching the way. We tried MTDC number but couldn't reach.

Since it was totally forest area, I was thinking it would be so exciting to see wild animals like tigers, leopards etc etc :). But nothing exciting like that happened. Finally one person told us the way. We reached resort around 1.30 PM.

We quickly wanted to go inside the rooms and sleep. But rooms were big and scary. Just behind our rooms there was a deep valley so whole night sound of wind was disturbing us. We tried to sleep but…..
On Saturday morning we woke up at around 8 AM. The weather was awesome. Clouds surrounding us, cold waves and sound of birds. We decided to get ready quickly and explore chikadara. We hired a guide.

First spot was Bhimkund. Beautiful spot. Valley is around 3000 sq feet deep with 2 waterfalls. We did photo session there and tried to capture beauty as much as possible.



Bhimkund

 From there we moved to Helipad point. There you can see small villages between deep valley.

Then we moved to Gavilgadh Fort. It is the great piece of historical fort that made me amazed
and I was speechless to think about the skilled architects who were into constructing it. Huge gate and high walls of stones. In walls, there were small spaces for soldiers to hide and rest. Way inside fort is made of curves so that enemies cannot attack directly and soldiers can attack them easily. Just think it would have been so difficult to build such a fort on hill in those days.

Bit of rock climbing

Fourth point was Shakkar Lake. We did boating there. Calm place surrounded by huge trees.
Then we moved to Panchbol point. Where you will get echo of your voice five times.
On the way we went to Devi temple. It is inside the rocks and water keep falling between the rocks in that temple. People told us that water fall for whole 12 months even in summers.
After visiting so many points we were really hungry. Had lunch in Satpura retreat. Suddenly it started raining. Then we drop idea to visit any places and went to our resort. There we started playing indoor games. Wife Vs hubbies. We had great fun. Had dinner around 10.30.

Next day we woke up at 8 am. It was still raining. Had our breakfast and again came back to resort. Played cricket for sometime but it again started raining. At 12.00 noon we had lunch and moved from Chikaldara.While returning from ghats we realized how dangerous the route was. Thanks to two drivers (Avinash (my Hubby) and Praful (Maithili's hubby)) 

While turning we took halt in Morshi. We wanted to visit Salbardi. We asked way to Salbardi and localite suggested to visit Upper Wardha dam also.

Everybody was tired but still agreed to visit dam. When we reached there, the site was awesome. Dam has 13 gates and all the gates were open for the first time. Huge amount of water falling form gates was terrific. It was worth visiting dam. Then decided to go Salbardi. After reaching there local people said we have to walk almost 1 and half km. None of us has that stamina. Finally decided to leave that and move to Nagpur.

Uper Wardha dam

On the way we went to Satimata mandir in Paradshinga. Beautiful temple with multicolor designs on the temple. From there we drove non stop and reached Nagpur by 8 PM.

Actually we didn't expect there could be any hill station in Vidharba region. It was hectic but indeed memorable trip. Not only had we, but our hubbies also enjoyed.
We specially want to thank our hubbies because without there support this wouldn’t have been successful J.

Independence Day Celebration

Just now our country has celebrated 64th Independence Day and I am always very enthusiastic about celebrating this day. May be because I belong to defense background. This time I spent most of the time in front of TV. All the news channels were showing something or the other thing about our history of Independence Day.

I remembered my school days. New socks, new Ribbon, nicely white wash shoes, dress properly ironed etc, making sure everything is in place day before yesterday. Those patriotic songs, school functions and of course sweets at the end :).

I really feel the difference of celebrating Independence Day now days. The excitement among students is missing. Many of them don't go to school. Even parents are not bothered to send there kids. Just because getting up early in the morning is boring. They just take it as another holiday. We can see students celebrating Friendship day with great zeal then Independence Day. Strange.

How far it is correct and what kind of learning we are giving them. Need to think on this otherwise picture will be worse after few years.

This is my request to all, please send your kids to schools on Independence Day and Republic day. Respect our motherland and all those great people who sacrificed their lives for Independence Day.

Tapasya turned 2

My sweet little Tapu turned 2 on 7 July 2010. She was very excited about her birthday. One month before she started asking me "Mam'aa when is my birthday". Then she used to explain whole procedure that I will cut cake and people will clap and sing song "Happy Birthday to U". Then will eat cake and I will get gifts too :D.

I was not planning to celebrate, but due to her excitement we decided to celebrate.

When we went to buy birthday dress for her, she almost tried 30-40 dresses and started commenting this dress is not good and insisted to buy the one she liked. Today’s kids are really smart. I remember my time. we used to buy dresses of parents choice till 12th :D.

Same thing while choosing her sandal. She was bringing the most stylish sandal from the shelf and we were thinking of comfort. Then we had to explain her it is not good and its drawback.

On her birthday, I woke up her in the morning and told that today is your birthday. First thing she said is “Mam'aa don't go to office today “. When I assured her Papa and I will stay with you today, she was dammn happy and started singing birthday song. Then went out called neighboring aunty and told today is my birthday.

Whole day she was just in mood to play and play only. In the evening when I asked her to get ready she was not listing. Then I couldn’t control myself and last slapped her. I know its bad but can't help sometime. After that she was in control :).

We celebrate party with great zeal. By 11.30 she was so exhausted but still enthusiastic to open her gift. Especially which were big :d

Happy birthday to

Eagerly waiting to eat :)

Girls outshining Boys

This is the session of results. 10th, 12th etc etc and I basically take interest in 10 and 12 results. Just to know who has topped? Girl or Boy. Whose passing percentage is more? Girls or Boys? I really feel proud its girls 90% times.

Today I read in the newspaper girls outshine boys in university examination. Not only had these girls topped first 5 potions in various university examinations. In this year's Convocations ceremony 3 girls have topped with 11 gold medals, 4th girl with 10 and 5th girl with 8 gold medals.

Girls are outshining boys in almost every field. The results are a case in point.
There could be n number of reasons.

• Some feel that girls are more sincere and hardworking, while boys are wasters.
• May be girls are more sincere and sensible towards studies then boys as they take it lightly.
• Some says boy’s general awareness (and knowledge) is often better than the schoolgirls, who are more bookish.
• If boys often know more about sports and politics then girls also know lot more about films and fashion.
• If boys can fix faulty electric equipment, or leaky tap, girls are good in knitting, sewing and cooking. In fact, an average middle class girl has to work more. She takes care of the household chores with her mother and aunts, while boys fly kites.

Whatever may be reason, I don’t want to get into any debate here.I am just happy with the end result :)
This should really make girls community proud.

Keep it up girls.

Day out in Krazy Castle

Krazy castle is one of the amusement water parks in Nagpur. It was Friday afternoon, last working day of that week. Weather was quite pleasant. As we have quite hotter days in April and May. Suddenly my office friends plan to visit Krazy Castle on Saturday with kids. Our plans hardly succeed. We checked saturday's weather on site and then planned to meet at 12 noon.
On Saturday morning all of us were worried about weather. But thankfully after sunny day it became quite pleasant in afternoon. So just to confirm once again we rang each other. And finally we gathered and went to Krazy castle.
We completed formalities and went inside.

Kids went inside the pool and started jumping with joy.

Kids having fun

Some of them were scared but lately they also started enjoying. We all started playing and enjoying with them. By 3 PM all of the kids were tired and hungry. We order Masala Dosa. After waiting for long finally dosa came. But kids were so hungry…………they finished quickly.

After relaxing a bit we were again ready for the fun. We did some rain dancing and played some more games like long slide etc.
At 5 PM, we refreshed and enjoyed free ice cream

Enjoying free ice cream

.

Then we went to Entertainment Park. There also kids played and enjoyed each and every game and ride.

Rashi and Tapasya enjoying Aero Plane ride

At 6 PM we left Krazy Castle. We all were so tired but enjoyed the day in krazy Castle.

 

Part time mother

One of my friends sends Good Morning mail everyday with beautiful message. One day he sent a mail with message "Being a full time mother is one of the highest paid job,since the payment is pure love."

I read and thought for a while. Am I part time mother :). May be yes. I think all working mothers are part time mother. We keep struggling between professional and family life.

Sometimes I am so involved in this struggling that I cannot exactly recall when my daughter started crawling, standing or took her first step. Then I realized that she is growing so fast :).

In morning, I ignore her small small demands, make her quickly do all tasks. Sometimes being harsh with her. And while leaving her when she says softly "Mam'aa Bye" bring tears in my eyes.

In the evening, i just rush to see her and cannot express her happiness when she jumps saying "My mam'aa has come" :).
In night when I think of spending time with her, she is so tired and wants to sleep. I can't help.

This cycle continues from sunrise to sunset.

Career Growth for Women

Few days back one of my friend asked me about the career growth of women. Specially In today’s competitive world, where we are always measure on our performance. It is really difficult for women to show her excellence in specified time.

It is the fact that men have advantage over women as they can spend more time in workplace.
But still, I have listed down some of the ways to impress your seniors and colleagues.

1. Be proactive.
2. Always Ask questions (Why, How)
3. Discuss and bring your discussion to some conclusion.
4. Take call or initiative yourself. Don’t think this is not my job.
5. Whatever you do, do it in the best way. Simple writing mail reflects your professionalism.
6. Pay more attention to your communication. Be it a written or verbal. It should be clear and to the point.
7. Whenever you get time from your project work, start hunting for knowledge. Share that with your team.
8. Suggest anything which you think is good for your project or team or company.
9. Time management. Very important for women.
10. Prioritizing work.
11. Problem Solving. Try to solve your difficulties yourself first. If not possible then discuss and then show what all you tried to solve your problem?

Thanks for reading



Sujata Wagh
Sr. Quality Analyst
Infospectrum India Private Limited

Internet Explorer folder is empty in Event Viewer

Internet Explorer folder is always blank in Event Viewer. This blog will explain how to capture errors in IE folder.

1. Close all the instances of Internet Explorer.
2. Open registry Editor.
3. Navigate to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\ FEATURE_ENABLE_COMPAT_LOGGING
4. Create iexplorer key and set it to 1. (Refer figure below)

This means internet Explorer compatibility evaluation logging is turned on.

Open Internet Explorer. Information is displayed as shown in the figure.

Open Event Viewer and check, Errors will be captured in Internet Explorer folder.

Export data (rows) functionality in SQL 2005

Few days I was struggling with problem of copying data from one table to another table in SQL Server 2005.

Below is the script to copy data (rows) from one database table to another database table.

Syntax:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSERT INTO destination_database_name.DBO.DESTINATION_TABLE_NAME

(
COL1, COL2, COL3
)

SELECT

COL1, COL2, COL3

FROM source_database_name.DBO.SOURCE_TABLE_NAME

WHERE

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Example:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

INSERT INTO DBNAME_QA.DBO.COMPANIES --Source Database Table

(
COMPANY_NAME,REGION_ID,ACTIVE,CUSTOMER_NO
)

SELECT

COMPANY_NAME ,REGION_ID,ACTIVE,CUSTOMER_NO

FROM
DBNAME_DEV.DBO.COMPANIES --Destination databse Table

WHERE ACTIVE = 1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE:

1. Data Type of COL1 should match with data type of COL1
2. You can select desired number of columns.
3. Column with Primary key can not be copied.


It may help you !!!

BECOME A SMART TESTER, NOT JUST AN ORDINARY TESTER

Based on my 6 years of experience in testing, I feel that many testers think their job is limited to finding and reporting bugs, and it is the job of developer to find out how and why the bug is introduced and then how to resolve. Of course, job of tester indeed is to find and report bugs. But then, what is the difference between tester and smart tester?
Here I would like to share my experience. I got chance to work in a challenging and complex project wherein I discovered that just regular testing won't help. I need to think beyond my role as a QA and be smarter.
Let me share a scenario. I had to share requests from one machine to different client’s machines. When I sent the request, it only went to 2 client machines out of 5. In the beginning, I didn’t pay much attention to this fact, as I was busy with some other complex testing areas. However, this issue came to our notice when another tester also faced the same problem. First, I checked hardware configurations, and took a look at the binaries. Then suddenly I had a thought about checking the software my application was using.
And, that was where I realized where the issue really was!
I found that 2 client machines that received the request had Microsoft Dot Net framework 2.0 with SP2 and the other 3 client machines (that did not receive the request) had Dot Net framework 2.0 with SP1. When I installed SP2 on these machines, the problem was solved. I discussed and told the developer about the solution.
Thinking over this, I realized that a tester should not only find and report defect/bug, but we should also dig out the root cause. We need to discuss with the developers why a defect has occurred and how it will be solved.
Do this, and believe me, your mind will definitely find even more complicated defects/Bugs!