Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Powershell - Get Process and Kill Process - Automation

As part amateur programming, we end up queing a lot of processes in the taskbast and manually deleting them.

I was using eclipse and i realised that I had a lot of processes with the name iexplore.exe and console.exe. Even if I manually try to kill each one, I have a long way to go.

Automation is the key. Powershell is the solution I found that worked for me.

Steps to kill a process
Launch three or four internet explorer windows in the application.
Launch the command shell - Windows + R, In the run window, enter command as "powershell" without quotes.

In the Powershell use the following commands

get-process iexplore
kill -Name iexplore

- Name tells the shell to kill all the process "names" that have iexplore.
You can get a complete list of arguments by using
help get-process

MSDN link : http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh849832.aspx

Regards,
Ajith Moni




Sunday, September 8, 2013

Day Light Savings & Seasons in USA CST and CDT

It has long been long that I wanted to figure out what Day Light Savings actually means!


Daylight Savings Time is Effective from Mar to Nov and varies from year to year.

Daylight Saving Time resumes at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 10, 2013 in the United States. It will end on Sunday, November 3, 2013 at 2 a.m.

Winter and Fall can be read as "Spring forward, Fall back"

The phrase "Spring forward, Fall back" helps people remember how Daylight Saving Time affects their clocks. At 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March, we set our clocks forward one hour ahead of Standard Time ("Spring forward," even though Spring doesn't begin until late March, over a week after the start of Daylight Saving Time).

They "Fall back" at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November by setting our clock back one hour and thus returning to Standard Time.


The change to Daylight Saving Time ostensibly allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by taking advantage of the longer and later daylight hours.

During the eight-month period of Daylight Saving Time, the names of time in each of the time zones in the U.S. (map) change as well.
  1. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time
  2. Central Standard Time (CST) becomes Central Daylight Time (CDT)
  3. Mountain Standard Time (MST) becomes Mountain Daylight Time (MDT)
  4. Pacific Standard Time becomes Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), and so forth.

The Act extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, with the hope that it would save 10,000 barrels of oil each day through reduced use of power by businesses during daylight hours.

USA Seasons
Spring = late March, April, June, July
Summer= late July, August, September
Fall = late September, October, November, early December
Winter = late December, January, February, March

Source & Coutesy : http://geography.about.com/cs/daylightsavings/a/dst.htm

Summary of Six Sigma and Green Belt



I took time to learn and share my understanding having heard the words Six Sigma and Green belt from an associate. Here's my short summary of the understanding.

What is Six Sigma?

It is associated with manufacturing.
Statistical modelling of manufacturing processes.
It is a set of tools and techniques/strategies for process improvements
orginally developed by Motorolla in 1981
Well known after its use in business strategy at General Electric in 1995
Focuses on Quality Management methods & statistical methods

Goals addressed by Sigma

Seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects(errors)
Minimizing variability in Manufacturing and Business Processes.
Quantified value targets
Example :
Process cycle time reduction,customer satisfaction,reduction in pollution,cost reduction & profit increase

Methodology

Follows two project methodologies - 5 phase approach
DMAIC - improve existing business process
Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control
DMADV - creating a new product or process designs
Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify

Tools & its application
    Arena
    ARIS Six Sigma
    Bonita Open Solution BPMN2 standard and KPIs for statistic monitoring
    JMP
Read more on : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma


Maturity Rating

A Sigma rating indicates its yield or the percentage of defect free products it processes.
A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects
(3.4 defects per million)

All the belts

Champions take responsibility for Six Sigma implementation across the organization in an integrated manner. The Executive Leadership draws them from upper management. Champions also act as mentors to Black Belts.
Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts. Apart from statistical tasks, they spend their time on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments.

Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects.They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution and special leadership with special tasks

Green Belts are the employees who take up Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities, operating under the guidance of Black Belts.
Additional ( informal )
Yellow Belts, for employees that have basic training in Six Sigma tools and generally participate in projects and
"White belts" for those locally trained in the concepts but do not participate in the project team.
"Orange belts" are also mentioned to be used for special cases.


Sources :

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/six-sigma/overview/belts-executives-champions.html
http://prdweb.asq.org/certification/control/six-sigma-green-belt/index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
http://www.isid.ac.in/~sqc/gb.html

Regards,
Ajith Moni