Phoenix

Another year has gone by. 2009 sped away; like the gusty winds of North Carolina! As with every year, here's a new year quote: May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions! -- Joey Adams That is one more reason NOT to make a new year resolution! The year started with my second semester at NC State, then an internship at Qualcomm in San Diego and then a feverish third semester. Of course with four courses in the last semester, it was bound to be meteoric! After a laborious one-and-half years, here I am with a Master's degree in Computer Engineering. It is so satisfying to see the hard work reflected on the degree :) It really feels strange though, when I think that I no longer have projects, assignments, exams! The very next day after my exams ended I followed the routine to check the course webpage for any new projects/assignments. It was then that I realized that my MS is over and I've graduated! It's a strange feeling... no project deadlines, ...

To start with, let me clarify that this post is not meant to be a job search guide! It is intended to only give some pointers in choosing the right courses. If you are in the field of computing, you would know that these days the mantra is Multi-core CPUs rather than Blazingly fast single-core CPUs. Gone are the days of clock-cranking where you would see a jump in the CPU clock speed every fortnight or so. In a way, the computing industry has reached a theoretical barrier of cranking the clock speed. The focus is now on inclusion of multiple cores on the same die. No wonder you see the "dual-core, tri-core, quad-core and soon octa-core CPU" ads. Unless there is a breakthrough in the field of microelectronics and cooling solutions, this "stuffing-of-more-cores-on-the-same-die" will continue. From a normal computer user's perspective, it may seem like "Wow! Two cores, double performance!". Nope...Thats not entirely true, in fact not even half true! The...

I guess this is the quickest follow-up in the series. But if this part is not up at the right time it loses its relevancy! The previous part covered packing your bags. This part [the last in the series] will cover all about traveling to the US and how to survive during the initial days of your stay. 6) Traveling to the US and initial days of stay The first thing to do is to get a good document folder, large enough to house all the documents you wish to take. Make a list of the documents that you may ever need while you are in the US. Some generic things which come to the mind are: 1) Passport 2) I-20 3) SEVIS Fee receipt 4) Graduate School Admission letter 5) GRE, TOEFL score cards 6) Bachelors degree [or provisional] certificate and copies 7) Extra copies of your transcripts 8) Certificate of financial responsibility [the letters from your bank & CA validating the 'moolah' you showed to the VISA officer] 9) Any certificates you may wish to carry in order to support your st...

Its the time of the year when students aspiring to pursue Masters in the US are in a dilemma in finalizing a university. Some may haf finalized the university. Whether you belong to the former or the latter, you are sure to haf many Qs racing in your mind. I've been getting a lot of emails, wall posts, messages etc. regarding information about North Carolina State University (NCSU). The questions are all the same. Hence I decided to write a FAQ which will answer most of the Qs. Hope you find this blog post useful. Q. Are there any chances of financial aid at NCSU for international students (Masters Students)? [This is the most popular Q] A. NO. You need to be born with a golden spoon in your mouth to be funded at NCSU; be it in the CS or ECE department. There is almost absolutely NO funding at NCSU. If you are banking on funding for your MS then just forget about this university! [Update] This was not to discourage anybody. The point is that nobody can guarantee your funding/schol...

After a long gap I am here to complete the penultimate part of the series which deals which pre-departure information. I've decided to split the fifth part into two articles as I feel there is enough material to be penned down. 5) Booking your tickets and packing your bags When done with the VISA work the next major task is to book your tickets and pack your bags. All this is to be done to make your initial days in the US a not-so-horrible-experience. Beginning the article with booking your tickets, if you are traveling to the US in Fall (July-Aug) you are most likely to come across a student discount offered by most of the airlines. Be sure to check with the airline or your travel agent about the discount. Be wary of some travel agencies who levy heavy taxes on the ticket. Also most airlines will allow you to carry 3 pieces of check-in (cargo) baggages if you show your I-20, which is proof that you are a student. It is best to visit the airline office (or call them up/visit their ...

This is a song from Enrique's album - Seven. The song is apt for this post. Landed in San Diego, California yesterday. San Diego is the second largest city in CA and rated as the finest city of the US. Well, I could see that yesterday, why! The San Diego International Airport is located just by the bay. So when the flight lands or takes off you can see the harbor along the side. Magnificent view! The photo expresses the details stronger than words (Click to enlarge. Photo courtesy: Google) I wasn't able to click any pics as it was just too cloudy yesterday. This airport is the busiest single runway airport in the US. Its astonishing to see how every take-off and landing is managed in this single-runway airport. Flights are seldom delayed. The city is beautiful with palm trees all over the sides on every road. High rise buildings dot the city. The place I live in is called La Jolla. Its a suburb of San Diego. The place is pronounced 'lə-HOY-ə'. This place has a lot of Sp...

Its been about 4 days since I'm back from my New York trip. Still gotta get out of the "vacation mood". But the sad part is that today is the last day of my vacations and classes begin from tomorrow; more accurately the "Spring 2009" semester beings at NC State University. This time I've enrolled for 4 courses which includes an MBA course. I'm either too brave or too foolish to do so. Time will tell :D This is the time when everyone starts applying for internships and so haf I. Nobody is hiring though, everybody is firing! :P Stuff in the US is just unpredictable. The stock market, the job scenario, the weather, the fuel prices.. just about everything! Analysts say the market will stabilize in an year. Its just wait and watch for everybody. The weather is kind of depressing and will be the same all through the month. Hafn't seen the sun since days. Its been raining continuously since the past few days. Get quite cold and may snow this month. The only...

Goodbye 2008, Welcome 2009! A year has gone by. Things moved fast for me in 2008. Some good events, some heartening... Graduate Studies, gOS, Mac4Lin, Linux Magazine and some more exciting things in the pipeline :) Semester has ended and I'm getting my much needed break. "Chilling" out in Connecticut. Mind you, its really chilling. Snowing since quite sometime here. Will be getting back to Raleigh tomorrow. A week more of vacations and the usual life starts again. We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. -- Edith Lovejoy Pierce Here's wishing everybody a Happy and Exciting New Year ahead! :) EDIT: I'm back home. The New York/Connecticut trip was great. The photos are in "Now Playing" widget at the top right of my blog.

4) Applying for a VISA Long pending addition to the guide, I apologize for the delay. Been very busy with my graduate studies. Now that a semester is over I haf some time to breathe! This part of the guide is about applying for the VISA and completing the other necessary formalities. The most important thing is the documentation required. The following documents are required for the VISA process: a) I-20 issued by the University you got admit to and plan to get admit to and admission letter (if any). b) VISA fee receipt c) SEVIS fee receipt d) VISA application forms (DS forms, which is filled when applying for the VISA online) e) Passport f) Degree Certificate (or Provisional) and Transcripts g) GRE, TOEFL mark sheets h) Bank Statements which prove that you haf enough money for your education i) CA Certificate which validates your funds for education, an affidavit from sponsors and other documents j) Any certificates or proof of awards you may want to present You need at least 2 sets o...

A lot of you folks must haf heard about GPGPU (General-Purpose computation on GPUs). GPGPU is the term associated with using GPUs for general purpose computing. Today's CPUs are approaching the theoretical "speed" limit. A single core maxes out at about 3 Ghz. Going anything above does not give proportional performance gain. Its more of a liability since it involves more power, more components and hence costs more. Of corz, multi-cores is the solution which the industry has adopted; but then according to industry analysts, if there is no break-through in fundamental design of the processor then multi-cores will not scale beyond 8 cores. So, how do we satisfy all those number hungry programs like Folding@Home? Use the shamelessly powerful GPUs as co-processors to the present-day CPUs! This idea was explored way back in the '90s. The first public project was BrookGPU which exploited the GPU for general purpose computing. But since the guys who developed it were not the ...

Its back to school for me. Fall 2008 semester classes started today. Feels odd attending class after a year! The university is huge.. take my word, it is insanely huge! The campus is spread over an unimaginable area. ECE and CS departments are given step-motherly treatment by separating them from the main campus. Not that its bad or something but its away from the library which houses Xbox 360s and PS3s :D lol... Few pics of my university: Clockwise from top: 1) The ECE/CS building at Centennial Campus where my classes are conducted. 2) The famous tall Bell tower of NCSU. 3) That building is our library. Yes, you saw it right... its 7 floors tall!

Won't be online regularly for a week or so now.. at least till I settle there down. Only thing I'm worried about: non-stop 16 hours journey at a stretch :( So Mac4Lin, MS Guide and other work would be temporarily under suspension. Will get back soon. So long folks, see ya soon.....

3) Post admit work to be completed This part picks up where Part TWO left off. One important information I forgot to give in the previous part was regarding the Transcripts and Degree Certificate. You will need to apply for at least 20 copies of Transcripts (considering that on an average you are applying to about 6 Universities) and about 4-5 attested copies of your degree certificate (or provisional degree certificate, if you've just completed or will be graduating soon). Your current university may charge you some fee for this. So get in touch with them and apply for your Transcripts/DC/PDC just about a fortnight before your GRE as it may take sometime for the university to process your request. The universities will mostly start informing the students about admits from mid-March. The latest by which one can afford to get the "admit" news is by mid-June. You need to login to your account on the Universities' Graduate Admissions'/Application webpage and check th...