Me In My Office Finery:

My Personal Side:

I'm a Gemini/Cancer cusp born. I entered this world on the very first day of the change from Gemini to Cancer, 23rd/June. This sometimes makes me an enigma even to myself. I live in an apartment at Mumbai, India, in a lovely suburb called Santacruz. My work place called Vile Parle, is pretty close by only about 15 minutes drive away. I really like country music, above all other music genres. Have been playing the guitar, (gut / nylon strings) for a pretty long time. The only type of music that leaves me cold is Western Classical, never ever understood it. I'm told you need and IQ of >=300 to appreciate it, that's what I (so sadly) lack. I've written a fair bit of my own music. My real regret is that for the last couple of years I've never really had the time to continue writing music. Often, (like a typical Cancerian), I'm pretty quiet in a crowd and take time to make friends, but when I do they are usually for life. At other times my Gemini side takes over and I kind of get very verbal and mercurial. I'm also very happy when I watch science fiction movies or mystical/magic movies. Haven't missed a single release of Alien, The Matrix, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter. Have all the VCD's or DVD's where available. Keep telling people that this is really what activates the creative juices in me, actually, I don't think I've really grown up at a number of levels (but I never tell anyone that) ..... I really don't know how this appeared here, I think my wife knows how to access the code spec of this page [Grin]). I've traveled a fair bit when I was in the Merchant Navy. Most of my travels was with my wife Cynthia and our daughter Chriselle. I've visited several Eastern block countries, spent a decent amount of time in Egypt working at the Suez. Visited the Far East, Singapore, HongKong, Taiwan, (I've taken delivery of a couple of super tankers from Taiwan a few times), Japan and so on (God was I sounding like a cracked record ...) Those were really the best days of our lives. The memories live on in friendships and photographs.

My Technical Side:

I have excellent skills in commercial application development. Systems Design and documentation, Database schema validation, bound to applications that are either Ethernet ot Internet based. I've done this sort of thing for at least 30 odd years. I also write books. I have published 62 books so far (and the numbers are growing). All are in the I.T. space and almost all are focused on Commercial Application Development using some environment or the other. Do I hear a collective groan ..... Boooooring ... heck, I'm a Techie ain't I ? I've had a long love/hate relationship with Java in its many avatars. Spent a few years playing in the Java domain. I've crafted RDBMS based commercial applications (now why does that not surprise me ??) using Java as the client based, Forms tool. I really enjoyed myself doing that. Then moved on to using Java as middleware as my skills matured a bit. Finally moved on to using Java in the WAP/WML space when I eventually found another programming environment that turned me on hugely, the Open Source domain. Published two books on Commercial Application development Using Java (JDK 2.0). If you are into commercial application development, a budding or an established author, do have a look at my web site www.ivanbayross.com   Here I'm trying to show case the commercial application development books I've written. Some of the GUI Design tips I follow, A little about my Technical Writing skills, my technical podcasts and my Blog. A lot is available for free download. I've got some Techie stuff on the site that I've written, like the basics of G.U.I design, Setting up and using Fedora Core 8, Setting up a modem and so on, all for free download, if you're interested in that sort of material. I'm in the process of uploading some of my (i.e. home grown) material on Technical Writing very shortly. I'd welcome any bouquets or brickbats about my web site's behavior, navigation, broken / misbehaving links or the stuff I'm trying to showcase in it. My web site is like something alive, always evolving. I'm constantly adding or subtracting material. It keeps me going back to my web site again and again I guess. Quite like my child growing up [GRIN]. If you have any suggestions on improvements ..... I'm listening. BTW, I've seriously used both Open Office and Star Office These are really two quite amazing products (from many in the Open Source stable). I've really found them to be very stable and intuitive to use. Even if you are a die hard M.S. Office fan do try out both these products on RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake or even Fedora Core 1 or 2 or 3. I promise you, you'll really be surprised, (pleasantly surprised that is). Their cost to you, either: peanuts or NIL.

What I'm Interested In & What I Can Offer:

First and foremost making new friends. Good friends. Friends I'd be comfortable with and who are comfortable with me. I'm most comfortable with Techies (we kind of speak the same language) but I really find a host of other areas equally interesting. Finance, Jewelery design, Art, Scrabble, Music (Country music being first of course), Science fiction, Cooking all seem to fascinate me to some degree or another. BTW I think I can cook reasonably well. I'm willing to share all the skills and experience that life has brought to me. I.T. based Techie skills being top on the list, but having said that if you'd like to make (Veg / Non-Veg) Subway sandwiches I can do that equally well right in your kitchen (or mine if you like). I'm specially interested in working with anyone involved in teaching application development using Open Source technologies anywhere in the world. I'd like to work with you to create student hand out material, exercises, and other such classroom based stuff, if I can. Do take a look at some of the free downloads I've on my personal website, it could give you an insight to the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I've always wanted to produce/deliver good quality training material to students, I do a fair bit of that here in India. I teach a bit, in Post Grad colleges I guess its the natural curiosity and brightness of all students that keeps me alive. I've always found that even if you give them the most meager of resources they often (can and do) churn out miracles. I always remember to thank them when I have the opportunity. Honestly, .... Kinda reminds me of me many years ago.

My Gardening Interests:

I wonder if theres anyone out there in Ryze space that have balcony gardens. I've always loved gardens. Currently both my wife and I work on our balcony garden constantly. Its really nothing great, mostly flowering plants and ornamental leaved plants, but I do love pottering about and talking to them while I groom them a wee bit. Very relaxing. I actually believe that they perk up a bit when I'm around. (My wife says its my over worked imagination). Frankly theres nothing like repotting a plant during the monsoons to get you dead beat at the end of day. Muck upto your elbows an earth worm or two that have curled around your fingers in protest at being disturbed and ... Oh Joy !! a few perfectly terrified bugs scuttling around .... gives me an immense feeling of power. (The wife says its time to meet my therapist, maybe I'll introduce the therapist to balcony gardens [GRIN])

My Interest In Meditation & Self Healing:

More than 13 years earlier my wife Cynthia got interested in Reiki. Actually it was her elder sister who got pretty turned on by Reiki, did her level I training, assisted her Reiki master in several training programs and then spoke passionately to Cynthia about Reiki. At that time Cynthia and I were experimenting with NLP to help reduce stress and bring about holistic changes and healing in our lives. After doing NLP for about 2 years Cynthia decided to do her level 1 Reiki training under her elder sister's teacher. She then used to do her Reiki meditation regularly every day, without fail, while I watched from afar. After about 6 months I began noticing several changes in her which were beautiful. Thats when I decided to search for a Reiki teacher for myself. After visiting several Reiki teachers I was drawn to an advert that spoke about Reiki level I training pretty close to my residence. I really was drawn pretty strongly to the advert and went in search of the place, and met Dr. Kamal Bhojwani, who is now my Reiki teacher. Over a period of time I did Reiki I, then II and finally III(A). Reiki III(B) would have made me a Reiki trainer but I felt a strong internal resistance to playing in that space. I stopped at Reiki III(A) This was a period of great change and healing for me. Today I practice meditation and prayer regularly, have been doing so for a pretty long time now. I can vouch for a huge change for the better in my life all around. There is strange kind of peace that surrounds me most of the time. This gets shaken from time to time, (never said I was perfect, probably never will be [Grin]) but each day in every way I'm getting better.

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