Incoherent blabber

My Laptop

2011-11-25T22:10:00.002+05:30

I got my laptop yesterday. It's a Dell XPS. It has 17" full HD display, 2nd generation i7 processor with 8 GB RAM, Nvidia graphics card with 3GB VRAM and Optimus technology, blueray player + DVDRW, 1TB hard disk. It can even output 3D content via HDMI port.

My uncle got it from US for me. It costed about 40% cheaper than here.

The only gripe is that I had to pay windows tax. There was no way of avoiding it.

By the way, it has been too long a time since I posted anything at all. Need to write regularly.

The very first ones

2010-03-26T19:42:00.001+05:30

Voice chat on 3G

2010-03-21T08:21:00.004+05:30

Over the past week or so, I have tried many IM applications on my mobile (Nokia E63). Apart from exchanging text messages, I also wanted to do audio calls over Google Talk, Skype, etc. There are many native S60 IM applications available for my Nokia E63 phone.

Skype
Skype has a mobile version of it's IM application. It is pretty huge - 5 MB download size and 3-4MB memory when application is in use. Also, it supports only skype protocol (no google talk, yahoo or anything else). So, it loses the edge when compared to its competitors here.

Basic text chat, voice chat, skype-out calls all work fine. But the application itself seemed to be a little slow (when compared to others).

Fring

This is a small IM application that supports many protocols - Google Talk, Skype, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, twitter, etc. You can even do voice calls on all these. I did most of my audio calls on skype. There was a wee-bit of delay. Not much, but we could make out that there was about half a second delay between when we talk and the other party hears. Sometimes, it was annoying. But it was mostly OK. And the audio quality was good. Making Skype-Out calls was also very simple. All-in-all a good application. One disadvantage is that it only supports Skype and no other SIPs (like Gizmo or others)

Nimbuzz

This is one of the best applications I've used. Similar to Fring, it supports multiple protocols - Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, twitter, etc. It supports text chat as well as audio/video calls on all of these. Unlike Fring, there was no noticeable delay in audio calls over Skype. The audio calls all sounded great. The contact list is also well structured with icons indicating where the contact is from (GTalk or Shype or Yahoo). Nimbuzz also supports other SIPs apart from Skype. You can configure it to connect to Gizmo and other SIPs easily.

One problem I noticed was that I could not make skype out calls easily. On skype/fring, I can call toll free US numbers using skype-out. On Nimbuzz, it told me I had to buy some talktime before I could make a call.. :-(

For now, I have all 3 installed. I use Nimbuzz for most purposes. But if I need to make skype-out calls, I use fring.

On 3G network, the call quality of calls over voice network and the audio calls over skype (data network) are pretty much the same. It costs me 30-40 paise per minute for a skype call. That is cheaper than my local call (40 paise per min). When I talk to my uncle in US, it is way cheaper. An ISD call costs Rs.7.20 per min.

Oh yes, I can do the same skype calls using a computer (maybe for same cost 30-40 paise per min or even lesser). But being able to use my mobile phone anywhere to call via Skype/GTalk is real convenience.

BSNL 3G

2010-03-11T21:01:00.003+05:30

I just enabled 3G for my number...
I thought I may have to change my sim. But converting from 2G to 3G was as simple as sending an SMS. Yes, one SMS, that's all. 5 minutes later, I was on 3G network!
I assumed that there would be some special settings to access internet from 3G network. It turns out that the same old GPRS settings work. FYI, here's the connection settings:
Access point name: gprssouth.cellone.in
Username: ppp
Password: ppp

The internet connection on 3G is very fast. I could easily get speeds of over 100kbps. The cost is also about 1/10th of the gprs connection.

In fact, I'm writing this blog post from my phone. :-)

Torrent applications

2010-02-05T07:44:00.006+05:30

Over the past years, I have used many torrent applications. There are a number of applications for downloading/managing .torrent files. Here's a compilation of the few applications I have used and my experiences with them.

I have a limited broadband plan and I work from home quite regularly. So, I need to make sure that my torrent downloads don't eat up my bandwidth. Hence I usually schedule my downloads during the "happy hours" when downloads are unlimited. It's from 2AM to 8AM. To utilize this "happy hours" optimally, the feature of scheduling downloads in a torrent application would be very useful, albeit not a necessary one though. If the torrent application does not have scheduling, I can use "at" daemon and cron jobs to start and stop the downloads at appropriate times.

I also want my applications to be lightweight, i.e., light on resources (memory, cpu consumption, etc), small in size and with minimal dependencies. Let us see how the different torrent applications size up to my requirements.

'BitTorrent' client

This is a very simple client with a simple interface. It does not support many features like scheduling, upload/download limits per torrent/connection, etc. But it is pretty much light on resources and gets the job done. (It does have a few dependencies though). There are other applications that are 'lighter' and are more feature rich. So, I wouldn't recommend this.

Transmission

This is the default bittorent client that is being shipped with ubuntu these days. This is a very light weight client with not much dependencies. It also supports all the standard features of a torrent application. There is no scheduler as such, but there is an option for temporary speed limits which gets the job done. It also has a cli mode to download via command line. The configuration options can be passed as parameters or saved in the config file. All in all, this is a great application which I would recommend to everyone. Since this is a GTK application, KDE buffs may not find it very visually appealing, though.

'rtorrent', 'ctorrent' and 'aria2'

These are all command line applications, which are very light weight and feature rich. Rtorrent has ncurses based UI. (It takes a while to get used to the key combinations). Ctorrent and aria2 are purely command line tools. They support all the common features. You can either set the options (like download/upload limits) in the config files or pass them as parameters. None of these have built in schedulers. Just use the 'at' command or cron jobs to start/stop them.

Of these, aria2 is my personal favourite as it supports http/ftp downloads (segmented downloading with resume support) as well as bittorrent and metalink protocols. I would recommend all of these cli tools. The only downside to these cli tools are that they don't display a whole lot of information about the torrent being downloaded (like the GUI apps). For e.g., the no. of connected peers, current and average download speeds, tracker info, percentage of completion of individual files in the torrent, etc, such information may not be displayed in these cli tools.

KTorrent

This is the default torrent application for KDE. This used to be my default torrent application for a long time. I was using this even on Gnome desktop. I wouldn't call it lightweight as it depends on a lot of KDE libs. So, if you are using any other Desktop Environment like Gnome, LXDE, XFCE, etc, you may want to download one of the other torrent applications.

KTorrent is feature rich and supports plugins too.. I used to like the scheduler plugin and used it a lot. But recently when I installed KTorrent, the same scheduler plugin did not work reliably. I had scheduled the download to start at 2:30AM and stop at 8AM. But somehow, the download started prematurely at around 12:30AM or so (which I found out from my usage logs). This caused about 250MB to be billed on my name! Also, a few days later, I saw that the scheduler did not stop at 8AM too. It kept downloading past the 8AM. So, maybe there is a bug. Use the scheduler at your own risk. You can still use cron/at to schedule your downloads.

Overall, KTorrent is a good torrent application for KDE. Beware of the scheduler plugin. People using Gnome/LXDE/XFCE, can use something lighter.

Deluge

Deluge is a pretty lightweight python+GTK application. The GUI and the daemon are 2 different processes. Apparently you can manage your downloads from a web interface too. I haven't tried it out though. The GUI is simple, unintrusive and is feature rich. Deluge also supports plugins. But there is no scheduling available, either in the application or via plugins. I used to use the cron/at jobs to start/stop deluge. One major problem I have experienced is that often deluge hangs on startup. The GUI would just hang and you have no option but to kill and start again. Most often, kill once and restart would always start it correctly. Sometimes, it would hang everytime the GUI is started. To get it working again, i would kill/restart the 'deluged' daemon and then start the deluge GUI client. That would almost always work and get the application up and running. But as you can see this is quite a problem. I would have an 'at' job to start deluge at 2AM. When I wake up the next morning at 7AM, I see that it has hung on startup and no downloads have begun! This has happened to me innumerable number of times. So, I have given up and started using other applications. [I did search for this problem on google. I could not find others who had the same problem. So, maybe it was just me, maybe something wrong in my environment. Another thing to note is that I have tried deluge for over 4-6 months. Since I kept my archlinux system and all applications upto date, I have used several versions, with no change in behaviour).

Vuze (Azureus)

When I started using this, it was called Azureus. Now it has been given a new name - Vuze. This is one of the heavyweights as it is based on Java. Also, the new interface of Vuze is bloated with lots of unwanted "features" like browsing for "popular" video clips from within Vuze. The new UI of Vuze is quite complicated and overwhelming. The older UI, which was when it was called Azureus was simpler and presented all the information very well. I would prefer the older Azureus to the newer Vuze any day.

In terms of features, it is a very feature rich application. It is an excellent application for downloading torrents. I have always regarded Azureus as very "reliable" and works well out of the box. Prioritisation (of individual torrents as well as files within torrents), scheduling and all other features work well. Overall, it is a very good application that I would recommend, if you are wiling to overlook all the bloat.

µTorrent

This is one of the lightest torrent applications with almost no dependencies whatsoever. It is less that 250KB and is feature rich, very easy to use. I would highly recommend this for it's features, lightweight, simple UI and excellent performance. So, what's the downside? It is a windows application and has no native Linux port! Well, disappointing as it is, the good news is that it just works great with wine. It supports prioritisation, scheduling and other features

Conclusion

There is no one application that is for everybody. Try out all of them and use what you like. If you don't mind running it in wine, µtorrent would be the simple, robust and excellent lightweight torrent application that I recommend. KDE folks can stay with KTorrent. For a lightweight torrent application, use one of the cli apps - aria2, rtorrent, ctorrent, transmission-cli. If you want a lightweight GUI application, use transmission/deluge.

Where's my money?

2010-01-16T08:00:00.000+05:30

A simple exercise: Calculate how much you have earned till date (including your salary, gifts, return on investments and all types of income). Just an approximate amount would do. Find out how much money you have in your savings (SB accounts, any other investments like stocks, Mutual Funds, etc). How do you find your savings with respect to your earnings? Are they substantial or very meager?

To drill down, calculate how much you have spent till date. Start with all your major expenses (like education or buying a vehicle/house/site). Find out how much you approximately spend monthly on other things like fuel, snacks, dining, clothes, telephone bills, etc. Put all of these together and get an approximate amount of how much you have spent so far (after you started earning).

Then do the math, "Calculated Balance" = Earnings - Expenditure. Are your actual savings same as the "Calculated Balance"?

If yes, congratulations! In most cases there will be a noticable big difference between the two. If so, where did your money go? Hard to explain!

I was in the same situation about 3 years ago. I had worked for over 2 years and I had a relatively small balance in my bank account (equivalant to about 2 months of my salary). My father helped me realise this. I started wondering where all my money went. I calculated all my major expenses and did the same exercise I explained above. I could account for about 60-65% of my expenses. Where did I spend the rest? I had no idea!

In order to prevent such accounting anamolies, I started keeping tabs on all my transactions, income and expenses. I started using a personal finance manager and found it very helpful in managind my money and accounting for it. In the past 3 years that I have been using GnuCash and KmyMoney I have been able to account 98-99% of my money.

Distro Hopping

2010-01-11T07:52:00.003+05:30

I'm somebody who gets bored pretty soon. This is very true with the different Linux distros atleast. I keep on hopping distros every now and then. I take a lot of pain to install a distro, then tweak and install the programs I want and everything. But once I feel everything is installed and the desktop is good enough for my daily uses, I get bored and want to try out some other distribution. Maybe I just like trying out new distros, installing and configuring them. Or maybe I'm searching for that perfect distribution for me.

For the moment, I have puppy linux and 2 different installations of arch linux (on different hard disks) on my desktop. I have Ubuntu and Debian on my laptop. My previous (very recent) distributions on my desktop are - Gentoo, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, LightHouse Pup, Sabayon, etc.

I don't even remember all the distributions I've tried (installed and used) in the past 9 years. There are just so many. Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake (these 3 have now changed to Fedora, OpenSuse, and Mandriva), Caldera, ELX Linux, Slax, Elive, DSL, Vector, Slackware to name a few. And I have a huge collection of CD/DVDs of most of these Linux distributions over the past 9 years. Linux has truly come a long way since then.

Out of so many distributions, I keep coming back to 3 of them - Arch Linux, Puppy Linux and Ubuntu.

Arch Linux does everything right. They follow the KISS principle and an arch system is really very simple and elegant. It is the perfect distro for anybody who knows a little about linux, is not afraid to use the command line and has heard of config files. It allows you to build a very minimal system with no bloat whatsoever. You can (and will) build YOUR perfect system using arch. The package manager is great. And their wiki is excellent. It is one of the best I've seen.

Puppy Linux is something I would recommend to everyone, not just newbies to Linux. It is just about the perfect system which has everything but the kitchen sink. It's minimal footprint, ability to run in RAM, support for everything (browsers, IM, multimedia, doc/image viewers, and just about anything you can name), excellent community, make it a perfect choice for everybody. It has applications for just about everything. The CD/DVD recording/burning software is the best I've ever used. The downside to puppy is it's package management (something that Barry is already working on. Check out puppy 5.0 / dpup).

Ubuntu is the community's favourite distribution. I keep coming back to it because of the apt package manager. It is THE best out there. But I always feel Ubuntu is very bloated.

For now, it's Arch and puppy for me. Who knows, next week, I could try out some other distro. :-)

One line reviews of different distros

2009-04-14T14:05:00.005+05:30

I was reading this "Debian vs Arch" thread that was posted on both Arch Linux forums as well as Debian forums. The following comment by "julian67" in the Debian forums was the most hilarious:

I run Debian stable and know it's the best. Slackware is for Luddites, Arch is for bug eyed Ubuntu kids with misplaced aspirations to kewlness, Gentoo is for maniacs, Ubuntu is for people who drool but are happy with that, Fedora is strictly for Americans with an entire LUG to help fix it, OpenSuse is for Germans with proprietary fetishes, special accessories and a paying controller, Puppy is for people with 2.4 GB hard drives, Zenwalk is for people who are not quite sure what multimedia might be....

The gender debate

2009-04-06T20:18:00.005+05:30

Well, the gender debate is going on for a looong time now. Let me not talk about things like "who's better than who?" or "are women equal to men?". Instead, let me focus on some facts that I have been observing for a few years now.

I'm sure you have all read headlines like "Girls outshine boys in SSLC exam" and "Girls fare better than boys", etc. These headlines appear in all the newspapers every single year, without fail. I haven't seen one single year where the pass percentage of boys was greater than girls in 7th or SSLC or PUC exams (in Karnataka, atleast). Does this mean boys are all dim-witted? Do these figures indicate that girls are overall more intelligent than guys?

Well, before you answer those questions, just take a look at a few other facts. Have you ever analyzed the CET results? Have you seen the gender ratio for the top 10 ranks in engineering or medical? You'll see that there are hardly one or two girls in the top 10 or even top 20 ranks in both engineering or medical streams. And this is not just one year, you can verify this every year. What do you think is the number of girls in top 100 ranks in engineering or medical. It's mostly single digit (very rarely touching double digits). What about top 1000 ranks? How many girls do you think are there in top 1000? Again they are a whopping minority!

[Offtopic: Why don't you hear about these (CET) numbers and facts in the media? Well, that deserves a blog post on it's own, but to summarize, did you ever notice that if a hindu criticises a muslim (or his religion), the media people will have a field day with it, blow it out of proportion, call it communal and somehow link it with BJP. But if a muslim or a christian criticises a hindu (or his religion), it becomes protection of minority. The press will write all good things about that or at the least ignore it. It is the same case with the gender debate. If there is any news that portrays ladies or girls as good, the media are all there to put it in headlines and publicise it. But when they fail, it goes ignored. :-)]

So, what do you think happened? All those girls who outshine boys in SSLC and PUC, why do they fare so badly in CET? It's not just the CET, take any entrance examination, or for that matter any examination where you have to apply your knowledge, overall, boys will outshine girls. But in any exam (like the SSLC or the PUC), where you need to mug up text books and spit it out in the exam hall, girls will fare much better overall as compared to guys. It's not just the pass percentage, I'm sure the girls will do better in the average marks obtained (in a mugging exam).
This theory has been proven time and again. Just compare PUC results with CET results or the Engineering average marks (percentage) with the average pay. Have a look at the CAT results or the IIT-JEE results. You'll find this pattern everywhere. Girls are much better at mugging up, where as guys are much better at applying knowledge. The guys have better analytical aptitude and reasoning.

So, just because you see this pattern, does that make all guys smart? Or does that mean all girls are muggers? Definitely not. I know girls who are smart, have good analytical skills and who have really good knowledge and know how to apply them. I also know guys who are lazy, have bad analytical and reasoning skills, have really bad knowledge in their domain and are even bad at mugging up. But they are only exceptions to the rule.

Disclaimer: This is just a collection of facts and my reasoning for these facts. If you are offended by this post, well, I apologise.

Unpacking my neo

2009-04-06T19:58:00.006+05:30

It's been about 2 weeks since I got my Neo Freerunner. I've been busy playing with it. Here are some pics of unpaking my neo.

This is the package I received. The cloth pouch and the 2.5mm headphones were a bonus. I wasn't informed that the package included them.

Nice quote from LaoTse.

These are the package contents. The freerunner phone, wall charger (with 3 different kind of plug attachments; the round 2 pin one works in India), USB to miniUSB cable (to connect to computer), a stylus, 512MB microSD card (with SD adapter) and couple of batteries (I ordered an extra battery, just in case).

Neo Freerunner

2009-03-17T16:36:00.003+05:30

I have been tracking the Neo Freerunner ever since it's launch in July last year. It is a great device with lots of features. I was waiting for the power management to be fixed so that the device is usable.

Recent results show that atleast one person has extracted a battery life of 70 hours, completely on standby. That should translate to roughly a day's use for minimal usage. Now, with the (slight) improvement in power management, I was unable to resist it. So, I have ordered the device. It costed Rs.24,500 all in all, with an additional (spare) battery.

If you are wondering what this Neo Freerunner is, then take a tour of www.openmoko.com and wiki.openmoko.org.
Basically, it is a computing device with a complete opensource stack. All of it's hardware have free, open source drivers available. The CAD files used in the design of the device are also made available online (open source). As for the software, OpenMoko has a Linux distro running on this. It is called OM (OM 2008.12 is the latest). Then, you have a wide choice of linux distributions to run on this phone - Debian, Gentoo, SHAR, FSO, FDOM, Qt Extended (Qtopia), Fyp, Andriod and a long list of others.
Debian has ported it's entire repository to support the ARM architecture. What this means is that you get the entire Debian repository on this mobile device!

This device has a 400MHz Samsung ARM processor with 128 MB SD RAM and 256 MB flash memory. It supports micro SD card. It has GPS, WiFi, bluetooth, all built in. It has a touch screen interface and can also function as a mobile phone.

I'm eagerly waiting for my Neo. Hopefully, it should arrive in another 2-3 days. That means, I'll be busy the whole weekend playing with it.

Looking back...

2009-03-11T12:36:00.003+05:30

As mentioned in my previous post, it's been over 2 years since I posted anything on this blog. I was just thinking back about the things that happened over this time. Here's a concise list that I can remember now:

- My knee ligament tore up again and I had to undergo a surgery (April 2008). As a result of this, I was confined to my bed for more than a couple of months. As it is, I was over-weight. Now, I've put on even more weight. The good news is that my knee seems to be pretty much back to normal. I can run, walk and even play.

- I completed my M.S degree (in Software Systems) from BITS, Pilani.

- I failed in a subject (in my 3rd semester, MS) for the first time in my life. Not just that, but because of this failure, I had to re-take a whole semester again. It cost me atleast 6 months.

- I got a chance to visit Bangkok for a couple of weeks to help out a customer (April 2007). This was my first international visit (and the only one till date) and also the first time I flew on a aeroplane.

- I had many trips and visited many places:

Hogenikal falls with Karthik, Kiran and Pavan (Feb 2007)
Bangkok (April 2007)
Nonabur (May 2007) with parents and many other relatives.
Manchanabelle Dam with Srini and PK (Dec 2007)
Belur and Halebidu with Srini, Naren and Chandru (Dec 2007)
Delhi, Pilani and Jaipur trip with parents and brother (Nov 2008)
Yerkad with CoolBlueGang friends (Dec 2008)
South Indian coastal trip to Alleppey, Thiruvananthapuram, Kanyakumari and Pondicherry with Srini, Naren, Girish and Murali (Feb-March 2009)

- Lot's of things happened in my friends' lives too

Giri went to US to pursue his higher studies (MS) in Aug 2007
PK and Smitha got married to each other.
Nidhi, Sachin, and Chandru also got married.
PK cleared the ISB interview and is all set to pursue his MBA.

Well, that's all I can remember now. It has been an exciting time, looking back at the memories. Lots of ups and downs. Hopefully, the future will be exciting too. Only time will tell.

2+ years!

2009-03-09T12:19:00.002+05:30

It's been more than 2 years since I posted anything here... I didn't really think it was that long! Anyway, hopefully, I will write something more frequently from now on.

ವಿನಯ

"Drive" to mysore

2007-01-29T13:35:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, we friends (CoolBlueGang) drove to Mysore. I'm referring to this as a "drive" & not a "trip". There is a reason for that & you'll just find that out.

First of all, people have become so busy that we friends (CBG) hardly meet on weekends. So, we (Srini & me) decided that we have to plan for a one-day trip. Srini's suggestion was that the backup plan would be to go to Mysore. That is, if we couldn't decide on any other place, then we would go to Mysore.. We started off the planning almost 2 weeks ago. But the actual planning didn't happen till last week. I shot off an email asking suggestions for places. No one replied. I suggested Hogenikal falls. Somebody shot it down saying it's a dirty place. Srini suggested that we can go to Mysore itself & we could visit Melkote on the way. I suggested Chunchanakatte falls (which is at a little distance from Mysore).

Narendra was not free on Friday & Saturday. So, we postponed the trip for Sunday. Srinivas came to my place on Friday to finalise the plans. We planned leave early at 6AM in the morning, go to Mysore for breakfast. We planned to visit Chamundi hills, zoo, palace & then visit Chunchanakatte falls (instead of KRS as KRS would be crowded on a weekend). We had even communicated this plan to everyone by Saturday. We planned to take 2 cars - Srini's Getz & my Santro. The planning was all done well. So, I thought the trip would be good too..

On Sunday morning, I woke up at 5AM & I was ready by 6AM. We were in Chandru's house by 6:30 or 6:45. Naren was supposed to come there. We didn't have to wait long. He came in his car & suggested that he'll get his car & I can leave behind my car at Chandru's place. I agreed to do so. And we started from Chandru's place at 7 AM. The start time was quite good, even though it was a little be late than planned. We could have reached Mysore by 9 or 9:30. That would have meant a little late breakfast. So, instead, we stopped on the way at Kamat Hotel at around 8:15 or so. We had a heavy breakfast there. On the way to Mysore, I heard comments like "What are we going to do at zoo? Why are we going there?", etc. I decided to ignore them.

By the time we reached Mysore it was about 9:45. We decided to go to Chamundi hills first. We were on the top at 10. We enjoyed the view there for a few minutes & spent some time there. Although we went to the top of the hill, we didn't go to the temple as none of us were interested. Some people said that they didn't want to go to zoo. We had seen a glimpse of a lake on the way to Chamundi hills. We decided to go to that place next.

The lake was called "Karanji Kere" (kere means lake in kannada). There was also a park next to the lake called "Karanji Kere Park". We strolled around in the park for a few minutes. Then we went boating in the lake. The boating was for a short duration only. We peddled our boats for half an hour & returned back to the park. The park had a good spacious aviary. There were lots of different kinds of birds there - peacocks, swans, and many others whose names I do not know. Visiting the aviary was the only good thing (or the only thing) that we did in Mysore. It was 11:30 by the time we came out of the aviary. There was a butterfly park further down. But nobody seemed interested to visit that. I would have liked to go to the butterfly park. But many people said they were hungry & wanted to find a good restaurant for lunch.

When it comes to lunch, my friends think that I'm THE reserved guy. Actually one thing I haven't understood so far is that why so many of my friends, who are all pure vegetarians, prefer to go to non-vegetarian hotels for lunch. It's not that there are not many decent vegetarian restaurants around. It's just they prefer to go to expensive non-vegetarian hotels only. My policy is that as far as possible I'm not going to eat anything at a non-vegetarian hotel. One thing my friends always ask me is how I'm going to survive when I go out of country. I would like to tell them straight on their face that it may be tough when I go out of country, but it's quite bad here, when I go out with my friends itself. I mean, right here in my own country, when I'm with my friends, when we have so many choices of vegetarian restaurants, I have had to skip lunches with my friends because they fancy non-veg restaurants (& detest vegetarian places). Sigh.. I don't want them to feel bad, so I haven't told this on their face yet.

Anyway, coming back to our "trip", these guys wanted to go to a "good" hotel for lunch. I called up my cousin & found out the names of a couple of hotels that were good. I didn't get the directions to those hotels. We could have asked our way around. But my friends, as I told you earlier, somehow detest eating at a vegetarian only hotel. After a drive through the city, Narendra saw an advertisement of some star hotel. Everybody else agreed to go there. I didn't protest. I'm very sure they all knew it was going to be a non-veg hotel. And everybody knows quite well, that I wouldn't eat anything in such places. Still, everybody wanted to go to that place. So, there was no point in protesting.

These guys asked directions for that hotel & managed to find the hotel. (Although if we had asked for directions to the vegetarian hotel suggested by my cousin, we could have gone there. But how could these guys go to a veg restaurant? It would be below their dignity!). I plainly told them I'm not going to eat anything at that hotel. But these guys carried on & had lunch at that hotel while I was just sitting next to them, idle. It took more than an hour to finish their lunch there. (Now that I think of it, I feel that I should never even have gone inside that hotel). After their lunch, I walked around & found a vegetarian hotel quite closeby & had my lunch there. (It was not an expensive hotel. It wasn't even a hotel with an AC room. But it was an ordinary vegetarian hotel & the food was good).

So, by the time we finished our 2 batches of lunch, it was 3PM. We then went to Mysore Palace. Since it was a holiday (Sunday), there were a lot of people. My friends didn't want to go where there is crowd. So, we just got to the palace gates & turned back. They didn't want to go to zoo too. KRS would have been crowded either. So, we decided to check out Chunchanakatte falls. The only directions we had was that it was on the Mysore-Hassan route. Somebody also informed that it is on the way to KRS. We decided to go on the way to KRS & ask for directions to Chunchanakatte. We hadn't gone very far, when we asked for directions. We were told to take the ring road as that would lead to the falls. The ring road turned out to be the Bangalore-Mysore road. And although we did ask directions at a few places, no one had heard of Chunchanakatte. Then I realised that at some distance from Mysore, (when coming towards B'lore), a road to the left goes towards Shravanabelagola & Hassan. I suggested we take that route & ask people there if they knew about Chunchanakatte. We finally decided to take that route & go to a max of 20 kms & if we didn't find the route, we head back.

When we took the deviation, we asked around & found out that we were on the right track. Chunchanakatte was on the way to K.R Pete. K.R Pete was about 35 kms from there & Chunchanakatte was about 7-8 kms from K.R Pete. It was already 4:15PM by then. If we had decided to go to Chunchanakatte, it would have been very late in the night to come back. So, Srini suggested we skip the place & return to Bangalore instead. On the way back, we stopped only at Coffee day & we were back at Chandru's place by 8PM. I was back home by 8:30 PM.

In short, we went to Mysore. There we visited Chamundi hills, but we did not bother to go to the temple there. We skipped the zoo completely. We did not go to the Palace either, we just saw it from outside. We did not go to KRS either. We went half the way towards Chunchanakatte falls & returned back. The only place we went was boating & the aviary at the Karanji Kere Park. We didn't even have a look at the whole park. We missed places like butterfly park.

So, we just had a "drive" to mysore & not a trip as we didn't visit anything at all. It was as though we had gone there just for lunch. And for me it was as though I went just to sit at that non-veg restaurant when my friends were having lunch.

Anyway, here are the few photos that I clicked. I just wanted to post these photos, but ended up writing so much.

Mysore drive

11561 reasons to use Firefox

2007-01-24T13:03:00.000+05:30

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ traffic

2006-10-06T08:36:00.000+05:30

ಇಂದು ಮುಂಜಾನೆ office ಗೆ ಬೇಗನೆ ಹೋರಟಿದ್ದೆ. ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನ 8:30, 8:45 ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ಹೊರಡಿತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನಾನು, ಇಂದು ಏಳು ಕಾಲಿಗೇ (7:15) ಮನೆಯಿಂದ ಹೊರಟೆ. ಅಷ್ಟು ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ, ರಸ್ತೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಾಹನ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಇರುವುದೆಂದು ಭಾವಿಸಿದ್ದೆ. ಆದರೆ, traffic ತುಂಬಾ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಏನೂ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ನಾನು ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನ ಗಾಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಓಡಾಡುವಾಗ, ಬನಶಂಕರಿಯ ಬಸ್ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದೆಡೆಗೆ ಹೋಗದಿರಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಆದರೆ ಈ ದಿನ, ನನ್ನ ತಮ್ಮನನ್ನು ಶಾಲೆಗೆ ಬಿಡಬೇಕಿತ್ತು. ಹಾಗಾಗಿ, ಬನಶಂಕರಿ ಬಸ್ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದ ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೋದೆ. ಅಲ್ಲಿನ ದುಃಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಏನೆಂದರೆ, ಹತ್ತು ಹೆಜ್ಜೆಗಳ ಅಂತರದಲ್ಲಿ ಎರಡು signalಗಳು ಇವೆ. ಬೆಳಗ್ಗಿನ ಈ ಹೊತ್ತಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಪೋಲಿಸಿನವರು ಇರುವುದಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ಜನರು, traffic ನಿಯಮಗಳನ್ನು ಗಾಳಿಗೆ ತೂರಿ, ತಮಗೆ ಮನ ಬಂದಂತೆ ಗಾಡಿಗಳನ್ನು ಓಡಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಮೊದಲನೆಯ signalನಲ್ಲಿ ಬಲ ತಿರುಗುವಂತಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೂ ಒಂದು ಕಾರು ಬಲ ತಿರುಗುವ indicator ಹಾಕಿ, ಆರಾಮಾಗಿ ಬಲಕ್ಕೆ ತಿರುಗಿತು. ನನಗೆ ಕಾನೂನು ಉಲ್ಲಂಘಿಸುವವರನ್ನು ಕಂಡರೆ ಕೆಂಡದಂಥ ಕೋಪ ಬರುತ್ತದೆ. ಆದರೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಏನೂ ಮಾಡುವಂತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆ signal ಹಸಿರು ಇದ್ದುದ್ದರಿಂದ, ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋದೆ. ಬಸ್ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದ ಎದುರು ಎರಡನೆಯ signal ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಂಪು ದೀಪ ಉರಿಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಾರಣ, ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಗಾಡಿಯನ್ನು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿದೆ. ನನ್ನ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ 2-3 ಆಟೊಗಳು, 2-3 ಬಸ್ ಗಳು signalಅನ್ನು ಕಡೆಗಾಣಿಸಿ ವೇಗವಾಗಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆಗ, ನನ್ನ ಹಿಂದೆ ಒಂದು ಬಸ್ ಬಂದು ಜೋರಾಗಿ horn ಮಾಡಲು ಶುರುಮಾಡಿತು. ನಾನು ತಿರುಗಿ ನೋಡಿದಾಗ, ಅದರ ಚಾಲಕನು, ನಾನೂ ಸಹ traffic ನಿಯಮ ಉಲ್ಲಂಘಿಸಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋಗಿ, ಅವನಿಗೂ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋಗಲು ದಾರಿ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡಬೇಕೆಂದು ಸನ್ನೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ನಾನು ಅವನಿಗೆ signalನಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಂಪು ದೀಪ ಇರುವುದನ್ನು ಕೈ ಸನ್ನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ತೋರಿಸಿದೆ. ಆದರೆ, ಅವನಿಗೆ ತಾಳ್ಮ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅವನು ಜೋರಾಗಿ horn ಮಾಡುತ್ತಲೇ ಇದ್ದನು. ಆದರೆ ನಾನು ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕಿವಿ ಕೊಡಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಹಸಿರು ದೀಪ ಬಂದೊಡನೆಯೆ, ನಾನು ಬಲ ತಿರುಗಲು ಹೊರಟೆ. ಆದರೆ ಎದುರುಗಡೆಯಿಂದ ಒಂದು ಆಟೋ ಮತ್ತು ಒಂದು ಬಸ್, ಅವರಿಗಿದ್ದ ಕೆಂಪು ದೀಪವನ್ನು ಕಡೆಗಾಣಿಸಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆ ಆಟೋದವನೆಂತೂ ನನಗೆ ಇನ್ನೇನು ಹೊಡೆಯಬೇಕು ಅನ್ನೊಷ್ಟು ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬಂದು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿದ. ನನಗೂ ರೇಗಿ ಹೋಯಿತು. "red light ಇರೋದು ಕಾಣ್ಸೋಲ್ವಾ sir?" ಎಂದೆ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಅವನು ನಾನೆ ಎನೋ ತಪ್ಪು ಮಾಡಿದ ಹಾಗೆ ನನಗೇ ಜೋರು ಮಾಡಿದ. ಅಲ್ಲೆ ರಸ್ತೆ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಂತು ಅವನೊಡನೆ ಜಗಳ ಮಾಡುವಷ್ಟು ಸಮಯವಾಗಲಿ, ತಾಳ್ಮೆಯಾಗಲಿ ನನಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅವನನ್ನು ಮನದಲ್ಲಿಯೆ ಬೈದುಕೊಂಡು ಮುಂದೆ ಸಾಗಿದೆ.

ಬನಶಂಕರಿಯ ನಂತರ, ರಸ್ತೆಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ಖಾಲಿಯಾಗೇ ಇತ್ತು. ಮನೆಯಿಂದ officeಗೆ ಬರಲು ಇಂದು 35-40 ನಿಮಿಷ ಹಿಡಿಯಿತು. ಎಂಟು ಗಂಟೆಯ ನಂತರ ಹೋರಟಿದ್ದರೆ, ಒಂದು ಕಾಲು ಗಂಟೆಯಾದರೂ ಹಿಡಿಯುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಬೆಳಗ್ಗೆ ಎಷ್ಟು ಬೇಗ ಹೊರಡುತ್ತೀನೊ, ಅಷ್ಟು ಪ್ರಯಾಣದ ಸಮಯ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಮಾಡಬಹುದು.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, ಅದರಲ್ಲೂ ಇಲ್ಲಿನ traffic ಸ್ಥಿತಿ, ಎಷ್ಟು ಹದಗೆಟ್ಟಿದೆ. 4-5 ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಹೀಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಇನ್ನು 2-3 ವರ್ಷಗಳ ನಂತರದ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಯೋಚಿಸಿದರೆ ವ್ಯಥೆಯಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.

"Free" software?

2006-09-17T13:03:00.000+05:30

I've been an avid linux fan from my first year in Engineering. I've installed & worked with over 50 different linux distributions. In short, I love linux. I bought my PC in 2000. It came pre-loaded with windows.

I didn't have much knowledge about PCs or operating systems then. I remember, one of my friends (Srini) had told me that I should get a bootable windows CD along with the PC. When I asked the guy who assembled my PC, he said "what CD? We don't give any CD". He gave me a bootable floppy instead! I realized that I got a pirated version of windows atleast a few months later.

When I started using Linux later, I realized it's much better than Windows in almost every possible way. Slowly, I was so much awed by Linux, that I've been working mostly on Linux only (at home) ever since.. But I still had windows for a few reasons.
One, I had a win-modem which came with the assembled system, which meant I wasn't able to get it working in Linux for a long time.
Two, I had some data in windows partition. Three, I used to play a lot of games. And if you wanted any good 3d games, there were very few available for Linux.
Also, my dad sometimes used to use the PC, mostly to browse the internet. And he wanted only windows.

My hard disk crashed a few months ago. After some of my futile attempts at getting it fixed, I bought a new one. I installed linux on my system & things were going well.. A new 80 GB hard disk meant that I could have one or two permanent linux partition (with any of my favourite distros installed in them) & also I would still have disk space to install & try out new (or new versions of existing) distros.

After about a couple of weeks of getting the new hard disk, my dad asked me if I had "repaired" the PC. I had then installed Vector Linux & PCBSD. I told him that I had created an account for him in PCBSD & he could start browsing internet in that. The following conversation (or you can say a heated argument) ensued:

Dad: "What? Have you not installed windows? You always keep installing this linux & other stuff.."
Me: "No.. As I have told you many times, you can do everything that you do on windows in Linux (or FreeBSD). Just try it.. If you find **any** problem at all in using Linux/FreeBSD, let me know. I assure you you won't have any problems"
Dad (angrily): "I don't want to learn something new.. Windows is what I know & what I work with in office too.. Why should I learn linux? I can't learn new things at my age.. I don't want to learn.."
Me: "But dad, you don't have to learn anything at all.. Just boot up the PC, log on to Linux (FreeBSD actually) using your name only (no password required too, I had disabled password for his account). Then you can just start using it right away.. You'll have a start menu similar to windows. Select web browser & start browsing.. It's just like the way you do it on windows. You don't have to learn any new thing"
(I had configured his user account with password-less login on PCBSD. The default desktop was KDE"
Dad (angrily & not wanting to listen to anything I say): "I just don't want to do it.. You always keep installing Linux.. What is your problem in installing windows?"
Me: "Well, you'll have to pay about Rs.3000 or so for Windows XP. You know, windows is not free"
Dad (even more angrily): "Does everybody else pay? Don't they get it installed when they get the PC? Can you not get the CD from one of your friends & install windows? (If not just call the computer shop guy & he'll install it for you if you don't want to do it yourself)"
Me: "But dad, that's pirated versions of windows. You know, piracy is illegal. You are not supposed to install software from pirated copies. It's wrong"
Dad (much more angrier now): "Everybody does it.. What's your problem. If everybody else can use pirated versions why can't you?"
Me: "Because it's illegal. I can get arrested for installing pirated copy of softwares, even windows"
Dad: "How many people have been arrested so far? Doesn't **everybody else** do it? What is your problem in installing windows.. I know, it's just that you do not want me to use the computer. That's why you install linux & other things. That's why you don't want to install windows. I won't touch your computer from today. You do whatever you want"

Anything I said after that, was useless. My dad didn't want to listen to me. I even challenged him to use it once & show me **any** problems in using Linux to browse the internet. But he didn't want to listen.

As you can see in the above situation, the problem is not windows or linux or even the reluctance to learn/adapt new things. The problem is piracy. Call it ignorance towards piracy or call it the lack of knowledge/information about piracy. The truth is that piracy has infiltrated our lives much deeper than anyone can think of. (And mind you, software piracy is just one small part of it). If there were no piracy, maybe my dad would have known that it costs a bomb for windows, office, etc. Maybe then he would try out other low cost alternatives. The problem is, as he says, since everybody is embracing piracy, why not us? This reflects the general thinking of the majority of the population. In a way, piracy is like corruption. We all know corruption is bad & must be eliminated. But when it comes to getting your work done, you are ready to pay a small (or some) amount of bribe to get it done faster & smoother. Piracy works similarly.. If you can get something that costs a lot for dirt cheap, would you not buy it? Even if it's illegal? Especially if everyone's doing it & nobody is being penalised legally or facing any problems? Would you not do it?
Atleast, I wouldn't do it. Simply because it's illegal.

Let's have a look at software piracy. Most new PCs are shipped with windows. Branded ones ensure they provide only licensed copy. But more than 90% of home PC users buy assembled PCs (because of the mere price difference b/w assembled & branded ones). And I'm sure 99% of the computer shops that assemble PCs have pirated copies of most popular software (& not just windows.. To name a few - ms office, visual studio, macromedia flash, adobe photoshop, acrobat, antivirus softwares, etc). Many people assume that all these softwares come for free along with the PC.. Just ask the computer shop guy to install what ever software you want & he'll do it for free. The irony is that a few computer shop vendors themselves are not educated about piracy. Others who are well aware of piracy, convenietly don't mention about that to customers. Many customers may also not be aware of piracy. But even a majority of people who are aware, do nothing to stop it. I mean I'm not saying you need to take pro-active actions. You can atleast not buy/use pirated things.

Piracy is not limited to softwares.. It's much more rampant in the music industry, movie industry & even the computer games industry. Recently, I saw a person in Domlur who was selling lots of pirated CD on the roadside. He had CDs - both audio & video of most recent movies in most languages! Go to National Market on any day & every shop there has pirated stuff. The innumerable no. of raids there seems to be futile.

So, who benefits from piracy? People who create software/music/movies, are the ones that have lot to lose.. They put their hard work & money to create something. But piracy robs them of the money they are supposed to get for their hard work. At first it might seem that the end users stand to gain from it. You get costly commodities for cheap prices, right? But you'll soon realise that this is not the case. If all popular products (non-tangible products like software/music/movies that can be pirated) do get pirated, then most people would buy pirated ones instead of costly original ones. This means the people who create these products lose money & they may not create products in the future. The quality of products in that industry goes on decreasing and the end-users stand to lose. For eg. if piracy becomes very rampant in the music industry, prople producing music will soon realise that they are losing money because of piracy. So, they stop producing music (atleast the quality of music produced will go down as there will be no proper ROI). So, in the long run, people will not get good music.

Let us all atleast try to stop piracy. Let's not buy/use any pirated stuff, be it software, music, movies or anything else. Unless we, the end users don't do something about it, we can't bring down this evil.

ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ blogging??

2006-09-15T18:06:00.000+05:30

ಈಗ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೂ blog ಮಾಡಬಹುದು! ಕನ್ನಡ ಗಣಕ ಪರಿಷತ್ತು ನಿರ್ಮಿಸಿರುವ "ನುಡಿ" ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ (software) ಬಳಸಿ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುವುದು ಬಹಳ ಸುಲಭವಾಗಿದೆ.
ಅಕ್ಷರಗಳು "unicode" ನಲ್ಲಿ ತೋರುವುದರಿಂದ, ಯಾವುದೇ ಗಣಕ ಯಂತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ (computer), ಬರೆದಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಕ್ಷರಗಳು ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ತೋರುತ್ತವೆ.

ಜೈ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ.. ಜೈ ಕನ್ನಡ..

Java interview

2006-05-30T11:23:00.000+05:30

Although I do not have much experience in Java, hopefully, I'll do better than this guy in a Java interview..

Q. What is the difference between an Abstract class and Interface?
A. Terms are different ... nothing more

Q. What is JFC ?
A. Jilebi, Fanta & Coffee

Q. Explain 2 tier and 3 -tier Architecture ?
A. Two wheelers like scooters will have 2 tyres and autorickshaws will have 3 tyres.

Q. I want to store more than 10 objects in a remote server ? Which methodology will follow ?
A. Send it through courier.

Q. Can I modify an object in CORBA ?
A. As you wish , I do not have any objections.

Q. How to communicate 2 threads each other ?
A. Non living things can't communicate.

Q. What is meant by flickering ?
A. Closing and opening of eyes at girls.

Q. Explain RMI Architecture?
A. I am a computer professional not an architect student.

Q. What is the use of Servlets ?
A. In hotels, they can replace servers.

Q. What is the difference between Process and Threads ?
A. Threads are small ropes. Make a rope from threads is an example for process.

Q. When is update method called ?
A. Who is update method?

Q. What is JAR file ?
A. File that can be kept inside a jar.

Q. What is JNI ?
A. You mean JINI? It's a ghost which was Aladdin's friend.

Q. How will you call an Applet from a Java Script?
A. I will give invitation.

Q. How you can know about drivers and database information ?
A. I will go and enquire in the bus dep ot.

Q. What is serialization ?
A. Arranging one after the other from left to right.

Q. What is bean ? Where it can be used ?
A. A kind of vegetable. In kitchens for cooking they can be used.

Q. Write down how will you create a binary Tree ?
A. When we sow a binary seed , a binary tree will grow.

Q. What is the exact diffe rence between Unicast and Multicast object ?
A. If in a society, if there is only one caste, then it is Unicast, else it is multicast.

Holi

2006-03-19T23:21:00.000+05:30

My Team mates

2006-03-19T23:20:00.001+05:30

Some of my team mates

2006-03-19T23:20:00.000+05:30

Playing Holi, in the evening

2006-03-19T23:18:00.000+05:30

Me & my team mates celebrating Holi

2006-03-19T23:17:00.000+05:30

Myself, on Holi day

Everybody in our office played holi on Wednesday. It was fun.. We couldn't work the whole day.
Although we were informed the previous day, I didn't bother to wear proper wear to celebrate holi with colours. Well, to be frank, I never let anybody apply colour on me all these years. I mean I never played holi at all.. :-) I know that sounds weird. My colleages were surprised to hear this too.
When I entered the office, I noticed that some people were already 'coulourful'. I didn't want to spoil my clothes & thought I would resist people who try to put colour on me.. But believe me, no one, not even one person was spared in our office. Everybody did multiple rounds to all the desks & made sure they put colours on all our faces, hair & even clothes.
In the evening, there were some snacks arranged on the occassion of Holi. But people who went to get snacks were greeted with more colours. I washed my face & hair almost 4 times that day (thinking that the colour smearing ceremony was over). But everytime, they put more colours on me. Luckily my clothes weren't much coloured.. All in all, a different experience for me.

Flexible Computer Keyboard

2006-03-01T13:09:00.000+05:30

Have a look at this:
Flexible Computer Keyboard

The "Super Kool Keyboard", as they call it, seems to be very flexible. They even claim that it is virtually indestructible. Supposedly, you can wash the keyboard & roll it up. It is also supposed to be durable & soft..

I remember my keyboard at home. It's over 5 years since my dad bought me that computer. I stopped cleaning the keyboard over 4 years ago. The once white keyboard is now brown with dust. But still, all the keys are working properly & the keyboard is in good condition. I've used my computer to play a lot of games, which means I have put my keyboard into a lot of stress test. But yet, my old keyboard is still strong. They keys are still soft & responsive. And in over 5 years, I have never spilt anything on my keyboard.

The USP of "Super Kool Keyboard" is that you can spill anything on your keyboard & wash it up. But as I have already told, in the past 5 years, I haven't spilt anything on my keyboard. So, spilling something is a rare occurance. Next point is cleaning the keyboard. Well, cleanliness is a matter of personal discretion. One of my friends, never bothered to clean his bike. There used to be 2-3 inches of dirt/mud on his bike most of the time.

The ability of rolling up the keyboard could be quite useful. In the future, such keyboards could be supplied along with PDAs or even mobile phones, so that you can spread out a large full size keyboard & connect it to your device. You can roll it up & carry it in your pocket in other times.

Coming to the price, it costs $40, which is just less than about Rs.2000. This is more than 2 times the cost of an ordinary keyboard. (Infact, you can get a good keyboard for less than Rs.500). So, unless the price comes down a bit, I don't see a lot of people buying it.

My verdict: Just another one of "interesting" gadgets. Not very useful though. If you are very cleanliness-concious & would like to wash your keyboard often, this is for you. Or if you work in environment where dust or water/moisture is inevitable, this will be useful. One good thing is that you can roll it up & carry where ever you go.

Personally, I think its a total waste of money. I don't know why I'm wasting time writing about this. Maybe just to fill up the blog with something..

Chat

2006-02-07T21:50:00.000+05:30

Chat is evolving.. Older days of using messengers are out of fashion now. Most messengers are bulky & come with too many unwanted features. A classic example is yahoo messenger.

Google Talk revolutionised this market. This is one tool that impressed me a lot.. It's simple interface, ease of use, light weight, crystal clear voice chat (even over dial up connections), everything about it seems perfect.

Now, it seems that chat has evolved once more. And yes, it's Google again. Have a look at this: Chat in Gmail.
You can now chat from within the browser. Yahoo had this feature (web chat) for a long time. But if you ever used it, you'll know how paethetic it was. Text chats from within GMail is so cool. Not only is it light weight, simple & easy to use, it's very intuitive. I can vouch that it's going to be as good as GMail itself.

Google is redefining most of the tools. Recently I came across Goobuntu, which is the new OS being developed by Google. It uses Linux kernel & is based on the Ubuntu distribution. I can 't wait for it to be released.

"See-through" lenses

2006-01-27T14:21:00.000+05:30

Have a look at the link below:

IR Pass Filters & Infrared Lens for Sony NightShot. Panasonic NightView KAYA Lens

KAYA optics have developed Infrared lenses which can see-through objects. The images from their experiments show how they can see through clothing. Not only that, the 2nd experiment, amazed me. Permanent ink is spilt on a document. The text in the ink spilt area is impossible to read then. But using this lens, the writing is clearly legible through the ink.

I wonder what will happen if such lens are introduced in the market.

No post for a long time

2006-01-05T10:45:00.000+05:30

A few weeks ago, I wrote a long post. I was also installing some software at the same time. And the installer rebooted my system closing everything. The post that I composed for almost an hour was lost. Just like that! After that, I lost my enthusiasm in blogging.

Don't you feel the posts we start to create must be saved (as draft) automatically every minute or two? GMail already has this feature. You start composing the mail & the content is saved every minute or so, so that even if your browser crashes or you lose your internet connection, your composition will be stored as Drafts. Blogger.com should come up with a similar feature... After all, blogger is owned by google itself..

NoScript plugin for Firefox

2005-11-11T14:08:00.000+05:30

Have you tried out the NoScript plugin for Firefox? It blocks out the scripts from most of the websites (except those in it's whitelist). Blocking out the scripts mean that most of the ads are blocked at the script level itself. Many popups are written using Java scripts. They'll be automatically blocked too.. It's a very good thing that you can selectively block scripts from websites.. But beware. If you are doing a transaction on the web (banks, auction sites, paypal sites, etc) you need to make sure that you have allowed all the scripts originating from that website. If not, the scripts are blocked the first time & the transaction is not complete.. Then clicking on the "Allow" button will reload the page allowing the scripts. This way, the transaction may be carried out twice which may be disastrous..

The NoScript plugin along with the Adblock Plus plugin make sure that you see no ads, popups or run unwanted scripts.

Google Desktop

2005-11-11T12:58:00.000+05:30

I had been using the Google Desktop Search (GDS) for quite some time now.. Initially (1.0 beta version), I did not like it much as I could search only text files & office documents.. I could not search through the things I wanted, like source code, XML files, PDF files, etc.. But after I got hold of a plugin that allowed me to control the type of files I could index, GDS was of immense help.. I could set up GDS to index all my text files, source files & specific extensions. It was a very helpful tool... But I read on the google website that it took about 500 MB of index space... I thought that was too much.. Anyway, my company also encouraged people to use GDS by making it available on the intranet..

Recently, I thought of trying out Google Desktop 2.0.. I downloaded the 2.0 beta version.. This was a major improvement over GDS.. Now Google Desktop could not only search (desktop/web), but also had a lot of other important & useful features.. I liked the Google Sidebar.. I can see updated news (I can even choose news specific to my country/region) on the sidebar.. There is also this ScratchPad which I found useful.. I can write/paste any text in it & it will be autosaved.. Very handy tool.. Then there is this weblinks.. You can subscribe to a particular weblink & you can see the updates on the sidebar.. This is particularly useful to read blogs.. I can add the URL of a blog as a weblink.. Any new post on the blog (actually anything updated in the past 7 days or so) would be shown to me in the Sidebar. The entire post can be viewed (by expanding it) within the sidebar itself.. No need to visit any website.. That's cool..

There are also a lot of plugins available for Google Desktop.. I did use the "ToDo" & "TimeWarp" plugins.. The ToDo plugin was quite useful.. I have seen people maintain a Todo file on desktop & updating it regularly.. I felt this ToDo plugin for Google Desktop was much better for such people.. The "TimeWarp" plugin is funky. It displays an analog clock, the shape & size of which is customizable.. Most of all, Google Desktop is light. It takes up very less memory..

I really felt Google Desktop was a perfect tool & a must-have for everyone.. This was until yesterday, when my laptop suddenly slowed down tremendously.. And there was a small balloon above the system tray which said "You are low on disk space on C drive". I was confused as I had not installed any softwares recently. With much difficulty, I could open up the My Computer. I saw that C drive had just 130 MB of free space. Usually I keep over 1 GB of free space on C drive.. I started investigating which folders took up so much space.. I eventually found out that the index files maintained by Google was close to 2 GB.. I did not expect Google Desktop to hog so much of disk space. I had to uninstall the Google Desktop to restore sanity to my system.

Article about population

2005-10-18T12:16:00.000+05:30

Here is a nice article about population -

http://www.melvindurai.com/population.htm

Changing times

2005-10-11T17:20:00.000+05:30

I love this time of the year.. Lot's of festivals & functions.. We have the Dasara for 10 whole days.. Sweets & special preparations every day!! Then it is Deepavali.. The joy of friends & relatives getting together & bursting crackers..

Also, there are a few functions now.. This time of the year is considered to be auspicious & you'll find a function almost every other day.. Last Sunday was some "Parayana" at my home.. There were about 50 relatives who came to our house. The week before that, it was my cousin's house Grihapravesha.. It was almost a 3 day event. I could attend only 2 days though. Next Sunday is the same cousin's engagement. So, all our relatives are getting together again..

It reminds me of my childhood when I used to go to my relatives' place so often.. Every other week, I used to visit my cousins' places. We used to go out together for movies, parks & such places. In holidays we all used to go to our parents native place & have fun.. During vacations, all children of same age group used to get together at one person's place & spend the holidays together.. During Deepavali, for the 3 days, we use to get together at 3 different places for each day & burst the crackers together in the evening after a nice heavy lunch..

All that remains is memories.. These days everyone's so busy. I would be happy if I could go to a relative's place once a year.. We all get together only at some special functions/occassions (like marriages, Grihapravesha, etc). Even at that time, many people may miss out.. I don't remember the last time all our relatives went to a movie.. I think the last time I went to a movie with my parents was more than 7-8 years ago.. I don't remember the last time I visited a park with my parents/brother/relatives.. The world is changing.. Nobody has time.. How come people had time 10-15 years ago?? What has happened now?

Shivanasamudra trip

2005-08-22T19:37:00.000+05:30

The photos below were from the Shivanasamudra trip. We went there the previous weekend (13th). I did not find much time to write about it last week. So, I just posted the pics.

The place is pretty closeby to Bangalore.. It's about 125kms. The road is good too. Shivanasamudra boasts of Asia's first power generation plant. Because of rains a few weeks ago, Kaveri was in full flow. Shivanasamudra is a pretty big valley where Kaveri water falls from 2 different points, creating 2 falls - Gaganachukki & Bharachukki. Most people visit only the Gaganachukki falls. You can also view Bharachukki falls from there. I had been to this place atleast a couple of times before (mostly on the way to Talakadu). This time was the best & the river was in full flow. A real treat for the eyes.. We even went near the Bharachukki falls. You can go close to the Bharachukki falls. There is a Darga closeby. The view from this point is also very good. But there are a lot less people on this side. And you can see the full glory of the valley from Bharachukki.

Four of us - Naren, Chandru, John & me went in Naren's car. On the way back from Bharachukki, one of the tires of the car got punctured. Chandru's strength & skills helped us get back on our way soon. We had taken the Kanakapura road on the way to Shivanasamudra. But while coming back, we came via Mysore road. We even went to the Cafe Coffee Day on Mysore road.

Overall the trip was very good & we enjoyed it very much.

Oh.. By the way, my cousins (along with their families) went to the same place the next day (Sunday, 14th). They had a horrible experience as there were just too many people.. The traffic was worse than that in Bangalore roads.. There were so many cars that it took them a Loooong time to get there.. And, unfortunately they also met with a small accident on the way to Shivanasamudra. They bumped into the car right in front of them. And the traffic was so good that the car in front of them banged on to the next car & so on.. They had lunch after 3:30 or so in the afternoon after visiting Gaganachukki. They did not bother to visit Bharachukki.

It's good that we went on a Saturday & not a Sunday.

2005-08-16T14:19:00.000+05:30

John, in the backdrop of Bharachukki falls

2005-08-16T14:17:00.000+05:30

Kaveri flowing, just before Bharachukki falls

2005-08-16T14:15:00.000+05:30

The Shivanasamudra Valley

2005-08-16T14:14:00.000+05:30

Gaganachukki (viewed from near Bharachukki falls)

2005-08-16T14:13:00.000+05:30

Gaganachukki - a different view

2005-08-16T14:11:00.000+05:30

Gaganachikki falls

2005-08-16T14:10:00.000+05:30

Srini, Chan & Naren in the backdrop of Shivanasamudra falls

2005-08-16T14:09:00.000+05:30

Bharachukki falls

2005-08-16T14:06:00.000+05:30

The power house at Shivana Samudra

Got my car

2005-08-10T20:03:00.000+05:30

Finally... I got my car today evening. It burned a BIG hole in my pocket, but I guess it is worth it. Best of all, I got a free Sony MP3 player with the car.

I'll post the pics of my car soon..

Santro, at last..

2005-07-27T17:21:00.000+05:30

Well, over the weekend I had decided to buy Santro.. Today my dad has booked the car too.. We'll be getting the car sometime in the 2nd week of August (Well, now don't get me started on why I have to wait for a fortnight if its already decided).

IT is not like that

2005-07-26T20:13:00.000+05:30

A good post..

Read this

Santro or WagonR?

2005-07-25T15:07:00.000+05:30

Well, the weekend was spent going to showrooms & trying to decide which car to buy...
I still feel Alto is the best car (for me, ofcourse).. But considering that space also a criterion, I decided to look at Santro & WagonR. Remote Locking & Music system are being offered free for Santro, whose price comes up to exactly 4 lakhs... As for WagonR, the price seems to be 4.2 lakhs. But the dealer offered to waive off the insurance fees & another 9k extra. So, the price of WagonR comes to around 3.98 lakhs, which is essentially the same as Santro. (But accessories-wise, you get a music system extra in Santro). If you look at the engine capacity, the inner capacity, boot space, the dimensions, etc, everything seems to be the same for both Santro & WagonR. There are a few differences though.. Santro is marketed as a 5-seater, whereas, WagonR is a 4 seater (but 5 ppl can sit comfortably). Also, the back seats of WagonR are fully reclinable, which is not possible in case of Santro. Also, if the back seats are fully folded, you get a lot of space in WagonR, as compared to Santro. Both has its positives & negatives. Mileage - Both of them claim the same mileage. So, it's totally a deadlock.. I can't decide which one to go for...

I have heard that the cost of spare parts & the cost of servicing are both high for Santro as compared to WagonR. The dealer dismissed these as just rumours & not just actual facts. But I have been told about this by many people.

Anyway, I have not yet made up my mind. The offers for both Santro & WagonR are valid only till the end of this month. So, I have to atleast book the vehicle (if not buy it) by the end of this month. If I were buying the vehicle entirely on my own, I would have bought it ASAP. But it's my dad who's buying it. And he's very religious & doesn't want to buy until after the end of first week of August, as he believes in not doing any good thing or starting a new work in the month of Aashada. So, I guess, I'll have to wait till the second week of Aug.

A visit to Tirupati

2005-07-25T11:23:00.000+05:30

Well, I had been to Tirupati on Friday. We (my parents, my brother & me) started from Bangalore on Thursday night, 10PM. We had booked through ITDC. It was supposedly a 22-hour trip. We reached Tirupati Friday morning at 3:45 AM. We had to take bath & be ready by 5AM. They had provided a decent room for us. There was hot water too, at such wee hours in the morning. So, we took bath & were ready by 5 AM. We went to the nearby Padmavati temple first. We had to wait there for about more than half an hour for Darshana. After that, we came back to the hotel for breakfast at 7:30. We were to start for Tirumala (which is on the top of the hill) by 8AM. The breakfast was OK.. We started to Tirumala by around 8:15 or so. We reached there in about an hour. Then our guide led a few people who wanted to get their heads shaved, to some place, while we waited. Then we went to the templeat around 10 AM. By 10:30, the guide purchased the tickets & we were let in. The queue took a while & we had our "Darshana" by 12PM. Not too much hassle.. Then, we came back to the same hotel in Tirupati for lunch. The bus started back to Bangalore by 3PM. We were back in our house by 9PM. For all you religious people who are planning a trip to Tirupati, ITDC or KSTDC is the best.. It's hassle free & you can be back by the next day.

A four wheeler?

2005-07-20T16:54:00.000+05:30

For some time now, we (me & my parents) have been considering buying a car. We did look at Maruti Alto, WagonR & Santro Xing. Alto seems to be within our budget. The other 2 cars are costlier, but more spacious. Alto has the best mileage & operating costs compared to the other two. I'm not able to decide which one to buy. We would be buying the car sometime in the second week of next month (August).

2005-07-10T19:25:00.000+05:30

The Kodai Trip

Background

This trip was planned for months!!! Originally this trip was scheduled in March. But due to tickets unavailability, we had to cancel it then. Then again in June, when we wanted to go for a 3 day trip, we thought about lots of places. Ultimately, we agreed on Kodai. Me, Srini, Giri, Chandru & Naren were ready to go. (If Sachin was here, he would have definitely come to the trip.) But just before booking the tickets, Naren came up with some lame excuse for not being able to make it to the trip. So, only 4 of us went on the trip.

Thursday - 16/06/2005

The bus was scheduled to leave the station at 8:30 PM. We assembled at Srini's place & started from there by 7:30. Srini's dad dropped us to the bus station by 8 PM. Our first task was to find the platform 14A. And finding this platform was more like finding the Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter). We had to walk a long way, away from all the platforms to a remote corner of the station, where we could find an exit & a few buses, but no platform or at least a board informing us of Platform 14A. By the time we located Platform 14A, it was 8:30. We had the 9:30 AC coach (Mayura) already at the platform. But our bus (Rajahamsa) was no where to be found. We were not even sure whether we were standing on the right platform. Finally, our bus arrived at 8:45 PM. Unfortunately, our seats we at the back, the only comfort being that it was not the last row.

The bus started at around 9:15 from the station. The journey was pretty much uneventful till morning. Srini dozed off early. Chandru & Giri were chatting till long time in the night. I was awake for a long time too. But we all did get ample sleep.

Friday - 17/06/2005

I woke up at around 6 AM. The sunrise in the backdrop of the hills was beautiful. At around 7 AM, the bus stopped at a Hotel (near the base of the Kodai hills) for coffee. We didn't have any coffee, but we enjoyed the scenery around & clicked some snaps, fed the rabbits, etc till the other bus arrived. That was the 9:30 AC bus (Mayura). Me & Srini were busy clicking photos of nature, when Giri & Chandru noticed the chick in the 9:30 bus (She will be henceforth referred to as 930c). Me being a dumb head, did not notice the 930c for some time. It was at this point when both Giri & Chan started cursing me & Srini for booking tickets in the 8:30 bus (instead of the 9:30 bus). I conveniently put the blame on Srini as he was the one who booked the tickets when I was out to get cash from ATM.

The bus continued its journey towards Kodai. It was a long climb uphill. We could admire nature's beauty on the way to the top. (Giri & Chan were still complaining about the bus). Finally, when we reached the Bus stand in Kodai, it was 9:30 AM. It took us 12 hours to get there. I had already booked 2 rooms in a hotel called "Guru Krupa" (or some hotel. I'm not sure about the name). But that hotel was about 2 kms from the bus stand. And the funny thing in Kodai is that there is absolutely no Public transport system. No Auto, no taxi, no local bus or any such thing. If you want to roam around, you have to book a private vehicle (or get your own).

So, by the time we got down, we were hungry & wanted to have breakfast before going to hotel. A nearby good looking veg. hotel was full. So, we went to another "cafe" (Bala Cafe) close by. Initially, it looked a bit shady place as we had to go a bit interior & climb stairs to reach the first floor. Till you reach the first floor, you don't get to see the hotel at all. But once we went in, our impression totally changed. It was a very nice place. Neat & clean. And most of all, it was not crowded. Very few people were there. The breakfast was good. After the breakfast, we planned to take a look at the rooms in the same hotel (Hotel Bala) as the one we booked was too far off. The family room was good & could easily accommodate 4 people. We immediately checked in.

By the time we all had bath & got freshened up, it was almost 11:30 - 12. We just went for a "walk". We just walked down a road where the beautiful backdrop beckoned us. The road was actually very steep. Once we walked down, we got a very beautiful view of the hills & the distant cities. The view was not just beautiful, it was awesome. We clicked a few snaps & admired the beauty for a few minutes. The Kodai city was also visible from there. Then we started to climb back. It was then when we realised how steep the road was. We were all exhausted by the time we climbed back to the top near the hotel. We directly went to the restaurant. We all had Hotel Bala special meals for lunch. It was the "special" South Indian meals. It was one of those meals we wouldn't forget in a long time. It was as though they had used Garlic as a vegetable. Everything was full of garlic. We somehow managed to eat something.

After the lunch, we set out for a few places nearby. In Kodaikanal, unlike Ooty, the places to visit are very nearby. You can walk up to many of the places. Others which are far off are no more than 4-5 kms. If we had known this earlier, we could have saved lots of money. Anyway, we set out to visit a few places around by walk. First we went to the Coaker's walk which is just a 5 min walk from our hotel. It is about half a km walk around the edge of the hill, where the view is just amazing. Many of our scenery pictures were taken from this spot. I visited this place on all 3 days. We could see the clouds moving around. We could even feel the clouds as we walked through them. There were also fresh carrots being sold. The view from the Coaker’s walk is just amazing. The landscape looks so beautiful that I can gaze at it for hours.

Once we came out of the Coaker’s walk, we were supposed to go to the Bryant’s park, which was just opposite to the entrance to the Coaker’s walk. It was a small park. But we missed it & did not go to the park. (In fact, me & Srini saw the park on the final day). Instead, we went further to the Kodai Lake. This is supposedly an artificial lake. But it is quite big. We went boating for about one & a half hours there. A good way to spend time & laze around. Once we came out, we saw a small roadside shop where a guy was selling shells. Not just ordinary sea shells, he would also, write something (like a message) on the shell. The writing (on the shell) looked like a carving. That guy was also very good at art & could paint some art (like landscape, birds, animals, etc) along with the message. All of us got at least one shell. Then we walked back to the hotel in the evening.

We spent the whole of the evening in the hotel room. We had tea & some snacks (French fries) ordered to our room. (Giri & Chan ordered pizza too). We played cards & watched TV. Srini (or maybe I should call him John), slept away very early. We had a light dinner in a nearby different hotel. We all slept at around 11 PM. (John was asleep by 7PM itself!). We had a good night’s sleep.

Saturday - 18/06/2005

John got up early in the morning (6AM) & started playing a ringtone on his mobile, so that we would all get up. I did get up early too. But Giri & Chan woke up a bit late. We all took bath one by one & got ready for the trip we had arranged for today. We had arranged for a vehicle for the whole day to visit the places in and around Kodai. The vehicle was supposed to come to our hotel at 10 AM. We had to get ready before that & have our breakfast. After we got ready, we even went for a walk in Coaker’s walk. After that, we had our breakfast in the restaurant in our hotel.

Breakfast is a memorable story. It so happened that by the time we went for breakfast, there were no other customers. So, the hotel guy started playing Hindi songs for a change. The first song was a popular track from Baazigar. The music for the second song started. The soundtrack was that of the song “Ishq hua, kaise hua...” from the movie Ishq. After listening to the soundtrack, I said that this was the song from the movie Ishq. Giri was of the other opinion. He said that this was a song from Baazigar & not Ishq. But I was pretty sure of the soundtrack. (Even Chandru was sure about it). I bet with Giri about this song. It was decided that the one who loses would have to treat others the lunch that day. And it so happened that it was a song from Baazigar. The soundtrack from a part of this song in Baazigar has been “re-used” in the movie Ishq for a whole song. So, I got that wrong & had to pay for the lunch.

And by the way, you might be wondering why I’m referring to Srini as John. Well, as some of you might already know, Srini is a big fan of John Abraham. He was inspired by John after seeing the movie Kaal. (esp., the scene where John, bare-chested wraps a python around him). He was so much inspired by John, that he started doing push-ups daily. Also, he wanted to grow his hair long & grow a little bit beard (for the rugged look). In Kodai, we found out that he spends a lot of time in front of the mirror, grooming his hair & admiring his looks. Also, he is very photo conscious. I mean, he like posing for snaps. (Maybe he’s considering a career in modeling & films too). That’s why we decided to call him John Abraham, John for short.

Anyway, back to our trip. The vehicle we booked for roaming around, came to the hotel at around 10:45 AM. It was a Tata Sumo. When getting into the vehicle, Giri remembered that he had a few cassettes. Chandru had a few too. We thought we could get the cassettes. Chandru volunteered to get the cassettes. But just then, the driver informed us that the vehicle had a CD player, not a cassette player. We were all stumped by that. We didn’t expect CD player in the vehicle. Anyway, we had to listen to Tamil songs all along. It was raining (heavy drizzling to be precise) when we started.

As I mentioned earlier, tourist places in Kodai are very close by. We didn’t know this. Last time we went to Ooty, the places were far off. So we presumed that it would be the same here. The fare for the trip in the vehicle was Rs. 800.00 a day. But a few minutes of ride in the vehicle, we quickly realized that there were not many places to visit. Also, our driver was not only reckless in driving, but I guess he was also trying to catch a plane in the afternoon. He was in such a hurry. He rushed us through all the places. We tried to visit all the places at leisure. But even then, he took us to all the places before lunch. We visited lots of places (I can’t remember the names of most places now) a few scenic locations, a temple (to the right of which was city view & to the left of it was another scenic view, the Kodai Park (it’s not as big or good as the one in Ooty, but nevertheless a good place to visit), the pine forest, the cave, the silver cascade falls, the museum, etc. Silver Cascade waterfalls, looked really very good from a distance. But when we went close by, we realized that the water in the falls was stinking. I guess it was drainage water. This was the place where we saw the 930C again. From the falls, we went to the museum, where we were followed by the 930C. We were dropped back to the hotel by lunch time (2:30PM). We had to pay 800 bucks for just half a day’s trip. We all felt it was a very costly affair. But then, unless you have a private vehicle, you have to book one of these to travel around.

For lunch, we came back to our hotel. Based on our previous experience, we did not have South Indian meals. Instead, we chose to have North Indian stuff (with ice-cream at the end). And since I was going to pay for the food, everybody ate to their stomach full. After lunch, we planned to go boating & Giri & Chan planned to have pizza at a pizza joint. But we decided to have some rest first. But then, none of these happened & we just lazed around in the hotel room, surfing channels, & playing cards. Evening, we had coffee/tea & some snacks. It was in the evening that the John’s SS episode happened. We didn’t let John sleep off at 7 PM. For dinner, we wanted to go to a new place (as the restaurant in our hotel only had South Indian meals). Another restaurant nearby was full. So, we decided to walk around to see if there were any other good restaurants. We went to one restaurant. Just as we went in, we realized that this was a shady place. We ordered tomato soup & it was so bad that none of us had more than a spoonful. Only me & Chandru had something to eat. John & Giri had a soda lime drink & nothing else. John actually wanted to sleep in “bari hotte”. Finally, after we came back, we watched a move (it was a Saturday night special movie on Star movies/HBO) & then went to sleep at around 11:30PM.

Sunday - 19/06/2005

Sunday, we planned to go trekking in the morning. Also, me & John planned to get up early & go to the Coaker’s walk to enjoy the sunrise. John & me started towards Coaker’s walk at 6:30 in the morning. Although the sun had already risen, the view was very beautiful. All the hills & clouds in the morning sunlight were fabulous. It was almost a different scenery in the morning as compared to the rest of the say. One thing to notice was that there were almost no people around. We were the only 2 people out for a walk. Not just the Coaker’s walk, even the streets were deserted, with only a very few local roadside shopkeepers setting up their shops. After a pleasant walk in Coaker’s walk & having taken many snaps, we started back to the hotel.

We were back in the hotel by 7:30. Chandru & Giri were still sleeping blissfully. By the time they woke up & we all got ready, it was around 9. We even packed all our bags & luggage as the plan was to check out the room in the morning itself. (This way we would have to pay the rent only for 2 days). We had breakfast in the adjoining restaurant. After the breakfast, we checked out of the room. We kept our luggage with the hotel receptionist & started towards a few places designated for trekking. There were almost 6 places for trekking – Bear shola falls (& two other water falls too), Dolphin’s nose & others. Our hotel receptionist told us that Dolphin’s nose was at a walkable distance. He didn’t even tell us the way to get there.

When we started, the streets were full of mist. Or rather, it was not mist but cloud passing through. When we walked through these clouds, we could feel the water drops settling on our face. The visibility was also not more than 100 to 150 feet. We enquired a few people about the way & started walking towards the trekking places. We were totally not sure about the way & we just walked on & on. After about half the way, John started cribbing & wanted to go back. We just wanted to move on. After coming so far, we did not want to go back just like that. After walking about 5-6 kms, we finally found the bear shola falls. One of the people there informed us that the same water, flows down to 2 more falls (3 in total). We did not go further to visit the other 2 falls. We spent some time at this falls & then started back. If we wanted to visit Dolphin’s nose & other places, we had to walk further ahead. But since it was around 11:45 – 12 PM already, we wanted to get back to hotel for lunch. We walked back to the hotel. Well, it was not trekking but it was a good walk in a really good weather. The falls was also good. So, overall it was worth the time.

Once we came back to the hotel, we headed to the restaurant in the hotel. Chandru ordered for some “software” drink. We all had some soft drinks. Actually, we wanted to have lunch. But till 2 PM, it was just South Indian meals that were available. So we decided to come back after 2PM. We decided to roam around a bit. Chandru did some shopping then & got a think fur-like blanket for himself. Giri had a pizza (in fact a small slice, I guess). We came back to the hotel after that & had our lunch. After that, we had to spend time till 5:30 in the evening. We had booked our tickets back to Bangalore for the 5:30 PM bus. We decided to go boating for about one & half hours. After boating, we came back to the hotel, picked up our bags & boarded the bus (which was already at the bus stand). The Mayura bus, in which the 930C came to Kodai, stood right next to our bus. And as co-incidence would have it, the 930C was in that bus, sitting at a window seat. Giri & Chan cursed me & John again for not getting the tickets in that bus. John & Giri tried to click some snaps of the 930C, but since we were sitting in the last seat & she was seated a few rows ahead, they could not get a clear shot. I was out of space in the SD card in my camera & hence did not participate in the photography. However I had only one last shot left. I was confident I could click a clear photo of the 930C, as our bus started moving. Well, if you have seen the snaps, the only photo I clicked was far better than the 5-6 snaps taken by John.

Well, as I mentioned, our seats were in the last row of the bus. All the way down the hill, we were jumping around. The road also seemed to be rugged. We could experience each & every curve as we swayed to left & right at each curve. Since we were seated in the last row & we were thrown up & down, our stomachs were not in the best of the condition. By the time we climbed down the hill to the hotel for dinner, we were all exhausted. Giri even vomited & cleared his stomach. The break from the journey was a welcome one. We started feeling better, after having some rest. We did not have anything for dinner. Chan & Giri had some ice-cream. John & me chose to skip dinner. Incidentally, the bus had stopped at the same hotel, at which we had stopped for morning coffee, while going to Kodai. The bus started the journey back to Bangalore at around 9PM. The road ahead seemed pretty much smooth. We all did get some sleep too.

We reached the bus stand in Bangalore at 5 – 5:30 AM in the morning. We all headed back to our homes. The trip came to an end. It was a memorable trip. We enjoyed a lot. And since there were not many places to be covered & we were at leisure, we spent a lot of time together. The trip served its purpose. We enjoyed the vacation & the break from work.

I've been busy

2005-07-06T13:09:00.000+05:30

I have been very busy for the past 2-3 weeks.. Yesterday, I was in office till 10:30 PM at night.. Too much of work & too little time for any other activity.. So, no blogs for some time now..

There has been a lot of hue & cry about the details of Kodai trip.. I have a lot of things to write about that.. I'll definitely write about it this weekend..

Kodaikanal Trip Pics

2005-06-29T16:20:00.000+05:30

We clicked a lot of pics at Kodai. We had 2 digital cameras - mine & Srini's. We shot about 400 snaps (about 512MB). Below are a few snaps...

Maybe I'll post a few more later.

2005-06-29T16:17:00.000+05:30

You've got to be there to experience the clouds

2005-06-29T16:02:00.000+05:30

This was the visibility on the roads when we headed for trekking

2005-06-29T16:01:00.000+05:30

Feels like heaven? or looks like it?

2005-06-29T16:00:00.000+05:30

Sunrise at Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:59:00.000+05:30

Silver Cascade falls, Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:58:00.001+05:30

Bee at work... Kodai Park

2005-06-29T15:58:00.000+05:30

The beauty of colours

2005-06-29T15:57:00.000+05:30

Up above the clouds

2005-06-29T15:56:00.000+05:30

One more beautiful view

2005-06-29T15:55:00.001+05:30

Steer the boat under the tree

2005-06-29T15:55:00.000+05:30

Boating at Kodai Lake

2005-06-29T15:52:00.000+05:30

View from Coaker's Walk, Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:51:00.000+05:30

Bear Shola Falls, Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:50:00.000+05:30

Bloom time

2005-06-29T15:49:00.000+05:30

Early Morning view from Coaker's walk, Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:48:00.000+05:30

View from Coaker's walk, just after sunrise

2005-06-29T15:47:00.000+05:30

Myself... In the background, you can see the view from Coaker's Walk, Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:45:00.000+05:30

Silver Cascade water falls, Kodaikanal

2005-06-29T15:43:00.000+05:30

2005-06-29T15:42:00.000+05:30

Dew..

2005-06-29T15:41:00.000+05:30

A Pink rose...

2005-06-29T15:40:00.001+05:30

More beautiful, colourful flowers

2005-06-29T15:40:00.000+05:30

Ah... Here's the bee.. But the flower isn't so good..

2005-06-29T15:39:00.000+05:30

Pity, I could not capture the bee along with the flower

2005-06-29T12:33:00.000+05:30

SunFlower... Isn't this beautiful? I never knew my camera could take such good pics..

2005-06-29T12:32:00.000+05:30

Flowers... At the Kodai Park

2005-06-29T12:30:00.000+05:30

Me (Doesn't the backgrouund look artificial?)

2005-06-29T12:25:00.000+05:30

The four of us who went on the Kodaikanal Trip - Srinivas "John" Abraham, Me, Chandru & Giri...

2005-06-29T12:23:00.000+05:30

Another of the beautiful sceneries at Kodai

2005-06-29T12:22:00.000+05:30

Another scenery at Kodai..

2005-06-29T12:21:00.000+05:30

We were amongst the coulds themselves

2005-06-29T12:20:00.000+05:30

One of my personal favourites...

Further Studies?

2005-06-28T17:07:00.000+05:30

This is one area where I have been thinking for a long time (not too seriously though).. I certainly want to have some additional qualification (apart from my BE degree).
My parents wanted me to take up CAT. I did! But without any preparation. So, as expected, the result was useless... But after college, I did not want to go back & study again. So, I had this topic at bay for over an year now. But it seems like it's high time for me to think seriously about studying further.

Mom still wants me to take up CAT. And just to keep CAT at bay, I tell my mom that I'm more interested in technical side (MS, MTech) than MBA... But that's definitely not true. I'm totally undecided whether I should climb up the technical ladder or the management ladder. If my technical skills were real bad, management would have been an obvious choice. But since that is not the case, I need to make a choice.. (Every time I say 'choice', the famous quote comes to my mind - "Choice is an illusion...")

Well, thinking of the choices I have, after much research, I made up my mind that if I'm going to do an MS, it's going to be MS (in IT) from BITS, Pilani. Various reasons for that... For one, I don't want to go to the US for an MS (partly because I'm not rich & partly because I'm not interested. I feel that there is nothing in US that isn't in India). There are a host of colleges in India that have tie ups with US universities offering MS course in India itself. BITS seems to be a far more reputed college that all of the others. So, if it's MS, it's going to be BITS. There is a part-time course & a correspondance course, both of which are for the duration of 2 years. I can do the part-time MS course in BITS through my company. But the admission process for that starts somewhere next year Feb-March. And the classes commence somewhere around August. And if you take up the correspondence course at BITS, you should have applied before 15th of this month & the classes again start from somewhere around July-Aug. If I want to do my MS in BITS, I need to apply to either of these 2 next year.

So, since the option for MS has been ruled out this year, I started looking at the option of MBA. One of my cousins, along with his friends, has joined for an "Executive MBA" course in "Rai University". Although the University is not very famous, the Executive MBA course there looks very lucrative... The course is just one year & you have the option of part-time or correspondence.. The part-time version requires you to attend 6 hrs of class a day on both Saturdays & Sundays. And the fees is very high (about 2 lakhs). But the correspondance course (which is also just one year) costs you only Rs.14,000.00. The admission has already begun & the course starts sometime next month.

Well, I have still not decided... But I see that there is one possible situation. I can opt for the Executive MBA course now, finish it within a year & then take up the MS in BITS next year. The timelines of the courses are well suited for this.. But the only thing is, should I travel with one foot on each boat.. I see that MBA & MS are totally headed in 2 different directions - Technical & management. But what are the merits (or rather demerits) of doing both? More over, is it feasible? I mean, with all the pressure at work, will I be able to study for any of this correspondence course? Only time will tell...

Hectic week

2005-06-27T15:31:00.000+05:30

Oh.. What a hectic week!
I wanted to write about our Kodai Trip & post the pics. But the whole week, I was so busy that I was doing 10 things at a time. We had missed our deadline for delivery to a customer & it was very serious... We had a few regressions that caused the delay... We fixed most of the regressions & shipped the release to the customer on Friday. It was due on Monday itself. We were late by almost a week. To make this release happen, I had to stay back till 11 PM on Friday.

I still cannot have a sigh of relief.. I still have lot of issues & customer escalations to fix. Maybe by this weekend, I might expect life back to normal..

I'll be posting about the trip & the pics soon...

Trip finalized

2005-06-13T14:47:00.000+05:30

Finally!!! Our trip (for which we have been planning ever since) is finally going to happen.

We had originally planned for this trip in mid-March. But due to delay in planning & the holiday season, we could not get tickets. So, we had to cancel the trip then.

Saturday, me & Srinibooked the tickets to Kodaikanal. The sad part is that only 4 of us - Srini, Giri, Chandru & me are going for the trip. Last year, 6 of us had been to Ooty & it was much fun. I hope we enjoy the same way this time too.. This is going to be a 3-day trip. Our return journey tickets are also booked.

Long time no post

2005-06-09T20:54:00.000+05:30

No post from a long time.. Well, nothing interesting or new to post.
One thing is that we finally planned our trip today. We'll be going to Kodaikanal next week. Need to book tickets this weekend.

Shock !!!

2005-06-01T11:21:00.000+05:30

What a shock today morning !!!!

The first thing I got to know when I came to office was that my manager was fired for violating buisiness conduct guidelines !!! And the surprising thing is that neither my manager nor anybody else in our team know about this till today morning.

The reason for being fired?? Simple, problem with documents submitted when joining. Two issues become relavant here.. When did he join? And what was the problem with which document? My manager had joined more than a year ago !!! [You might be thinking "What?? they take more than a year to verify docs??". But that's the truth]. Second, while joining, the relieving letter of previous company had a wrong relieving date.. [Again "What the..."]. The difference was 3 months. He was actually relieved 3 months before the date mentioned on the letter. So, is this really his mistake? Isn't it the mistake of the company who issued the lettter?? But the actual fact seems to be that the previous company had issued 2 relieving letters. One with a wrong date & the other one corrected. My manager had produced the wrong one when joining. Maybe he did this by mistake (overlooked) or maybe on purpose (to aviod questions why he didn't work for 3 months). His manager says that he did it on purpose (to aviod questions) & he accepted it. He was fired for honestly accepting his mistake !!

He was a really good manager. He was like to friend to all of us. We never imagined something like this would happen. In fact, he had just been back from a couple of days' leave to shift his house nearer to our office!

Maybe, he submitted the wrong document on purpose. Even then, how justified is the punishment given to him? A few months ago, another employee in our company was fined for violating the same business conduct guidelines. In his case, it was forgery. He had clearly forged documents to alter his salary in the pay-slip of previous organization. Firing him was justified. But for a small offence as this, should an employee be fired? The top management's perspective is that whatever be the violation, it is a breach of trust (& maybe contract). So, go to the ultimate extent of firing him. But clearly, this could also have been an innocent mistake on the part of the employee. And even if the employee did make the mistake purposefully, it is certainly not as severe mistake as the one commited by the other employee (forgery). True, conduct like this must be punished if the person is found guilty. But there must be levels of punishment, right? You should not be fired for small guidelines violation. Tomorrow, if I share my password with my colleague, should I be fired?? Shouldn't the punishment match the mistake?

Trip to Hariharapura

2005-05-30T16:00:00.000+05:30

I had been to Harihara pura for a weekend trip on Saturday & Sunday. Infact, it was not a trip, but my parents had organized "Chandi homa" at the Hariharapura temple ("matha"). Harihara pura is a place close to Sringeri. It is about 20 kms before Sringeri.

We had booked a tempo traveller for 15 people. We started on Saturday early morning at 5:30 AM. Leaving early has lots of advantages. We reached Chikamaglur within 6 hours, which also included a 30-45 minutes stop for breakfast. But from Chikamagalur, the ghat section starts & hence we had to drive slowly. We reached my uncle's place at around 2 PM, just in time for lunch. My uncle's house is very close to Koppa town (abt 2 kms). We had our lunch & a nap for about an hour. Then at around 4:30 PM, we started for Sringeri. Harihara pura is on the way to Sringeri, abt 20 kms before Sringeri. My relatives wanted to visit Sringeri. So, we first went to Sringeri, spent some time along the banks of the river, some more time in the temples. Then we started towards Hariharapura at 7:30 PM. We reached there at about 8PM. There were 2 huge rooms which could accomodate about 15 people. We all kept our luggage in the rooms & then went to the "matha" (mutt/temple) where dinner was serverd. Dinner was quite good. Then, we went back to the rooms & slept there for the night. The rooms were quite cosy.

Hariharapura is also on the banks of river Tunga (like Sringeri). So, we all went to the river early morning to take bath. The river was really very good. The water was not too deep. At places, it was just about 1.5 to 2 feet deep, which was ideal for small children. Some places it was about 3-4 feel deep. But we did not see water deeper than 4 feet. Maybe because it was summer. Although the water was not much deep, the current was really strong. Everybody enjoyed the water for more than 2 hours. Apart from that, there was nothing much eventful on Sunday morning. It was just the boring "homa". Many of our relatives came from a lot of different places. Lunch, although a bit late, was really very good & tasty. Accomodation & food was provided by "matha" (mutt/temple) authorities themselves. Not many people know about this place. So there are usually very few people. The accomodation is very good, the river is excellent to enjoy & if you are religious, you'll like the "matha".

We started back to Bangalore at 5:30 PM in the evening from Hariharapura. We got the dinner packed by the temple authorities. An uncle of mine, who resides in Hassan had come in his Maruti van. We started together. We went to Hassan at around 10 PM. We had dinner (the same thing that we had got packed) at his place. Then we started back to Bangalore at around 10:45. By the time I reached home, it was 3 AM in the morning.

It was a really good trip. A memorable one since many of our relatives went together.

Sony imagestation

2005-05-27T17:09:00.000+05:30

Sony is offering the facility of storing unlimited photos online at Sony ImageStation. They also offer other services like printing & others. But the thing of interest is that you can create a free account & upload all your images. You can create your albums & put up all your pics on the website. No limit on the size. You can also share your photos with your friends/family. They'll be sent a link to your album via email. They need to create an account so that they can view your album online. I uploaded about 150 MB of images taken from my camera & my friend (Srini's) camera. It took about an hour to upload them.

Not just the images are displayed there, but also a lot of information is shown. The information abt pics not only includes size & resolution, but also, date & time when the image was taken, the make of the camera used, the camera model, exposure time, whether flash used or not, aperture, exposure time, focal length, metering mode, white balance & what not?? I did not know that my jpeg image contained all this info !!!

Of course, nothing in the world comes for free... The catch with Sony Imagestation is that you cannot view the images at the original size. you can only view smaller resized images. If you want to view full size images, you need to upgrade your membership by paying them money... :D
Another catch is that, not just other viewers, but even the person who has uploaded the pics, cannot download a full-size version!!!

Heavy Rains

2005-05-26T16:57:00.000+05:30

Yesterday really a very different experience. When I started from office at around 8:45PM, there was no rain. It started drizzling half way through. The traffic was so bad that, at the 16th main signal in BTM Layout, I had to stand at the signal 3 times before I could pass it. When I first approached the 16th main signal, it was drizzling slowly, but then suddenly it started pouring heavily, very heavily. I was not even wearing my usual jacket. So, I was completely drenched by the time I passed the BTM layout 16th main signal. If that was just it, it would have been ok. But it was more to come. The downpour became heavier & heavier. By the time I reached the Bannerghatta fly-over, the water on road was well over 3 feet. Even if I was sitting on my bike, the water level was, at places, till my knee.. The water level was high not just at the fly-over, but till my house. If the water level was any higher, I would have to swim on my bike!!!

Even in this relentless downpour, I did not consider taking shelter at some place on the way as I was already completely wet. Riding in such heavy rains with so much water all around was an experience you rarely get. Finally when I reached home at 9:20PM, not only was I full wet, but my shoes & my bag were completely filled with water.. To top it all, there was no power. The power was restored only at around 11 PM in the night. We had candle light dinner..

Finished the commited ones

2005-05-25T12:15:00.000+05:30

Hurray......

I finished working on my committed defects for SR6, our next service release. I got the fix for the last of them yesterday night. Now all that is left is to complete the process. I just need to get code reviews done & get approvals. I've finished my work before time. June 1st was the deadline. I feel so relieved.

BTW, this is just the defects queue & I still have my customer escalations to work on. We get a lot of customer escalations in our product. But atleast we are on target for the service release.

Also, my team member came up with the plan of working on our regular stuff for just 4 days a week from Monday to Thursday. On Friday, try to work on something new, like enhancements to the product, new features, new initiatives, etc. Looks good to me.

Forgot keys

2005-05-24T17:32:00.000+05:30

Monday, it was very stormy. It also rained crazily for a while. Many trees were uprooted because of the storm. Because of the storm & rain, I left my bike at office & went home with Chandru in his car (Chandru is my close friend from college & a colleague too).
Today, I came to work with Chandru. I remembered to get my helmet to ride my bike back home, but forgot to get the bike keys.. Sometimes I think of my memory & feel amazed. This was one of those times. How could I forget the bike key, when I remembered to get the helmet??
Anyway, I've got to leave the bike at office today too & go home with Chandru. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember to get my keys.

My First blog here

2005-05-24T11:26:00.000+05:30

That's true.. This is my first blog. Actually, I'm not much into this blogging thing. Never had a blog or read other's blogs. I understand the blog as a public diary, where people (if interested) can not only read my blog, but also post comments for that. I'm not sure how this is useful, but I intend to try this nevertheless. I feel that if you write a diary, that's going to be usually private. On the other hand, if you want to make writing a habit, this is the place. Write about anything & every thing. Who cares??

We have a corporate blog too (ooohh..). I have posted my "first" post there, but never ever opened that page again. So, this makes this one my only official & fisrt ever proper blog.

Some things about myself - I'm Vinay, 22 years old, a software engineer in a reputed software company. My qualification is just a BE. My interests, hmmm.. I don't remember.

I'm well known for my talking skills (my blog title should explain everything). I talk loud, repeat the same sentences again & again. Never talk to the point. What others can say in a sentence, I can talk 5 minutes about that & I'll not be surprised if the other person still doesn't understand what I'm saying.. My english is quite bad, esp., spoken English. Whatever I write will be the same way as I talk. So, if you ever plan to read my blog, just beware. Some people have told me that I "bark" a lot.