Last day of the year

 

Last day of the year!! This year I've had more travel than I ever imagined, made some lifelong friends, learnt a hundred lessons, got into better shape & health, read a lot more and realised that everytime I think life can't get better, it does!

How can I not be grateful ?

 

Happy New Year !

Mixed Bag

 

Eighteenth year into the new millenium. How time flies. 2018 was a very large, mixed bag. Looking back, the first things that come to mind are…all those floods which hit us, in Kerala, then rest of India, hurricanes,  political hogwash, and all those over-the-top, never-ending celebrity weddings. While Trump’s goof-ups all over the world, and Brexit held most of the news, the world still found time for rescues (Thailand), videogames (fornite) and various, stupid video challenges (Kiki, anyone ?).

Is this really happening ? Has the world really come down to this ? Games and songs ? With 24 hour channels struggling to keep their pipelines full, we definitely had an overload of news this year. Too much , to the point of noise. People expressing their own personal opinions in the guise of news.

Our planet is revolting, all those hurricanes and floods are just curtain raisers to what our future holds for us. And here we are, fighting over temples and religion.

So, about time we throw this out and welcome the new year.

 

 

 

 

Wish you a very happy new year !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting trickier to get in here

 

I have been out of touch with the whole Australia PR migration thing. But the other day, someone enquired how we got here, and asked for pointers. I looked up some information before passing on my tips, and was surprised that things have changed quite a lot in the meantime.

Changes galore:

For one, they now have the EOI slots only once a month, compared to twice a month earlier. This change was from August 2018. The number of invitations remain the same, but applicants will have to wait and entire month to find out if they made the cut. Ohh..the agony !

Minor news: they changed their website from border.gov.au to immi.homeaffairs.gov.au

They also changed the minimum points required. From July 2018 onwards, an applicant needs to have a minimum of 65 points to apply. This cutoff was earlier 60. This will help Australia get better skilled people, and it means theres no place for lazybones to enter the country.

And…they have set a higher score for some job codes, including the very popular Softwar Engineer. Take a look at the latest results available online, from September 2018.

A minimum 75 points required for Software Engineers now ! No places for 60-65 pointers anymore.

The affect of this new set of rules can be seen in the applications as well. Applicants are buckling up to increase their scores, trying to keep up with the increasing cutoffs. Over at the immigration tracker, there is an increase in the median scores, whereas earlier it was full of applications with 60 & 65, now the most common scores are 70 and above, some even getting 80 !

 

Application charges for some Australian visas are going up on 1 July 2018. The government is hoping to generate $410 million dollars over a four-year period from 2017 to 2021.

 

Fineprint:

So , what does this all mean for new migrants ? Well, most of this was expected. Immigration is currently a hot topic in Australia, they recently had elections in Victoria and candidates were fighting about how the cities are getting populus, where as rural regions remain empty. Also the increase in terrorist-like attacks have gone up, with migrants being arrested for those crimes.

The changes they have brought about are not targetted at any particular country, region, religion or laguage. And that is such good news, compared to how other countries totally ban immigrants just based on their nationality. But these changes will probably affect Indians the most, simply because the receive the highest number of resident permit visas.  Australia is making it more difficult to get in here, this will allow highly skilled and experienced folks to come in. Theres simply no place for anyone average.

But looking at how the applicants are also increasing their own points, it is clear that the higher threshold is still reachable. All it takes is will power (lots of it) and planning (some). Applicants with 5 years experience and good english can easily score 70 points. They need to score top points in English to get higher.

Good luck, and hope you make it too.

 

 

 

 

 

What was before USB ?

 

 

I recently had to upgrade to USB Type C. Due to a new phone. Which got me thinking, we are already at type C ? I feel it was only yesterday that computer users started adopting USB standard in the first place. So what was before  USB ?

 

Well, someone already made a video about it.

 

25 years of Doom

 

The ‘Doom’ in the title refers to the original computer video game released by the folks at iD software. 25 years ago, on December 10th, DOOM.zip was first published on the University of Wisconsin FTP server in December 1993. When the upload was complete, 10,000 people attempted to download the game at once, crashing the university's network. That game was the true push to the next generation of FPS games, moving away from fun to more darker genres. Every video game in use today has inherited or was inspired in some way to the original Doom.

I myself came across the game only five years later, given the serious lack of internet connectivity in India. People had to share the first episode of the shareware offline on floppy disks , and magazine CDs. The programmer in me was instantly hooked, more by the complex worlds created by the code on a 2d screen, than the actual game play. I knew immediately, I wanted to get into 3d graphics programming, and join the team of cutting edge , microprocessor system programming.

Years later, well, I am no-where in that area, although I do code. I now work in boring enterprise computing, using a fraction of my brainpower I used during my assembly language days in school. I did end up creating a 3d engine, using sectors for maps and perspective texture mapping, but I could not start a career into that area.

John Carmack is a computing god. And Doom is just one of the ways he pushed computing power of the 90s to its limits. Those days of efficient, system programming is long gone, and modern programmers don’t care about using as little memory as possible.  But if you are interested, you can read about the source code of Doom in a new black book.

Its only a matter of years before Doom will end up in the museum of computing history.

 

Journey: Migrating to Australia

I have been getting a lot of questions from friends and strangers alike, about how we went though Australia’s General Skilled Migration program and secured our 189 resident permit. Although I have described bits and pieces to many, I realize I am now forgetting the details of our journey. So this is where I will document it for eternity.

October 2016: I officially started the migration process. It will be evident later that I had been very lazy in the planning and execution of the process. I first contacted a migration agent who had helped a colleague secure a PR. The price he quoted was hefty. And mine was a straight forward application, as I had worked in the IT industry after completing by Bachelors in Computer Engineering. I felt I did not feel the help of a migration agent to process what I thought was a straightforward visa application.

We first submitted the EOI with 60 points as an ICT Business Analyst in March 2017. Yes , it took us that much time to go through the paper work. We waited till July 2017, and saw that there was no point waiting any longer.

In July 2017, I got my skill re-assessed for Software engineer. Also retook the PTE English test, and scored superior. Mrs also cleared the PTE test. Total points now : 80 ! We re-applied our EOI with the new documents on July 13th. Missed by one day because there was  an allotment round on the 12th ! The delay was entirely due to ACS cunningly timing their results with the allotment dates.

EOI accepted on 26th July.

We applied the visa will all documents on August 1st.

Medical took 2 weeks. Got it done at Fortis Bangalore . Medical was uploaded on 23rd August.

Then was the excruciating wait. The application status was still ‘Received’.

On Sept 7th, we got the mail, that our Visa was granted.

The actual journey was only from 26th July to 7th September. But due our naivety we had to wait for almost a year.

So tip 1: Plan everything. If you are not sure, or are on a time limit, hire a migration agent. 

Migration agents are much more familiar with all the steps, and will strictly follow up on the process for you. Ultimately you will get a visa faster. If you decide not to engage an agent, then you need to diligently follow up on the process at every step. It took us almost a year to get our visa, because we got lazy along the way.

You will need money. For two people, one primary and one dependent, it will cost about 4 lakhs in INR. For all the tests and assessment required. It will be wise to keep track of your expenses.

Tip 2:  Don’t apply with 60 points. 

The  189/190 visa application process is well documented. There are free online points calculators which will help you find the best way through. They will mention that a minimum of 60 points is required for an application. But what they won’t tell you is the system is setup so that the applications with the higher points get a preference at almost every stage of the application. So whatever you do, do NOT apply with 60 points. Try and increase your point score. If you can apply with 75 points, your EOI will be picked up within 15 days, in the very next cycle. DIBP will often change the minimum score requirement through the application year, so there is no point in waiting.

Assuming you are between 25-32 years of age, and have 8 years work experience outside Australia, and have cleared the English test with the lowest ‘Competent’ rating, you will get the minimum 60 points.

But if you can go back and improve your English test and score ‘Superior’ rating, you will get a total of 80 points ! If you are married, and your spouse can score ‘Competent’ on the English test, you will get 5 more points .

Tip 3: Take the Pearson English Test. Do NOT take the IELTS test.

I cannot stress this enough. Every site and forum explains the points system with the IELTS example. And a lot of aspirants take this test too. But if you are taking the IELTS for Australia migration then please stop ! IELTS is a two day , paper-written test. The test itself is graded manually. And you will have to scribble a lot. However hard you try, you will not be able to score anything more than the minimum 6. Unless you have a beautiful handwriting. And have been writing letters all your life.

Take the PTE. It costs around the same, but is an automated computer driven test. Its shorter, about 3 hours, and your handwriting does not matter. Most of the visa applications are from software engineers, and have been using computer keyboards through their career. Such people can ace this test. At least the written part. There are numerous articles and videos explaining tricks to beat this test. And if you still need help, sign up for a coaching class.

Tip 4: Unless you are 100% sure, do NOT apply EOI as a Business Analyst

I learnt this the hard way. Since I had 10+ years of experience, I thought my application would be better as a ICT Business Analyst. Big mistake.

Check the occupation ceilings page on DIBP. Australia invites EOI applications under 71 different codes. There is an upper limit on the number of EOIs handed out in each code. As of the current year, 2017-2018, the code with the highest ceiling is…wait for it…Nurses. More than 16000 nurses can apply and be selected this year !

For software engineers, the ceiling is 6000.  For Business Analysts, its only 1000. So there is one BA for every 6 software engineers.

As the number of visas get allotted get closer to the ceiling, the minimum points required to apply in that code increases. So it gets more difficult to get an EOI under that code.

Here is a revelation, the code under which you applied for the Visa will not be printed on the visa anywhere at all. So you can apply as an SE and work as a BA. Or vice versa. But try and apply through a code which has a higher ceiling. Increases your odds.

Tip 5: Move parallelly.

We made the mistake of following each stage one at a time. This took more time. There are various steps required, but they can all be executed in parallel, thereby shortening your wait time. Again, this is where a migration agent can help you out.

1: English test

2: Skill assessment

3: Police clearance (PCC)

The skill assessment is the step which is going to take the longest time. From gathering all the document required to scanning and uploading and then waiting, it could take 1-3 months for this step. So it is best to start here.

Simultaneously, prepare for and take the English test. The scoring of each test will only take 1 week, so you will get the result soon.

The PCC is more tricky, you will need to apply to the passport office where you are staying, and gather all the relevant documents to prove your temporary and permanent address.

Oops, this is longer than I expected. I will follow this up in a later post.

Good luck !

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