Bidding Goodbye to 2018! *latepost*

"A man is known by the company he keeps!"

This is a memorable moment from most of the members from my company(pun intended) gathering together for 2018-year end celebrations! We happened to celebrate my birthday as well, that day. Here we see a ensemble of truly diverse and super-motivated folks - Rapyutians of Rapyuta Robotics - with a common mission of "hashtagEmpowering hashtaglives with hashtagconnected hashtagmachines" !!

Moved to Tokyo for Robotics Engineering experience

As a child, I used to watch this American sitcom called "Small Wonder" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Wonder_(TV_series)) which made me go awestruck with the wonders that engineering could create! Coming from a doctors' family, this sitcom was my first hand exposure to what an engineer's life looked like.

Eventually, I ended up studying Computer Science and Engineering myself. But, it was not until now that I really got a chance to do something substantial on the robotics front.

Fast forwarding to about the last quarter this year, I bagged a job opportunity in a field that's an amalgamation of Software Engineering and Robotics! I graciously accepted the offer, changed countries and henceforth, will be working as a Software Development Engineer for Robotic Systems Software out of Tokyo, Japan for this Japanese company - Rapyuta Robotics, whose mission aligns so much with my vision.

I trust, it's all how it was destined to be and I wouldn't have been here without the experience that my previous gigs provided me. The knowledge of Linux systems software that I gained at IBM was definitely a pre-requisite for my current role and equipped with all these skills gained over years, I aim at creating and achieving many more milestones, with my team, for this new found love for empowering lives with connected machines.

That's all for now, and until next time, take care and happy hacking!

New Job!

Is it related to Android? No! To Java? No! To GNOME then? No, not directly. Did I spin up a company? It could have been possible, but no, it's neither that!

So what am I upto?

It is great pleasure to announce that I now work for IBM, India.

I signed the joining letter on the 12th of May, 2015. Thereafter, I have been busy setting up my work environment on my IBM provided Lenovo ThinkPad and acquainting to the new(not very) city of Bangalore. I stick to Ubuntu for my development Linux distribution there so that I don't waste time on the learning curve. I installed Ubuntu with a bunch of software needed for my official work.

I work in the Linux Technology Centre (IBM-LTC), a part of IBM India Systems and Development Labs and my primary focus would be with the RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability) team on OPAL (OpenPower Abstraction Layer) and related projects.

My first assignment is to build and install the upstream kernel master and boot-test and configure that using a Virtual machine. Sounds exciting, huh? :D
So, I installed my first Ubuntu guest virtual machine on top of my host Ubuntu following these steps and am getting comfortable with using the Virtual Machine Manager. I also had to enable BIOS settings for native KVM acceleration (Virtualization Technology and VT-d feature) for the VM to run at a usable speed. Then I followed simple kernel build steps (which I reserve for some other blog-post) and after some updates to grub configuration file, I could explicitly boot into a freshly built upstream kernel 14.1.0-rc5+.

Though my development machine is an Intel x86 machine but most of my patches are going to be tested on Power 8 machines eg. for enabling some functionality on PPC machines or checking some software compatiblity for PPC architecture, so if you don't have access to those machines, you might have to believe what I have to say.

I will describe my kernel fiddles and contributions to other open source tools/utilities in the coming posts so stay tuned! I'll mostly post patches with the email id: chandni[AT_SPAMFREE]linux.vnet.ibm.com

Comeback

Hello Folks!

How are you doing?

My GNOME days are sort of behind me but that doesn't mean I've stop writing!

I've regained my health and am back to rocking the world with my chilling products and learning experiences.

What I've been up to in silence besides my job has been updated on my github repositories: SPOJ (which is about Sport Programming and past hackathons' problems involving Data Structures and Algorithms solved by me, a work in progress) and TestPOI (which is a tool for generating Data sets for a test database by shuffling records in an excel spreadsheet using Apache POI). Check them out! ;)

In the next few blogging sessions, I'll be talking about my growth as an android developer as I progress through classes on Developing Android Apps (Android Fundamentals) and UX Design for mobile Developers (Learn to design a 5-star Android App)!

So stay tuned!

An Honest Declaration

I got involved with GNOME through the awesome program for Women Internships from December 2010 to March 2011. With that on end and with the fact that I had already completed my graduation I was expected to join any organization and be immediately productive. So was what I wanted to be but the "any organization" part does not suit me as I do not want to miss geniuses around me when I work in an office environment.

With the GNOME tag associated with my name, I was undoubtedly offered many positions from application to embedded development but with none I felt the level of satisfaction I got while working for GNOME. I began late compared to my more aware counterparts who started open-source contributions while still in University (and I really regret that) but I realize that to be where I want to be, there is no short-cut and I have to trace the complete path.

So, yes I want to be immediately productive and yes, I want to work with geniuses around me and to fulfill this craving of mine, I will continue providing services to GNOME as an honorary developer until I make myself worthy of being taken in by one of the many firms that have made GNOME what it is today! Although, this required me to convince a lot of people around me but I am happy that they are finally with me now respecting me and my reverberating ambitions.

My Hi to GNOME Planet dwellers!

Being here makes me feel that I really belong to an assorted group of really skilled and motivated group of individuals, all trying to contribute in their own special ways to make the world a little better, a little happier place for the rest!

I am Chandni, a recent grad from Dr. M.C, Saxena College of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow, India. I have a passion for finding an elegant solution for any kind of problem, be it in a physical form, puzzle-like or algorithmic thus developing in me hobbies like puzzle-solving and competing in algorithmic coding contests with other brains in the world.

I will be working on Empathy IM client under the expert guidance of Danielle Madeley. I owe a lot to Danielle, firstly for being such a kind heart and patient person as she is, for guiding me through my first commit and being there whenever needed (which was really difficult as this was my first contribution to open source I had never used a version controlling system before), and last but not the least, for informing me about the program and giving me the confidence to go for it!

Getting selected on such a prestigious platform was something unimaginable. Being here provides me a chance to touch the lives of so many dependents and admirers of the open-source desktop with my ideas and skills. I am proud of being a woman and being chosen here also gives me a chance to prove to the world that a female mind has abilities no less than anyone else in the world.

Lastly i'd like to thank all the Empathy folks for their help in both big and small ways and for their time they have invested on me. I'd like to get in touch with more of you while contributing on IRC.

Hello World!

As u might have guessed from the above title, I am passionate about programming. Here I start with my first blog. Hopefully you'll see some valuable stuff here in days to come apart from an insight into my life. Thanks for reading!