Microsoft Dream Spark Yatra 10:06 AM

Microsoft DreamSpark Yatra is an initiative by Microsoft, to conduct large-scale technology-oriented events in various cities. This event focuses on spreading awareness among the masses, about new & innovative technologies. This event is one of its kind, with a motive to cover 100 cities in 10 weeks (mid-Feb to end-April). This event will be done in collaboration with one or more Microsoft Student
Partners and Microsoft Evangelists.
  We are CoimBatorE User Group supported by Microsoft, iNeta and Leadcap. It’s a User Group formed by Microsoft Student partners in 2007. Microsoft Students Partners are the selected and trained students by Microsoft from various institutions across the globe. Though Tamilnadu being one of the Educational hub in India,
students are not aware of the latest technology and happenings of it across the globe. In order to overcome this we conduct conferences and Hands-on-lab in various colleges in and around Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Sathyamangalam, Namakkal, Rasipuram, Thanjavur and various other districts of Tamilnadu. As a part of Microsoft Dreamspark Yatra we are conducting one day workshops in various institutions of Tamilnadu. So far we have conducted events in various institutions of Coimbatore, Erode, Rasipuram, Thanjavur, Sathyamangalam and Namakkal. We have covered more than 9200 students in these cities in just 1 month.
 

Please Visit!

http://www.cbeug.org
http://www.facebook.com/cbeug
http://www.youtube/cbeug

BootCamp V2.0 - Sprint 8:02 PM

Hi!
Its been a long time. I hope you are doing good! My joy knows no bounds right now. I am truly happy to inform you that the February Boot Camp was an amazing Success. We had a 2 Day Boot Camp at Coimbatore in Hotel Vijay Paradise. 24 MSPs from Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Thanjavur, Nammakal, Karur etc. Turned up for the Session. Again, it was a BIG HIT!!

We organized the Boot Camp with the help of a few newly recruited MSPs so that they get an experience into organizing events. Again it was a thrilling last-minute successful planning and lightning fast implementation.
The only problem we faced was that we didn't have even a single Rupee in the Usergroup Account.

Anyways, moving on to The Bootcamp. It begin with an introduction to the Usergroup where we explained what are the roles of an MSP and the responsibilities of the Executive Body. Notepads, Pens, Charts and CBEUG Stickers were distributed to all during this time. It was a pleasant surprise for the MSPs.
After the CBEUG Organization session was over, we conducted the SONA - State of National Affairs

This was an activity where the MSPs are jumbled and made to sit in groups. Then a couple of tasks would be given to each team which required interaction amongst each other and amazing Team Work. This was the perfect Ice Breaking Session. (I would suggest it for the best case practice)
After SONA we broke for lunch and we came back to Sathya Narayan's Session to help the Phase II selected MSPs, introducing them to the various sessions and tips on how to go about handling the various tasks being an MSP. It really helped the new recruits.

Next we had a Driver's Test. This test is a personality analysis Test. Test sheets were handed out to all the MSPs and all of them were made to complete the test. Then the analysis was based upon the responses of the MSPs. I was truly shocked to see that the Test made a 90% Perfect Analysis of the Individual. This was a real eye opener.
After the Driver's Test, Arumugham and I left the venue to the OCP get a little gift for the attendees. Meanwhile Jibin Varghese was taking care of the attendees by checking them into the rooms and making sure that everything was fine. I had planned a small party where we had another Ice Breaking session, but due to the immense participation of the MSPs during the whole day, most of them slept off.

The Next Day began with a Bang. EduSpark Analysis and planning was made full on. I was inspired by the team effort put by all the MSPs in planning the EduSpark. We finalized the entire list of colleges to visit, the total number of Developer Conferences and the number of Goodies to provide to the audience.
After we finalized the plans and had a nice lunch. We had the awards ceremony, where we distributed the little surprise to everyone. They were a set of Visiting Cards for all the attendees of the session. We also distributed resource DVDs. It was a pleasant surprise for them. Vice Presidents of the Usergroup was also announced.

Dancing skills depicted by Arumugham

Then we "promised" an award for the Best Performing MSP and the MSP to initiate Maximum number of MSDN AA and Live@edu, (We didn't have any goodies left to award them something nice too :( )

This was the long 2 Day amazingly "AWESOME" Boot Camp that we had ever Conducted. It was a nice experience. Please do support our UG .

Thanks for reading!

24th October 2009 - A Milestone in CBEUG - The First ever BootCamp @ Coimbatore 10:19 AM

The day began with Arumugham, two fellow usergroup members (Fazulul & Vivek) and myself receiving the MSPs who came for the BootCamp. The venue of the BootCamp was Zoom Consultancy. My sincere thanks to Mr. Anil Nair for providing us the venue. The MSPs who came for the BootCamp were

Indhuja Pillai - Narasu's Sarathy Institute of Technology , Salem
Saarang - Tamil Nadu College of Engineering , Coimbatore
Jibin Varghese - Tamil Nadu College of Engineering, Coimbatore
Bharath Wajan Prabhu - M. Kumarasamy College of Engineering , Coimbatore
Gopinantham - Nandha College of Engineering, Erode
Gowtham - Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore
Venkat - Velalar College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore
Animesh Jain - Shaasthra University, Thanjavur
Kusumakar Dwivedi - Shaasthra University, Thanjavur
Raja Ram - PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore
Sathyanarayanan - Krishna College of Arts and Science , Coimbatore
Krsna Rajan - Maha College of Engineering,
Siddharth - Bannari Amman College of Technology, Coimbatore

There were a couple of more MSPs who happen to miss the session due to various reasons, but we will make it a point that their role transitions happen to them also.


The Agenda for the day was

Introduction 9 30 AM - 10 00 AM
Ice Breaking Session 10 00 AM - 11 00 PM
MSP Program 11 00 PM - 12 00 PM
Lunch 12 00 PM - 1 30 PM
CBEUG Structure 1 30 PM - 2 30 PM
Exclusive Session for New
MSPs on how to achieve targets 2 30 PM - 3 30 PM
Feedback and Interaction 3 30 PM - 4 00 PM

Arumugham and Myself began the introductory session and we started off explaining our past experiences and how we were recruited into the program and so on. The Ice Breaking session was effective, we made the new recruits make 10 statements about themselves out of which 5 statements should be stated false, and the rest of them should guess which were the false statements made by the speaker. We explained the roles and benefits of an MSP, the Do's and Don'ts etc. Then comes the most interesting part , Lunch!

But.. for us..
Lunch: 4 of us ate Pizza and we had to empty our wallets. 1000 Bucks!!! :'(

So, after a sumptuous lunch the CBEUG structure was explained to them. I would be proud to say that even a heavy meal didn't make the MSPs feel sleepy for any of the session. Then the method of uploading and the opportunities available for the new recruits to gain points very easily was clearly described. I was very glad that the MSPs were already in the process of planning to reach their targets. One of the MSPs (Sathya) already has secured 160 points which was truly amazing!


After the sessions and lots of coffee, we celebrated the launch of Windows 7! It was a small party where we ate some Junk food and used the Windows 7 Tissue Papers :). Overall it was a memorable event, a niche in the history of CBEUG. Hoping to make wonders in the coming days.

The New Recruits were amazing to be with. They truly deserve the role of an MSP. They were highly responsive and interactive.

We are truly glad that we were able to motivate and guide our junior MSPs, personally It really feels good within meeting them :)


@ the New Recs: NOW ITS (Y)OUR TIME TO SHINE ;)


Gee! Im Friggin' excited about the next meeting already. aksj;klsadj;flkadwm;f;jew''wefjsljka <-- Statement of Excitement

Session at Karunya! 1100+ Students! Speaker: Siddharth Prakash! 12:58 PM

Mr. Siddarth Prakash, Program manager, Microsoft along with CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group conducted a seminar on Introduction to .net, Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft Academic Initiatives and a lot of cool demos in the premises of Karunya University on 20th March 2009.


There were more than 1100+ attendees from 1st, 2nd, 3rd years of IT and CSE Department. It was organized by the .net club of Karunya University. The students were really very enthusiastic and interactive.

The session went on for a period of one hour, and the enthusiastic crowd required more time to shoot questions at Siddharth, who also was dynamically answering them. The Director of the Engineering Block, Mr. Blessing was very instrumental in making this event a grand success. The students of the college also spent some quality time with Siddharth and the Microsoft Student Partners to learn more about their ideas and future plans.

Link to Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6kYib3YVBQ

COIMBATORE STUDENT SUMMIT '09 - Developing Interest in Student Community 12:52 PM

Its an technical gyan event conducted by CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group, were all the Microsoft Student Partners, Mozilla Campus Representatives join together and conduct a one day conference in Coimbatore. This time the CSS '09 was hosted by INFOSCIENCE, a campus club of Tamilnadu Engineering College. The college is situated in picturesque surroundings, abutting NH 47 (Salem-Cochin) in Karumathampatti, 30km for the industrial city of Coimbatore, 20km from the textile center of Tirupur and 10km from the temple town of Avinashi.(tats wat they have put in their website :D) INFOSCIENCE is a highly enthusiastic and well organized campus club.Special thanks to Pradeesh, Shiva Shankar, Vipin and INFOSCIENCE members(the people behind the scene) of III yr CSE .Their management skills was truly admirable.


There were more than 1400 attendees from more than 20 different colleges in and around Coimbatore. We started with Microsoft Academic Initiative which included Microsoft Student Partner Program, CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group Channel 8, MSDN AA, Live@Edu, Dreamspark, Ineta, Imagine Cup 09, Faculty Connection and Student2Business.


Immediately after that Windows 7 was taken, students were very keen throughout this session and were amazed by the cool features. Then we explained them how to create a Virtual hard disc in windows 7 which is an inbuilt feature in it with a demo and also on VS 2008 with intro to .net. After 1 hour of lunch we started with a session on Mozilla Firefox add - ons and all about blogging. Then we took few more technical sessions with a lot of demos like creating a silverlight & WPF applications, then Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Photosynth and all about User Experience. We also played a small skit to make the students understand the problems faced by company on the issue "wide gap between developer and designer". That made them understand more easily.


And then we had an amazing Quiz session which prevented from all the attendees to go for a break. Then at last the most awaiting session Microsoft Robotics Studio was taken. All the students were thrilled and excited. They were really amazed when we showed them how easy it is to write a program in Visual Programming Language and also run the Robot in Simulated Environment.


Then once again we did our usual thing of askin the same old question "Which operating system does Rajinikanth use?" because we believe that it makes the crowd happy. :D CSS '09 was a grand and successful event and we are sure that it had Developed Interest in Student Community

Workshop - Mahendra Engineering College on 2nd & 3rd March 2009 12:33 PM

Mahendra College of Engineering is situated on Salem - Tiruchengode main road 27 KMs from Salem and 33 KMs from Erode which are main Railway Junction connecting all important cities of India.
After our successful Developer Conference in their campus last year, they invited us again for conducting a Workshop .
This time we planned for 2 days workshop with 1 day completely dedicated for Hands on Lab.
@1st day:
There were 200 attendees on the 1st day.The attendees for the 1st day were from:
• 2nd & 3rd ECE
• 2nd & 3rd IT
• 2nd & 3rd CSE

We started with Microsoft Academic Initiative which included Microsoft Student Partner Program, CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group Channel 8, MSDN AA, Live@Edu, Dreamspark, Ineta,Imagine Cup 09, Faculty Connection and Student2Business.
Immediately after that the most eagerly awaited session, Windows 7 was taken. Where the students were amazed by the cool features. Then we explained them how to install and run different operating system virtually using Virtual PC 2007.We were provided with Internet facilities which helped us in showing demos.
After a 1 hr break, we started with technical sessions which included VS2008 with demos for explaining collaboration and productivity feature in VS 2008, Live Mesh with a demo synchronizing 2 laps and then popfly with a Demo on Mash Up. At last we ended day one with explaining about Mozilla and Blogging.
@2nd day:
For the 2nd day Hands on Lab, only 90 of the 200 students were selected as we could arrange only two labs with 45 computers each. So in LAB 1 we installed SQL SERVER 2008 (Trial), VS 2008 Express Edition and in LAB 2 we installed Small Basics, Expression Blend & VS 2008 Express Edition.
The attendees for the 2nd day were also from:
• 2nd & 3rd ECE
• 2nd & 3rd IT
• 2nd & 3rd CSE
As it was hands on lab we started of early, 8:30 AM itself. For the 1st 45 students we helped them in having a live working experience on creating a website with zero code using asp.net in VS 2008. They learnt how useful it is to create a master page and develop a website. They also learnt how easy to create a database in SQLSERVER 2008 and connect it to the website.
Simultaneously the other set of 45 students learnt how easy it is to write a program in Small Basics when compared to that of writing program in TURBO C++. They also learnt to design a media player using Silverlight Technology in Expression Blend and then easily code in VS 2008.
After the break in the second half it was vice versa.
The students really had a lot of fun, learning by actually working on them.

Skipping time, Some Bombastic Events! 11:03 AM

I just skipped a lot of events that had happened, I would definitely love to blog about them in my future posts. But as of now I am highly excited to disclose the fact that I have spoken to ATLEAST 4000 people in the past few weeks! I was really a thrilling experience! I had a great time! And it was an amazing Experience

Developer Conference - Vellalar Engineering College, Salem on 28th Feb 09

The visit to this college was memorable. We had an amazing stay and the hospitality offered by the college members were Awesome. Vellalar College of Engineering is Located at 7 km from Erode Railway Junction & Bus Stand, TamilNadu. We had been invited by the students for conducting a Microsoft student Conference on 28th of February 2009. A special thanks to Ganesh and Jemima of III rd year IT department.

As in every function we had a inaugural starting with lighting a lamp (“Kuttu Vilakku").
We were really embarrassed and also a bit nervous when we sat on the Dias with the Principal, Administrative Director, and Head of the Department of IT Dept. We were really proud when the Administrative Director said "It’s really nice to see 4 boys from their 3rd yrs and that too from a new college sitting next to me in the Dias". We had audiences around 500+ which included
• 2nd & 3rd year CSE
• 2nd & 3rd IT
• 1st &2nd MCA
As usual we started with the introductory session about our User Group, Microsoft Student Partner program, Microsoft Academic Initiatives. Meanwhile we were also conducting Group Discussion and selecting Students for AIESEC interview.
Then technical sessions that included Into to .NET, VS2008, Expression Studio, Demo on Expression blend and Linq, Virtual PC 2007.


We also spoke on Microsoft Research which included Microsoft Surface, Photosynth, Boku, Live Mesh and Windows 7.
After that while getting the feedback we put up a question "convince us what operating system Rajinikanth uses".
The following students were the participants
1. Bala Shankar III yr IT
2. Selva Prabhu II yr IT
3. Rajkumar III yr CSE – A
4. Aravindhan II yr CSE
5. Rangaraju II yr CSE
And many more (sorry guyz I forgot all ur names)
We had many funny and interesting answers from the students, Selva Prabhu II yr IT who got the maximum vote, won a GENUINE VISTA BUSINESS.

After the conference everyone appreciated us and from the heart thanked us. The HOD of IT department attended the whole session and was extremely happy about the success of the event. He said he had done a mistake of not calling us long back itself, to his college.
After the conference we took Interview for AIESEC and winded up.

Hate programming? Well, Small Basic is here! 10:17 PM

Small Basic is a project that's aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.

• Small Basic derives its inspiration from the original BASIC programming language, and is based on the Microsoft .Net platform. It is really small with just 15 keywords and uses minimal concepts to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible.
  
• The Small Basic development environment is simple, yet provides powerful modern environment features like Intellisense™ and instant context sensitive help.
  
• Small Basic allows third-party libraries to be plugged in with ease, making it possible for the community to extend the experience in fun and interesting ways

Small Basic FAQ 

What is Small Basic?

Small Basic is a project that is focused at making programming accessible and easy for beginners. It consists of three distinct pieces:

• the Language
• the Programming Environment
• Libraries

The Language draws its inspiration from an early variant of BASIC but is based on the modern .Net Framework Platform. The Environment is simple but rich in features, offering beginners several of the benefits that professional programmers have come to expect of a worthy IDE. A rich set of Libraries help beginners learn by writing compelling and interesting programs.

Who is Small Basic for?

Small Basic is intended for beginners that want to learn programming. In the trials, results with kids between the ages of 10 and 16 were successful. However, it's not limited to just kids; even adults that had an inclination to programming have found Small Basic very helpful in taking that first step. 

How do I learn Small Basic?

Download (Here) and install the Small Basic software. You can then use the friendly "Introducing Small Basic" document to help you get started with Small Basic.

How is it different from QBASIC?

• Unlike QBASIC, Small Basic is based on .Net and can consume (not produce) "Objects".
• It supports distinct Operations, Properties and Events.
• It doesn't have GOSUB :)

How is it different from VB.Net?

• Small Basic is small - much smaller than VB and supports just a subset of what VB.Net supports.
• You can actually write a compiler using VB.Net

What are the unique features of the Small Basic language?

• 
  
  Imperative
  
  
  Just like the early variants of BASIC, Small Basic is imperative and doesn't use or expose beginners to concepts like scopes, types, object orientation, etc.
• 
  
  Size
  
  
  The Small Basic language consists of just 14 keywords.
• 
  
  Type System
  
  
  There actually isn't one. You can create string and numeric constants and assign them to variables. Operations performed on these variables will be interpreted according to the content.
• 
  
  Variables
  
  
  All variables are global and are always initialized. They can be used before they're assigned.
• 
  
  Events
  
  
  You can create a sub-routine and assign it to an event. This will wire the it up to an the event.
• 
  
  Libraries
  
  
  The libraries provide static "Objects" that group operations, properties and events. New libraries can be created using other .Net Languages and added to the Small Basic runtime.

What about Scratch, Alice?

Both Scratch and Alice are great tools that help beginners learn the concepts of programming. They are doing so by enabling people to write "codeless" programs. Small Basic is taking a different approach by introducing code as a first class concept.

What about KPL?

KPL (now known as Phrogram) was a great concept that used to focus purely on beginners (and hence the name, Kids Programming Language). In the last couple years, it seems to have now extended its vision to support intermediate and advanced users too. Small Basic focus purely on the beginners; there are tons of other options for the intermediate and advanced users.

What are the limitations of Small Basic?

Small Basic is small and intuitive as possible. It's okay to limit Small Basic from being the language of choice for solving every conceivable problem. For example, while it's theoretically possible to write a Small Basic compiler using Small Basic, it's probably not a good idea.

What is the evolution strategy for the language?

One of the most important visions of this project is to focus on the beginner persona. This is very important, features that doesn't cater to this type of persona was highly avoided. 

THE BOOTCAMP AT GOA (LONG POST - READ ONLY IF JOBLESS) 1:46 AM

Day 0: The Journey Begins

The journey began at 8:00 pm from Coimbatore. Madhan, Arumugham and me were the ones who set out together. We had a great time at the station cracking jokes and stuff. After we boarded the train serious discussions regarding the usergroups set the tensed mood. Madhan parted at Shoranur as he had booked in another train. Arumugham and me were left in the train. We discussed about the plans  that was made earlier and we came up with brilliant concepts. Then it was the "Lights-off" Time.

Day 1: @ Mangalore

We reached Mangalore at 5:00 am. Arumugham woke me up, as I had slept like a cow last night. We got down and it was surprising to see the our fellow MSPs from Madras! It was indeed pleasant to see them! After having a cuppa coffee (Without brushing our teeth lol!) Krishnaa, Diwaagar , Arumugham and myself took a walk to "explore" Mangalore :P. We had a couple of idlis at a nearby restaurant and we packed some for the rest too :) (We are kind people really) After a good Hog, we boarded the train to Goa (i.e. Madgaon) I being the amateur paparazzi kept taking snaps of each and everything :)

In the train I was very happy to sit at my favorite place in the train, The window seat with me facing the direction of travel!!! The scenery and greenery (Awesome! I can even rap now!) was amazing. The climate is very pleasant in the morning, but I dunno how bad it could get in the afternoon, as it is already getting warmed. A couple of "Flashy" people were there in the train, I guess they came for a tour or something. A female came and sat in our compartment, she pretended to be the hottest female on earth, hence she ran away from our compartment as she realized that we are MICROSOFT STUDENT PARTNERS and we are HOTTER than her :P lol! (She was sitting next to Arumugham but when I sat next to her, she ran away!! Lol!) I spent most of my time trying to learn my experiments for my OS practical exam! :P lol! Arumugham read the book "Are you afraid of the dark" by Sidney Sheldon. The train got really cramped up now and I'm typing this with only one hand lol! I listened to music on my ipod, it got pretty boring though. As I was listening, I dozed off and Arumugham completed his novel. When I woke up, Arumugham was at the back along with the other MSPs. I joined them and then we started with our awesome PJs( PJ = Paandi Joke [Mokkai])

By the way the journey was very lonely for Madhan who happen to travel alone :D

@Goa!! (Madgaon -------> La Calypso)

At last after  18 hours of strenuous journey we finally reached Madgaon! I was so happy to see the glimpses of the beach! We got down and we pushed our way to the entrance of the railway station. We were pleasantly surprised to our faithful friend Madhan who happened to have waited for us for more than hour at the station! :D But our "Friends" Jyothikarthik, Bharath and Harish  happened to ditch us and went to the La Calypso Resort. Nice Friends! Lol! Childrenin guys (Tired of the word Kiddin) :) We waited for another hour at the station itself with frustration and Grrr! Our PJ's were irritating everyone! (That’s what we wanted!!) The shuttle came after an hour and we left to La CalypsO. During the journey we waited for another half an hour to pick up MSPs from another area (GRRR!!) . I took a couple of snaps during the journey, the travel was not that stressful. As usual The CBEUG was at its maximum in their effective PJ skills lol!( Arvind G. and Krishnaa were waiting for an opportunity to kick the shit outta us lol!) We created a special song for the Goa Bootcamp. Its called the Awesome Song (Note: The word awesome is patented by Madhan Raj) The song would be uploaded, you can download using a link which I would provide. Lol!

Lyrics:

Aw…. Aw…. Aw…. Awseyy

Aw…. Aw…. Aw…. Awseyy

Aw…. Aw…. Aw…. Awseyy

Aw…………………AWESOME!

(Repeat until listener is irritated)

Aw…. Aw…. Aw…. Awshee

Aw…. Aw…. Aw…. Awshee

Aw…. Aw…. Aw…. Awshee

Awwwwwwww SHIT!

(Repeat until listener kills himself)

We sang a song for each MSP in the Bus. Lol! That’s how we managed the hectic travel.

@La Calypso FINALLY

We signed in, got our ID cards and an Imagine Cup Cap from Reza. We also signed the code of conduct which was a list of DO NOTS for the things that we would do lol!. Then we ran to get the keys to retire in the rooms, but NO! We had to attend an informal session which gave us an introduction to what the Live@edu was all about. It was done by Shesha. It was a good session, but  I was unable to pay much attention cuz I was feeling very stuffy and moldy. After the session was over, we had the Ice breaker session where we should work as a team to advertise a wacky product, MAD Ads was its name, My team consisted of Lakshman, Sattvik, Marmik, Akshat, Srikanth, Saranya and Myself. I guess they advertised the product "Perfumed Socks". I bunked that event cuz I was really tired and I was desperate for a bath cuz my face was covered with soot. I wanted to see the beach badly  :( After Relaxing and stuff at our room which had a friggin see through bathroom! I had a nervous time having my bath lol! We had a sexy dinner. I made several new friends too. After the dinner we went to the Beach!! YAY!

@The Beach

 The beach was so romantic, but unfortunately I didn’t have any one to romance with :( so We made a voluptuous mermaid that attracted all the MSPs ;) Praveen, Madhan, Anmol, Arumugham and I designed the *ahem* Mermaid :D (AWESOME!!).  That was one of the achievements! Then I went around dancing with some of the Bengalooroo MSPs (Raveesh and Lakshman, Raveesh did an amazing dance step, which got the beach mud flying into my mouth :P). After some dancing and photography sessions. Then we returned our tired bodies to the room and we relaaaxed. We met a couple of Amazing MSPs without whom our stay would have been boring.

Back @ The room

Praveen, Vishwa, Laxman, Siddharth and many more gave us wonderful company. Of course I didn't stop laughing when Praveen was around lol! :D It was around 11 in the night, I decided to take a walk in the streets of Goa, wished for some wine shop to be opened so that I could smuggle some stuff to Coimbatore! Lol! I was given a long order by my friends. But all I bought was a couple of fenny and a wine :D Cuz I didn’t have cash. :P Sri Ram, Praveen, Anmol and I took a pretty long walk, we went up to a bar called "Kamasutra" lol! Had a good laugh out there and came back cuz we were kinda tired. I went back into the room. Vishwa, Madhan, Arumugham and I had a chat. I tasted a small bit of the fenny, it screwed my happiness . Lol! That taste refused to leave my mouth. Then after drinking tea and eating a couple of mints I retired for the night. Goodnight!

Day 2: The Sessions

The day began at 8:00….. F*CK!!!!(Hope the * makes it look less abusive :P) I was supposed to get up at 6:30, run to the beach and take snaps of the Sun Rise!! MISSED IT !!! OHNOO!!

Again disappointed, got ready for the sessions. Ate the amazing breakfast! (I won't describe what I ate, cuz I would end up drooling on my keyboard) The sessions began , we had Siddharth explain the activities for us and the method of submitting them. Mark and Tejas also gave us more knowledge on the academic initiatives .After the short break which included some amazing hot tea/coffee with.. OK Lets jump to the session.

The next session was by Lakshman Srikanth on robotics with his i-Robot :) He navigated his robot through his laptop, and Sattvik also added more flavor to the session by making the robot sing a song from Rock on!!*  (Of course not like Celine Dion or someone but you know that beep beep toing sound thing ?) This was Video-taped by the 6'5" Hunk/Hulk ANIL!! (You can check the video at Lakshmans Blog.)

After the lunch it was the session by Krishnaa. He was the top performer of the year. So he gave us a gist on what happened at the Student Daze at Redmond. Then came his session on Windows Server 2008, I tried my level best to pay attention to his session, but unfortunately I happened to see Sahitya borrow an iPhone from Aakash.

<Jealous>

Then I was busy looking at Sahitya nondifying (Nondify is a Tamil + English word that means meddle) with Aakash's iPhone didn't concentrate much what was going on. I got the iphone from her and I started nondifying it. Hmm.. Lucky Guy Aakash :)

</Jealous> 

After a break the Madras MSPs (Arvind G. and Diwaagar) took a session on XNA Game development. I was very eager to attend that session, but I had to go halfway and pack my bags as *Sniff* I had to leave *Sniff* that evening *Sniff* I attended the last part of their session. I bid everyone bye in the hall and left La Calypso. Sigh…

@Travel Back to Madgaon

This was the worst part of our travel, We (Arumugham, Arvind, Sri Ram, Laxman, Siddharth and Myself) took a cab to Panjim. From there Arumugham and I part ways and we had to take a bus from Panjim to Madgaon. That was very thrilling. Our Train was at 8:40 and it was 7:30, time taken from Panjim to Madgaon - 1 F*CKING HOUR!!! Bus would arrive only after 15 Minutes. Arumugham and I were on tenterhooks! We got the bus, got down at Madgaon (8:40) Zoomed to the station. There the security checked our bags to see if we took any booze(Ulp! I escaped) , we decided that we missed the train, to our luck the train was late, and it was late by

THREE LONG FRIGGIN HOURS!!!!WE WAITED FOR THREE HOURS. So much for the thrill :( Finally the train came we boarded it and we had a safe journey back to Coimbatore

And then they happily lived ever after..

If you reached this line, I would like to thank you for spending your precious time in reading the entire post. Hope I didn’t bore you or anything. Please do comment on the post. Also I wanted to thank all the wonderful people who I met at Goa . I really look forward to meet you people and do a program someday. Hope we meet again before you leave the MSP program. :) Thanks to Reza, Siddharth, Mark and Tejas for making it happen at Goa. I know I missed a lot at Goa, but I'm happy that I don’t regret that one day stay. :) And also a special thanks to Arumugham who was by my side throughout the entire journey :)

Also If I have forgot to mention any of the MSPs please do let me know, as my database is highly limited :( Also mention if I had forgotten to mention any event. 

Fast Forward 9:36 PM

Ok now I cant be telling you all the prominent events that happen in my life at one go , cuz either it would get boring or I would get irritated lol! So several amazing events happen in my life almost everyday. Some of them are...

• TRIchrome '08: An Inter-Collegiate Event held at our college. It was conducted for the first time in our college, and in our city. A 3 day event conducted only by one department, that is the DEpartment of Information TechnologY (DeITy). It turned out to be a grand success. We were very happy, it was one helluva experience in life :) I was one of the coordinators in the 3 day event.

• Academic Developer Conference : Conducted by the CBEUG (Coimbatore User Group) Oh yeah Im a member of that group :P (Being an MSP from Coimbatore). We got a massive crowd of 1100 people from 17 colleges!
  

• The AIESEC LTS: The first event of AIESEC which I attended. It was an amazing experience. I came to know about what AIESEC really is and how we work as a team. I met so many people, made so many friends. Tagged around with Sashank and Gowtham. Two freakos! lol!

• The AIESEC LCONF: The first local conference of AIESEC Coimbatore at Sathyam Resort. It was an opportunity for me to recognize my peers and the way how AIESEC works. We had to do some self assessments like the Google Competency Model and stuff, I attended only for one day, but it was a three day function. Amazing experience it was! Yeah amazing.... amazing.... :P

• TechVista 2008: This was at Madras, conducted by Microsoft Research India. One of the most elegant events I have come across. Conducted with grandness and quality. That inspired me a lot. Hope we get to do an event like that. Ill be writing a post on this soon.

• The Goa Boot Camp: This was the trip that I was highly enthu about, I would be elaborating about it in my Further Post :)

The Story of me Becoming a Microsoft Student Partner 9:33 PM

September 2007:

"Yawn! What to do next?" - That was the kind of boy who I am. So after joining my newly opened college, I was wondering whether I would get any opportunities to express myself. All of a sudden one day I heard that people from Microsoft are coming to our college. I was like WTF!?! Microsoft to our newly opened college!? That was Amazing! I went around boasting about it lol!

The day before the program, I stayed back in college to help out do the audio and visual arrangements. Then I saw the Microsoft People! They were Siddharth Prakash, Mayur Tendulkar and Sumedh Sakdeo. I spoke so formal and after engaging in conversation for a while, I happened to ask how were your college days, and the response I got from them was "Dude, I'm still in College!"

Shocked I was, I wanted to become one too! And to my luck, they were recruiting MSPs!! I attended the group discussions and interview. Now comes the worst part. The selection, I had butterflies in my stomach! Then I overeheard a couple of people who said that I was not selected. [:(] Sigh... When I spoke to Mayur, He too said that I was not selected cuz I was not good enough. It was very depressing, the results were not yet announced though. I decided to improve myself and get recruited the next time!

After a few days, I got a call. I was wondering who it was. It was from Microsoft!! They said that I was selected for the program and they wanted to have a telephonic interview. My happiness knew no bounds lol! I almost ended up kissing my friend! (Friend is guy and I'm not gay) 

So thats the story of me becoming a Microsoft Student Partner!