The Rizvi Post

Where the Hell is Matt?

2008-11-17T00:37:00.000-08:00

This video has always brought smile on my face no matter how many times I watch it. So just to make you all smile again, here is the video:

... and if you want to know how Matt did then watch the following video:

I am a PC

2008-09-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

Finally some sensible ads from the software giant. Apple (ads) now has some serious competition. Of the 3 ads from Microsoft I like the 2nd one the most. Enjoy..

Last Week at ESRI

2008-08-04T23:49:00.000-07:00

So this is the last week of my internship at ESRI. Like all the good thing, this too will come to an end. Saying that I had an amazing time at ESRI, would be an understatement. Not only I learned new technologies related to GIS ; ArcGIS, ArcMap, but also I learned to write "cleaner", professional and easy-to-follow code (seriously). Its not that I didn't know about the ways to write a better code, its just that I didn't feel the need to follow the guidelines. But at ESRI memory management, code execution time, etc are VERY important. So initially I had another pair of eyes look at what I have written. I thought that it was really hardcore but I know now that it was important for me to understand how I should follow the guidelines.

Things that I learned at ESRI are priceless but what I cherished the most was the culture at ESRI. I tried my level best to disappoint my team :) but they were always supportive and eager to help me out. I guess Jack Dangermond is responsible for that. He himself is a very friendly fellow.

The photo is from an event, where all of the Summer 08 interns can be seen with Mr. Jack.

8 weeks and ArcGIS later

2008-07-15T00:14:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would have enough time to blog about my everyday experiences at ESRI. But going back to Tustin over the weekend to be with my family, learning python and reading an interesting book after work, turned out to be very time consuming. Right now I am testing a crawler that I wrote few days ago and seems to be doing running just fine, giving me just enough time to blog about my experience at ESRI.

The internship, that started on 19th May, 2008, is now in its 9th week. I have been doing some actual work which will be incorporated in ArcGIS 9.3 later on. But I am still trying to get the hang of ArcGIS. Learning ArcGIS and developing features that use ArcGIS is definitely something I am enjoying. In fact I am learning some fundamental things related to software engineering and development that I couldn't learn when I took courses related to these topics. That is why I strongly feel that Software Engineering courses shouldn't be all about documentation and diagrams.

The only thing bad about my whole experience so far has nothing to do with ESRI, its the weather. Redlands is very hot during the summer. It gives me a little strength, however, when my fellow interns tell me that its even hotter in Palm spring and people still go to work there. Ouch!

Well I guess I should be happy that I am not in Palm spring :-)

Internship @ ESRI - Day 1

2008-05-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier about my summer internship at ESRI. That time I wasn't very sure what it'll be like working for this company. Plus there was this whole hassle of moving to Redlands for the summer. Not to mention I had my finals and project submissions/presentations to take care of. In all that frenzy I never thought about how it would be like once I am there at the headquarters of the Global GIS leader.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the way I was treated today, my 1st day at ESRI. First, the headquarter is more like a college campus. The lush green grass and countless trees (protecting you from the deadly heat) just brings smile to your face. Secondly, the offices are well equipped with state-of-the-art technology yet they are designed to preserve as much normalcy as possible. And finally, the people who made ESRI the global leader, are not only intelligent and creative group of people but also they are friendly, courteous and welcoming.

Today was mostly about providing me with the general idea off ESRI products. However, I am more excited about the task that I will be eventually assigned: programming in C#.net. What? Do you think that I will actually tell you about the task. I am no Mark Jen :-)

Well I will keep posting about my experience at ESRI. Anybody out there who is thinking about joining ESRI as an intern or full-time employee, please don't waste time , just join the company. It is a great place with lot of cool innovation and development underway. Will it help if I tell you that they have far more advanced tool then Google maps?

"I don't need extra credit"

2008-05-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

Today was the day that I had to present my AI project to the class. I was prepared for the Spam filter and the Spell checker that I created using Naive Bayes Classifier. My power point slides were ready to impress everybody. I was anxiously waiting for my turn to present. However my professor had some different idea. She decided to go through some of the material related to our assignment.

She went on and on and on, until only 15 minutes were left. I knew that I won't be able to present today but definitely I have to present on Wednesday(which will be our last class before the finals).

After the class I went to the professor and told her how I am more than prepared to present my project. To my utter bewilderment she said "Oh you don't need to present, you don't need extra credit" because I was doing well in my class. (The presentation was for extra credit and was optional). I tried to argue that even if I am doing well, I still wanted to present but to no avail.

So it seems like that I won't be able to show my work to the class. I was upset because all the hard work (power point slides) will go unnoticed but at the same time I was glad to hear that I am doing pretty well in my class.

Oh well, everything happens for a reason. (I am just not sure what it is)

Update: So I was finally able to present my project. It turns out that not many students were willing to show their work which worked out for me :)