Yes I am deactivating my FaceBook account. Hopefully this won’t be permanent but I am not sure when I will reactivate it again.

It’s true that social networking sites have changed the browsing behavior of people; sometime in positive way and sometime negative but I am just trying to experiment how productive I would be without FaceBook (sometime self experiment is not so bad ).
Though I really don’t tag myself a FaceBook addict but it was kinda distraction and moreover most of my FaceBook friends’ perception and my perception about using it has been totally different. I used it primarily for  creating and sharing contents and links through my blog posts, tweets and delicious bookmarks following the norms of Web 2.0 i.e. create , share and collaborate. But from some time I am feeling that the same stuffs are more worth to do in Twitter than in FaceBook. May be because, most of my twitter friends think like me and/or belong to the same profession that I belong to (programming and tech stuffs).
So for now, Twitter is my social networking and a platform to share and collaborate the contents and links that may prove to be productive for me as well as my twitter friends.
I don’t know if this is right thing to do or not because I have over 100 friends (whom I know petty well) in FaceBook that I will be disconnected with. I guess I am giving more preference to productivity and similar network of user base  over human emotions. And someone has said correct "Twitter is a FaceBook without extra bullshit".
Was this the right thing to do?

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." – Excerpts from Martin Luther King‘s I have a dream speech

Today is the the day the whole world has been waiting for. Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States and boy I am proud that I am witnessing the history being made (by watching via CNN.com Live). It’s not only because he will be the first black president but the magnitude of optimism and magic he has created around the globe has been truly inspirational.

Most people all over the world have great expectation from him as I do and as you may also do. This time is quite historical in the sense that the new president with the message of change is coming to Washington from the same state Abraham Lincoln came from i.e. Illinois. Not only that, he is taking presidency during which the whole world is in the midst of the financial crisis and uncertainty as never seen before since the great depression of 1930′s. But it is to be seen that if Obama can deliver the change people are looking for.

With so much expectation from both the people of America and all over the world, I wonder what will happen to those hopes if he fail.

The day is crucial not only because change is coming but also because Bush is going. In my opinion these are what Bush’s Legacy has left for us:

• Trillion dollar budget deficit
• Financial and Housing Crisis
• Highest unemployment since World War II
• The broken image of the US
• Guantanamo Bay Detention Center (I call it slap in the face of human rights)
• Two unfinished war in Iraq and Afghanistan already costing billions of dollar (some experts estimate trillions)
• Unstable Middle East
• Missile Crisis with Russia

Is there any other thing I’ve left?

So, folks lets hope for change!

It will take time but I am optimistic that it will come!

What do you think?

Personally, 2008 has been quite productive for me in the sense that I did couple of projects in MVC (using CodeIgniter) and was able to go through the basic of LINQ as my intern project was based on ASP.NET + LINQ + SQL Server (the project is still incomplete and a bit buggy as well). It was 2008 that I wrote my first unit tests and since then I have been learning and trying to follow TDD approach. And yes I have not forgot Obama got elected the same year and finally I passed my under-graduation in Information Management (though still not received my final transcript).

But 2008 was kinda nightmare for most parts of the world. Shrinking stock market, booming unemployment, near collapse of Wall Street and global financial system (financial power house like Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG, WaMu, Citi Group are gone or being bailed out by the US government), terrorist attack in Mumbai and overall the whole world experience slow down and recession with financial crisis as never seen the great depression of 1930′s.

My short list of resolutions for 2009

• Design Patterns, IoC, MVC
• Test Driven Development
• Developing REST based application(s)
• Ruby and/or Iron Ruby (But I am not so sure I will get enough time to learn and implement Ruby)
• Maintaining the current momentum of blogging + tweeting
• Getting Zend Certification

And here are few wish lists for 2009

• Get involved in some kind of open source project
• Want to see end of this financial crisis (very low possibility though)
• Want to see some permanent and effective solution of energy crisis in Nepal (feels like I am wishing too much)

I guess my list of new year resolutions are kinda achievable but I can’t do anything about my wish lists because it’s human nature always having desire to get extra and in fact impossible stuffs

So, folks wish me best of luck!

Finally, Happy New Year 2K9 to all!

It was a wonderful experience of hiking from in Shivapuri National Park. A six hours of continuous walk was quite exciting. The hiking program was organized by CodeArts as a refreshment program. We started our journey from Sundarijal at about 10 AM and we finally completed our journey at about 4.30 PM.
We encountered an unexpected event during this hiking. One of the members of CodeArts had bought movie camera and when we were preparing to initialize our core journey from entering gate of Shivapuri National park we were told a movie camera capable of capturing still photo shots would cost us NRs. 3000.00. It was quite ridiculous rule in the sense that nowadays most of the people have a movie camera embedded in a digital still camera or a multimedia mobile handset. The folks at the gate warn us that if we went without paying fee for movie camera and if the guards or military personnel inside the park check us then the movie camera could be seized. Since we were coming from one gate (Sundarijal side) and passing through another gate (Narayanthan) so, it was not feasible and assuring to give the folks at the gate our asset. So our CEO (Mr. Brijendra Joshi) called some known guys (suitable to say doctors) from Nepal Medical College and movie camera was returned to them. It took our 2 hours of our precious time and we formally started out core hiking journey at about 10.45 AM. A real mess due to some shit rules.
After completing the hiking in the national park we did not see any authorized personnel checking anything. So, at last we found that returning the movie camera was just the waste of time.
But don’t worry we did break the rules (of course pathetic ones) by capturing movies from our mobile and digital camera .
Google Maps Link is here.
Some snapshots of the trip:

A panorama at its best

Sun is shining

A blue grape like thing but not exactly

Its me

What is this?

One can view the photo album here.

Conclusion: A hiking full of fun; will never forget it indeed.