Raj Chaudhuri

Just before I went to Tech Ed, I was thinking of folding up my training and consulting business. The way I saw it, my two main areas of interest, Business Intelligence and SharePoint, were solved problems. People already knew these subjects well, and there was no real need to for me to continue to provide training and consulting for them.

Also, I provide in-depth trainings only. The vibe I was getting from my colleagues and the market was that deep training was a luxury people could not afford any more, and in fact, did not want.

So, I was seriously looking at taking up a job again, and in fact was talking to a very good company about this.

At Tech Ed, I got a totally different vibe. It seems that SharePoint and Business Intelligence are still very much in vogue, and there is a demand for training and consulting in both subjects. People are even willing to pay my exorbitant slightly premium rates, even in these reduced-expenditure days.

What was even more encouraging was this: I participated in some hardcore technical sessions, and I strongly got the feeling that people want to get down to brass tacks again. People want to learn the basics well. Depth is in demand again.

And so, I have shelved my plans of getting employed, temporarily. I am still available to provide deep training, and consulting. My subjects of choice remain SharePoint and Business Intelligence. My rates remain high reasonable, but premium.

And, I have started to think about going back to the basics too. You can’t do SharePoint well if you don’t know ASP.NET well. You can’t do ASP.NET well if you don’t know the .NET Framework well. You can’t do SQL Server Analysis Services well if you don’t know SQL Server well. So far, I have just been putting basic subjects as prerequisites in my trainings. Maybe I ought to take them up as well. And cover them like no one around here has covered them.

Interested? Tell me.

Watch this space, and also my web site, which is http://rajware.net.  Something is coming.

A big Thank You to the organisers of Tech Ed India. Another big thank you to everyone who attended my talks. The presentations and demos of all the talks that I was a part of are now up on my web site: http://rajware.net.

You can keep your "opinionated", "community-supported", "social", "fluent", "agile", "standards compliant", "test driven", "open source" etc. etc. Thank you.

May I please have my "documented" and first-party "supported" back?

Let there be a fund set aside for metropolitan security. There should be four contributors to this fund: central government, state government, city self-governance and interested private parties. Let this fund be audited by the office of the Comptroller General, as well as by a reputed private agency, with quarterly reviews where all sponsors participate.

Let this fund be utilized for setting up an intelligence-gathering network, as well as a contemporarily armed, equipped and trained security force. Let the scope of this force be the metropolitan and suburban areas of the city only. Let this force report directly to the state home minister (note: not the home ministry. A person should be responsible and accountable.), and have authority equal to city police under peaceful circumstances, and exceeding the city police in emergency situations. Let the force be empowered to act without waiting for clearance in case of an emergency, but still be accountable for their actions. To make this possible, let there be a clear and unambiguous definition of an emergency situation, that is well known to everyone through public and private media and even through primary and secondary education.

Let the intelligence component of this force be classified, and protected with every ounce of technical and manual facilities available. Let pertinent portions of this information be released to the public once every five years, in the middle of the electoral term.

Let part of this fund also be utilised to set up reserve medical and trauma care centres, which can be activated immediately at times of need, and preferably be mobile.

Let there be adequate public and private participation. Let members of the general public volunteer for active and reserve positions in the non-classified parts of this initiative. Let basic training in self-defence, disaster recovery, emergency medical treatment and trauma care be disbursed as part of the initiative.

I am willing to volunteer my time, money and skills to setting up and running such an initiative. I am also willing to be taxed extra for the privilege of living in a secured city with an accountable security initiative in place.

Who is with me?

In Sanskrit, भूत (Bhoot) means "past". And in colloquial Hindi/Bangla/Marathi, it means "ghost". My past has always seemed ghostly to me, and I have indeed run from it. Now, the distant past (20 years) has returned to haunt me again. I am connecting with people I knew that many years ago.

I love those people. But I did not and do not love the person I was then. That is the real Bhoot which is coming back to haunt me now.

Do I love you or hate you, FaceBook ?