MySmartPrice recently caught up with emerging writer Dipen Ambalia. Dipen Ambalia has recently launched a new book with a truly catchy title “Life of a Software Engineer aka LOSER”. Dipen was kind enough to give us this interview.

Hi Dipen, Great pleasure to have you on MySmartPrice for this short interview.

DA: Thanks so much. It’s my pleasure to be giving this interview.

Qn: Tell us a bit about yourself. How did the writing bug bite you?

DA: I am an electrical engineer from VJTI, Mumbai. I have been working in the IT industry since July 2004. I have worked with Polaris Software Labs Ltd., Mphasis (an HP Company), Citius IT solutions Ltd and am currently working with Hexaware Technologies, Mumbai.I have been through the SDLC (software development life cycle)i.e. I have done Development, Production Support, Testing, Business Analysis and am now in Presales.I am an author of two books – 1) In Their Shoes

Dipen Ambalia

… (released in April 2010)

2) LOSER (Life Of a Software EngineeR) – (already out in the market!. More details on www.aboutloser.com).

 

Qs: This book is about life as a Software Engineer. Are you still a Software Engineer or have you moved on and are now a full time writer?

DA: Yes, I am still a software engineer. Now I am in Presales. I wish to become fulltime writer, depending on the response from my dear readers.

Qn: How did you come up with L.O.S.ER? What inspired you to write this book ‘LOSER’?

DA: I am a big fan of Scott Adams.His2 books – 1) The Dilbert Principle 2) Joy at Work- are excellent work of satire on the marketing and management world in general. One day I thought that since I have been in the IT industry for so long – more than 7 years and have been though the whole SDLC, I am in a good position to make a satire on the IT world and then I wrote LOSER by mixing fiction, experience and exaggerating it to make the whole concoction humorous. So, in short LOSER is a satire on the IT world.

Qs: What can readers expect from your book. It it about a particular person or is it about life of a software engineer in general?

DA: Readers can expect real life situations exaggerated to the core! I have used everyday examples or analogies to explain the IT world. For eg: I have compared Arranged Marriages with the Software Development Life Cycle in the world. This comparison has been appreciated by a lot many readers. Similarly I have compared fictitious reports of the very (in)famous contemporary hindi news channels to the situations in the IT world. These things will surely make readers laugh their backside off! (atleast I hope so ). This book is not about any person in particular. It’s like the common man in the IT industry made to go through the various phases in the IT industry. LOSER is a narrative; i.e. it doesn’t have characters or a story as such. While reading the book, you will (or should ) feel as if I am sitting in front of you and talking to you about the software world (and we both laugh together!)

Qs: Will this book appeal to people who are not software engineers ?

DA: Yes, sure. Every and I mean every person in this country has at least one friend, sister, cousin, uncle or any other relative in the IT world. I as a kid used to wonder how one bhaiyya from my building used to enjoy his life in US and used to bring me chocolates when he used to come to India. I always used to be inquisitive about the life of a software engineer. I think that there would be many such people in this country who would like to know what the software engineers do so as to deserve high salaries. And since this book is a satire on the IT world and hence doesn’t glorify the IT world, it is going to be more fun for the non-IT people to read what the IT people actually do in the IT world!

Qn: Tell us a few factoids of your own life as a software engineer.

DA: I have always maintained a rating of 3 or 4 out of 5. I have never tried to excel at work because to get a rating of 5 out of 5 one has to work very hard/ be the project manager’s pet/ pass off colleagues work as yours, etc. My funda is to enjoy work and personal life and shift jobs in 2-3 years to get the necessary hike!

Qn: What is the best part about L.O.S.E.R?

D.A: The best part of LOSER is the humour generated out of unthinkable exaggerated analogies of real life situations with the IT world. In every chapter, the IT reader would feel “abe, haan yaar, mai to exactly aise hi manager ko ulloo banata hun… “ or “this is how the girl coming from onsite behaves re..” and the non-IT reader would laugh his heart out realizing what his IT friends do every day in office!

Qs: Will Software companies find it difficult to recruit once your book is released.

DA: Hahahaha… not sure. If this book is taken seriously then kuch problem ho sakta hai. But, if LOSER is read in the right spirit, then there won’t be any issues!

Qn: L.O.S.E.R is your second book after “In their shoes” . Could you tell us your experience about writing two books.

D.A: Writing books makes me happy. It gives me a creative relief. My first book “In Their Shoes…” was a serious book trying to highlight how ordinary people try to find out happiness in tough times. “In Their Shoes…” is a book about how the world looks like by being in the shoes of different people. I have taken 17 characters and tried to visualize the world from their angle. There are characters such as – a 24-year-old mentally challenged girl, a broke 77-year-old man thrown out of his own house, a 7-year-old girl – Bindiya- a Drummer’s daughter, an uneducated corrupt politician, etc… In short, this book is: By the ordinary, Of the ordinary & For the ordinary…! I got good reviews from people like Dr.Kiran Bedi and newspapers like Maharashtra Times, Loksatta, Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, etc…

LOSER belongs to the humour genre. So, writing this book was itself a fun-loving experience. There were a few chapters where I used to laugh after reading the just-written chapters.

Qn: Who among the present Indian Authors inspires you most.

D.A: As far as serious writing genre is concerned, I like Rohinton Mistry and Sudha Murthy. And on the humour front, I like Scott Adams (creator or Dilbert) and Cyrus Broacha (Karl, aaj aur Kal)

Qs. If you have to give one mantra for all software engineers, what will be it?

D.A: Don’t work so hard that you have waste your life in office to get a rating of 4 or 5 out of 5. Maintain a good balance between personal and professional life, be happy with a rating of 3 out of 5 and switch companies once in 2-3 years to get the necessary raise in salary! Life is not a race. Decide whether you were born to do only coding or something else in life. It’s always good to have a backup plan in life in case you get bored of the IT world one day!

Thank you very much for taking your time out for this interview. We wish that L.O.S.E.R emerges a winner among your readers.
DA: Thanks so much!

 

Grab your copy of LOSER at the Best Price from MySmartPrice.com. Click this link

As if all the help Cupid gives these lazy lucky guys this Valentine isn’t enough, Ecommerce stores have joined the brigade with some awesome deals for the last minute hunter. Unfortunately although i’ve found these amazing deals.. . I haven’t found that Valentine to give it to.

While I listen to Jagjit Singh songs, here is a list of awesome valentine’s day deals for the lucky few.

Yebhi



Yebhi has made a sweet deal for both the gents and ladies with a specialized section on Gifts for Him and Her. No need to sift through unnecessary deals to find your pick. Buy Shirts, watches or perfumes for your Man at discounts ranging from 3%- 50%. Sweep your dame off her feet with jewellery, Bags.

Koovs

Koovs is specializing in Valentine Hampers for this Valentine. Expect gorgeous jewellery , accessories and wonderful skin care products to be available at 20-40% discount.

Infibeam

Infibeam is offering massive discounts on cakes, chocolates and everything nice for NRIs. Now send gifts to your Valentine in India. Expect massive discounts on romantic music, videos too.

LetsBuy

Letsbuy is offering massive discounts for all your gadgets and toys this valentine.

Buy a stuffed Teddy bear for 34% off or watches at 15% off, if you love that special someone  a little more you may want to avail the massive discounts of 20-40% on Smartphones, Cameras and  DVD players

Flipkart

Flipkart is offering its customers a selection of combo packs of Romantic Books this Valentines. Expect massive discounts on all your romantic books from P.S I love you, A walk to remember  to classics like Gone with the Wind. Not just that, Flipkart has gone one step further and made some really good romantic music collections available at discount too.

Now that I’ve found a great Deal, All I need is a good Valentine…

In the mean time I’m reading the Top Romantic Books to woo that special Valentine.

We want to make MySmartPrice the easiest way to get the best price. Comparing price across stores is obviously one of the most important steps in finding the best priced store and that is what we have been working on for the last one year. However many of you have told us that information about availability of coupons for any store is another important step in finding out the best price.

This week finally we have added coupons section on MySmartPrice. Now you will not have to do anything extra to find out yebhi coupons for those cases where it is the best priced store. We shall provide the coupon code to you on MySmartPrice itself.

This is just our first attempt at providing you a better way to find coupons for all popular e-commerce stores. Currently we have coupons for 12 stores including few stores that are already present on MySmartPrice like infibeam,homeshop18,koovs etc and few stores that are not present like firstcry,babyoye,timtara etc.

A lot of work is still pending to be done. We promise to improve the coupons section both in breadth and depth as we start to understand the segment better. In the mean time please try the MySmartPrice Coupons section and let us know your views/ feedback.

Nokia E7 has been launched in India and its advertisements have started hitting the newspaper and internet. While Nokia E7 Price in India is Rs. 29,999 at launch, some retailers have already dropped the prices and it is now available for as low as Rs. 28,699.

Visit our Nokia E7 page to check the current Nokia E7 Price in India as available in various online stores.

Nokia E7 is a Business Smartphone with 4 inch AMOLED Display and full slider tilt QWERTY keypad. It supports real time push email including Mail for Exchange and secure internet access via built in VPN.

In my view Nokia E7 is slightly over priced as of now as similar phone HTC Desire Z is available for sub Rs. 25,000 price, in India. I am sure that in couple of months Nokia E7 Price should fall below Rs. 25,000.

Some of you who follow me (@sitakanta) on twitter or our official twitter account (@mysmartprice), then you would have seen some strange status updates at odd hours last night. That was me working on the first twitter application of my life.The application is done and we are happy to announce that we have additional savings for you.

Get Buytheprice Coupon with a simple tweet

Buytheprice.com has provided us with 900 exclusive coupons for people who buy any mobile phone through MySmartPrice. You just need to tweet a simple message to get the coupon code. The buytheprice coupon will be valid for 7 days and one person can get a single coupon only.

See the buytheprice discount coupon in action

The coding part got over just recently and the coupon integration is just rolling out. You can see them on Nokia N8 and Samsung Galaxy Tab pages.

1. Get rid of multiple entries for different editions of the same book.
2. Improve algo to identify popularity of any particular book
3. Expand the data structure to accomodate 1 million books without compromising speed

I will keep deleting points from here as they get completed and add more tasks as I can think of any. Suku, is working on the UI front so I do not have to worry about that aspect.