iPhone look-alike

Liked the iPhone very much, but don't have that much to shell out from your pockets. Don't worry, you can still afford to go for its look-alike for as little as Rs.6000-7000 or so.

Yes, you guessed it right. Its made in China & is sometimes called the iPhone A380. It has a wonderful & large touchscreen, but this touchscreen is not the same as the original iPhone which has the Multi-Touch feature.

Some of the notifiable features of this Phone are:

• 3.5 inch wide LCD Screen


• 1.3 MP Camera


• MP3 / MP4 Player


• Fingerprint Recognition


• Bluetooth


• WAP/GPRS


• Dual Band

Other than these the Phone has also some interesting features. As soon as you Plug-in this Phone via USB in WinXP, the Phone prompts you to select the way you want the Phone to be used - Webcam, Mass Storage Device (Pen Drive), COM Port. Except for the COM Port feature, rest of the features are directly Plug & Play & don't prompt you to install any separate drivers.

Near the Camera lens you would find the Apple logo, & many people have fallen prey to this trick, thinking this to be an original Apple product. Remember this is a look-alike & comes loaded with Symbian OS & not Apple's proprietary MAC OS X. The Phone has to surround sound Speakers which really gives realistic sound output.

When my friend first brought this Phone & was ready to sell-off for Rs.9000, even I was surprised. It took me an entire day to research this product on the Net & find out the truth. Whatever might be the case, this Phone is worth going for & to be flanked in public places with the Apple logo flashing behind.

Rediscovering BAUDHAYAN

Many people whom I meet keep asking me "What does your name BAUDHAYAN mean ?". As per what I have heard from my parents, it means one who follows the path of Gautam Buddha. Some also said that it means "बुद्ध का घर". The best way to know Baudhayan is googling :)

I have mostly found that Baudhayan is synonymously used with Pythagoras. Recently I have also found another article on the Net which talks about Baudhayan. Check out this to know more about Baudhayan http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Sunday_Specials/Open_Space/What_is_known_as_the_Baudhayan_theorem/rssarticleshow/2351252.cms

Here it comes: SMS Ads

You have seen them on TV, you have read them on Print Media, you have heard them on Radio..... now whats next ? You have guessed it right..... they have intruded your most personal thing - your Mobile. Whom am I referring to - none other than Ads. So now you have many sites popping up which sends personalised Ads to your Cell phones. But don't worry, SMS Advertising is not spammed. You get the benefit of choosing your category of Ads. So what do you get in return..... FREE SMSing or Earning. So you have your entire SMS being split into to virtual sections of mostly 80 characters each - the first section showing your message & the second section showing the Ads. So whats the harm in reading these Ads when you are having the privilege of sending free SMSes or earning some quick cash. Advertising is really changing the face of this era.

Here are some of the sites which I have discovered:

http://www.160by2.com/ - WAP enabled (you can send SMSes even using your GPRS connection)
http://www.youmint.com/
http://www.mginger.com/

If you discover some more do let me know.

So what are you waiting for..... send your best wishes for this festive season to your near & dear ones & that too FREE !!!!!

All the hype about Delhi Metro

A few days back I saw a TV listing of National Geographic channel which was advertising a small documentary about the amazing Delhi Metro project. It suddenly reminded me about my own City of Birth, "Calcutta", now called "Kolkata". In the mid-80s when I used to visit Kolkata, I used to see terrific construction activity going on for the Kolkata Metro. By late-80s many sections of the Kolkata Metro Railway had also started functioning. Then why was no documentary made on India's first successful unground Metro Railway service ? A service which till date is flawless & well managed. I guess probably because the Central Government only tries to sponsor, portray & hype all happenings in the vicinity of Delhi. This attitude was evident from the fact that when the coaches were ordered for the Kolkata Metro, it was manufactured locally from Perambur, Tamil Nadu & were non-AC. When it came to Delhi, the AC coaches were imported from Korea. And we all know how the unruly crowd started pressing all sorts of buttons within the coach, which ultimately saw them disabled.....ha ha ha. No such thing ever happened with Kolkata Metro Railway.

Prowd to be a Bengali !!!!!

Scripting your Network

Always thought that controlling your Company's Network was difficult. Pulling up Reports was possible only using some expensive Network Monitoring tools - WRONG.

I will show you one sample script which you can modify according to your needs to control your Network. These scripts can basically be used in any Network environment where the Network Device is Manageable (i.e. TELNETing possible). Following is a script which I had written at one of my job postings to pull up report of Routers which are connected through ISDN with Leased Line down:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

#!/bin/ksh

####################
# #
# ISDN Status Script #
# #
####################

trap 'terminate' 1 2 3 6
terminate()
{
if test -f $SCRIPT_PATH/log/isdn_active.log.$$
then
rm -r $SCRIPT_PATH/log/isdn_active.log.$$
fi
if test -f $SCRIPT_PATH/log/tnet.log.$$
then
rm -r $SCRIPT_PATH/log/tnet.log.$$
fi
echo "\nScript execution terminated by user. Cleaning up Temporary Files.....Done\n"
exit 1
}
clear
echo "\n##### Current ISDN Status Script #####\n"
echo " Developed By Baudhayan Lahiri \n"
echo "\nPlease enter Router Username:"
read uname
stty -echo
echo "\nPlease enter Router Password:"
read pword
echo "\nPlease enter Router Enable Password:"
read epword
ssty echo
echo "\nGathering Router ISDN Status Information, Please Wait.....\n"
echo "To abort ISDN STATUS script execution press \n"
while read LINE
do
(
sleep 1
echo $uname;\
sleep 1
echo $pword";\
sleep 1
echo "en";\
sleep 1
echo $epword;\
sleep 1
echo "sh isdn active";\
sleep 1
echo "q";\
) tnet $LINE 3
done < $SCRIPT_PATH/db/isdn_rtrs >> $SCRIPT_PATH/log/isdn_active.log.$$ 2> $SCRIPT_PATH/log/rtr_output.log
echo "--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISDN ACTIVE CALLS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call Calling Called Remote Seconds Seconds Seconds Charges
Type Number Number Name Used Left Idle Units/Currency
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------"
grep -w "In" $SCRIPT_PATH/log/isdn_active.log.$$
grep -w "Out" $SCRIPT_PATH/log/isdn_active.log.$$
echo "--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n"
rm -r $SCRIPT_PATH/log/isdn_active.log.$$

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Explaination:

1. $SCRIPT_PATH : It is an Environment Variable defined in Linux which points to the Path where all your Scripts are stored, eg. /etc/var/home/scripts
2. isdn_active.log.$$ : "$$" represents the current Shell's Process ID, "isdn_active.log" is the Output file which will store all the Router Names which are currently connected through ISDN.
3. tnet.log: It is a temporary log file created for the TNET script which TELNET's only those Routers whose links are up.
4. The entire WHILE...DO loop picks up one Router Name at a time mentioned in the "isdn_rtrs" file & redirects Output of "sh isdn active" command to "isdn_active.log.$$" file. All errors are redirected towards "rtr_output.log" file.
5. The GREP filter along with "In" & "Out" search filters are used to filter the Router entries from the log file which are currently connected through ISDN.

Ghost in my Cell Phone

I've been using my Nokia 6260 from almost 3 years now, my longest lasting Cell Phone. One of my close colleagues once started an SMS mania when he sent me close to 50 Shayaris via SMS within a span of 15-20 days in the month of February 2005. Though it was a bit irritating, but the Shayaris were really good ones. All of a sudden my Cell Phone hung up in the month of September 2005 or so & I lost all the lovely Shayaris.

That was the first time I learnt that my Cell Phone had an SMS bug. i.e. if by any chance my Cell Phone would hung up & I switch it off & on, I used to loose all my SMS's. The Nokia PC Suite software until a few months back did not allow you to browse your Inbox via the PC & copy the SMS's to your PC.

Today my Cell Phone hung up once again & when I switched it on, to my surprise I got back all the old Shayari SMS's & lost the ones which I had been storing from past few months. Strange enough, but I am happy to get back the 2 year old Shayaris. Now I have immediately copied them to my PC. not to loose it once again :)

Is there a Ghost in my Cell Phone !!!!!

Cleaning the USB mess

Nowadays almost all electronic gadgets are USB compatible. It so happens that you keep plugging in & out all these gadgets & gizmos that you have with you. What eventually happens is that you might find some new gadgets not being recognised by your Windows system even though you might have the latest system. You might also see an error message saying "This USB device can perform faster if you connect it to a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port" when you connect any USB storage device, though you know that all your USB ports are already USB 2.0 compliant.

What to do in such a case ?

Though the Internet mostly says about rebooting your system in Safe Mode & uninstalling various devices currently installed, I have found another simpler way:

1. Switch-Off / Unplug all your connected USB devices.
2. Go to Control Panel -> Device Manager & go to the section "Universal Serial Bus controllers".
3. Delete all the Host Controllers reflecting under this section one by one.
4. Once all the Host Controllers are deleted the section "Universal Serial Bus controllers" will totally disappear.
5. Now just refresh the Device Manager & you shall find all the USB Host Controllers getting installed automatically one by one.
6. Now start Switching On / Plugging in your USB devices & you will find most of your previous USB errors have disappeared.
7. Also remember that your Front USB Ports provide lesser power as compared to the ones at the back. So remember to use your rear USB Ports if you find devices not being detected by the Front USB Ports.
   

This is what my experience says. Please get yourself accustomed to different troubleshooting activities before you do this. This should be done only by a qualified PC technician.

(Post edited on 12-Aug-2008) I found another very helpful link on cleaning USB devices. Please Click Here to go through the same.

Access PC from Anywhere

Have a Broadband connection at home & your high-tech mom / dad also know how to connect that PC to the Cyberspace. Then how about accessing your PC from anywhere & everywhere.

You might have thought a number of times from your Office or probably from your friends place about accessing some file which you just forgot to carry with you. In that case your mom / dad are the only people who could help you out.

Lets check out how:

1. Visit http://www.logmein.com & register with them.
2. Download & install their very small logmein desktop client (Install the FREE version).
3. Now whenever you are out & plan to access your PC, just ask someone at your place to connect your PC to the Net.
4. Now you are in total control of your PC from any place where you have access to the logmein site.
5. Just log in to the site & follow some simple instructions & you will find your home PC's desktop right in front of you.

You might be wondering why I referred only this site while there are other products like GoToMyPC or Symantec PCAnyWhere. Probably because I am personally using this product for more than a year & also because it is a totally free version for personal use, which I didn't try to explore in the other products.

Anyways, explore other products too & enjoy the boon of Remote Management !!!!!

ABCs of Filing E-returns of Income Tax

I guess I am one among very few people who have successfully filed E-returns this year. So what all do you need to do the same. Here is the complete procedure:

1. Register yourself with your PAN No. at http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/index.jsp .
2. After logging in to the Portal download the appropriate IT Return Form (a PDF form filling application) based on the category you belong to (mentioned in the Portal). For Salaried people with no Capital Gains it is ITR-1 & for Salaried people with Capital Gains, Income/Loss (Home Loan) from House Property it is ITR-2.
3. Complete the form after thoroughly going through the instruction sheet given at the last. Form filling is quite simple provide you know to interpret the different categories of the Form 16 provided by your company.
4. After completing your form, cilck on the "Check Form" button given in the last page. This verifies whether you have completed the form with the basic data.
5. Now click on "Generate Bar Code" to have the Bar Code electronically inserted into your form.
6. For uploading the form you need to generate its XML file by clicking on "Export To XML" button. There is a small clarification which is not provided by the Income Tax Portal. The Portal does not upload XML files where addresses contain special characters. After lot of R&D I found out that only Hyphen (-) was accepted. So remove all Commas (,), Slashes (/), Full Stops (.) & Quotation Marks (' ") from the address field.
7. Now you are all set to filing E-returns. Just upload the XML file generated through the link https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/uploadXML.jsp .
8. If you have a Digital Signature issued by any Certifying Authority then there is no other physical form submission required. In India MTNL Trustline is one of the certifying authorities. But I guess getting a Digital Signature is quite expensive. Its somethign between Rs.900 - Rs.2000 for a period of 2 years.
9. If you don't have a Digital Signature, don't worry. After successful uploading of the XML file, an ITR-V file is generated. Take 2 printouts of this form, sign on them, submit 1 copy at the nearest IT office & get acknowledgement on the other. You might be thinking then what is the difference between physical hard-copy returning filing & this procedure, the main advantage with E-returns is that you have an E-filing Acknoledgement Number with which you can track your process in case of any queries.

Isn't it simple. Believe me its really very simple, provided you take little bit of interest in your financial side & also believe in using the latest technology offerings.

This day last year (7/11)

I was working at my Clients' Dadar office when I received a call from the Datacentre related to some problems with our Internet Proxy Server at around 16:00 hrs. Me & my colleague rushed to the Datacentre at Lower Parel & switched over to our redundant Server. We then started diagnosing & fixing the problems in the Server. It was around 19:00 hrs when we heard many people shouting loudly in the Office Cafeteria, which was besides our Server Room.

When we went out & looked into the TV screens, we realised that something horrible was happenning in the Mumbai suburban local trains. Within a span of 10-15 mins we saw all news channels updating of 6-7 bomb blasts on the Western Railway local trains. As soon as I tried to call my house, I found that all phone lines were busy. Finally I managed to get connected to my dad's cell & informed him that I'm safe. He also gave me another surprising news, that he was out & my mom had mistakenly locked our door when she was in the staircase without realising that she was without the keys. The only way out was to reach my Sisters' place, which was closeby, & where the duplicate keys of my house were avaialble. Moreoever we had shifted to our new flat at Kandivali just 4-5 days back & we didn't know much about our neighbours. So I was instructed to return to my Sisters' place.

It was 19:30. Me & my friend immediately left Office & started heading for our respective homes with no idea about what was in offering for us. My friend headed towards Mulund & I headed towards Kandivali. I walked for a Mile & a half towards Dadar & finally found a Tempo where everyone around was boarding. I also joined the crowd without knowing where the Tempo was heading towards.

As the Tempo started picking up speed I learnt that it was heading towards Vile Parle. The Tempo passed besides Mahim station where we could see Police, Ambulances & large amount of Media people present as it was the most powerful of all blasts. Slowly & steadily we reach Santacruz by around 21:30 hrs. I then got down on the Highway & started requesting for lifts from passer-bys. Suddenly I found a BEST Bus with its board flashing BORIVALI. I immediately boarded the Bus & later realised that the Bus trip was cut short & it would terminate its route at Andheri itself. I had to again get down at Andheri & wait for someone to give me lift upto Kandivali.

Finally a very helpful gentlemen, working as a Manager in GE, asked me & few others to get into his Santro Car with AC switched-on. Ahhh!!!!! what a relieve. We finally started settling down in his comfortable car. He also offered us Biscuits & I still remember how much I enjoyed them after remaining hungry for almost 3-4 hrs in the horrific Tempo travel. On our way we found many people offering Parle-G Biscuits on junction points. Hats off to the spirit of Mumbai !!!!!

I finally reached near Thakur Complex (on the Western Express Highway) by around 23:15, from where I walked upto Kandivali Railway Station & crossed over to the West. I then finally found a rickshaw & headed towards my home. On my way I also dropped another person who was accompanying me in the Car. I reached my Sisters' place by around 23:45, picked up my Mom & Dad & finally reached home at 00:00 hrs.

That was the end of 7/11, a day I would never every forget in my life.

Ez maintenance of your Kitchen Exhaust Fan

• Eat a lot of rich, oily food ?


• Don't have the budget to go for an Electric Chimney ?


• Kitchen Exhaust Fan maintenance becoming a headache ?

Don't worry !!!!! Here are a few simpler ways to make the maintenance a little bit easier:

1. In the first instance detach your Exhaust Fan. Before detaching it notice the places where the Exhaust Fan becomes extremely dirty.


2. Dismantle it completely & dip the plastic parts (not the motor) into a hot water solution with soap.


3. Once your cleaning & drying is complete your actual work starts. Pickup your old newspaper & cut pieces of different shapes to cover up places where your Exhaust Fan used to get most dirty.


4. Cover the flaps facing the exit with a single role of newspaper & some ahesive tape.


5. Remember the sizes you have cut so that you can make & keep some in spare for future use.


6. Now mount your Exhaust Fan once again

Thats it !!!!! Whenever you find your Exhaust Fan to appear very dirty, just replace the newspaper roles. Isn't that simple. I personally use this methodology & am benefiting from the same.

GPS in India ? Its here.....

Though the GPS (Global Positioning System) technology is widely popular in many Western countries, it is still to make a mark in a fast progressing country like India. But did you ever think that we are lagging behind ? If you are thinking so, you might be wrong.

There is a company named "SatNav", which I have lately discovered, which has been promoting GPS from the past 2 years. They offer you various packages - either you can buy their Handset, which is a PDA with an inbuilt GPS Receiver, or you can have your own SmartPhone/Pocket PC or Windows Mobile to be paired with their Bluetooth GPS Receiver. The company provides their Software + "All India" Road Map + Bluetooth GPS Receiver package for Rs.10,000. So with an investment of around Rs.10,000 you can have a fully functional GPS application which would give you driving directions & other related information within India. If you find this package not suiting your requirements, you could check out other avaialable customized packages.

So what are you waiting for. All those Gizmo crazy people check out for updates on http://www.satguide.in .

"Reply" to E-mails. Do not use "Reply to All"

There is an electronic mess that is prevalent in most Corporate Mailboxes as well as Personal Mailboxes. There are some... so called ignorants, who have a tendency to quickly press the "Reply to All" button in their E-mail Clients. This leads to a lot of Junk Mails floating in our Mailboxes. It should be a practice to reply to only the intended recipient. If there are any other connected people with the E-mail, just mark them a CC. Its utter non-sense to do a "Reply to All" for all E-mails arriving at your Inbox. Use technology in a wiser manner. Your ignorant acts should not become a botheration to others. Remember,when you do a "Reply to All", there are ample number of people who are least interested in reading your E-mail & your ignorant act would be increasing there Mailbox size.

Searching DEFINitions using GOOGLE

We have been using Google to search various topics - right from technology to your taste buds. Have you ever thought that Google can also help you in searching definitions from the web. I am referring to a traditional Google search with slight variations. For eg, suppose you want to search for definitions of GSM, just do a Google search changing the keyword from GSM to define:GSM . So I guess you understood the trick. Just prefix the keyword in Google search with define: & see what Google has in store for you.

Google is everywhere.

Some must watch Bangla Classics

Atlast I have collated some YouTube videos & made playlists out of them. These playlists are from some classic Bangla movies & are my favourites. I will keep updating this post as & when I find more of such classics. "Hirok Rajar Deshe" is a Satyajit Ray movie. As usually, an excellent movie for all age groups. We truely miss this extremely talented person.

Ogo Bodhu Sundori ("Oh! My Beautiful Darling") -




Hirok Rajar Deshe (At the country of King "Hirok") -

Mobile Manners

After getting fed up with Polyphonic tones in Office I'm posting this. Seminars, Meetings, Toilets, Office & offcourse Home..... 1 thing thats following us are our Cell Phones. Its our responsibility to intelligently use the PROFILES built into the Cell Phones depending on the mood & ambience. I have found that even the most educated people are reluctant to use the Profiles feature provided in the Cell Phones. The worst situation happens when inspite of requesting the audience, there are ample number of SO CALLED GENTLEMEN/WOMAN play loud tones during Seminars & Meetings. That era has gone past long time back when Cell Phones & Polyphonic tones where a thing to show off. Loud Cell Phone tones distract the presenter as well as the audience to a large extent & just shows how much ill-mannered you are.

So PLEASE KEEP YOUR CELL PHONES IN SILENT / VIBRATOR / BEEP MODE at public gatherings where you are explicilty requested to do so.

Revealing too much identity on the Net

With Social Networking sites recieving huge responses from the masses, it becomes important for us before revealing our complete identity on the net. I have also read from the Digit magazine that there are sites wherein you can pay & get an inflated profile of yours, in these Social Networking sites, containing huge list of handsome friends & with some lovely testimonials written about you. Cases of identity theft & fake identities have also been reported to the Police lately.

So whenever you register yourself to any Social Networking site like Orkut, MySpace, Fropper, etc., keep the following points in mind:

1. Restrain yourself from revealing your personal details like your Phone No., E-mail ID & other related personal things.
2. Be careful before uploading your personal pic in the Album. Upload only those pics wherein your photos cannot be doctored with. Its best only to upload pics which just contain your face - a pic that helps in identifying you from the huge database. (GIRLS be even more careful)
3. Don't write personal activities in your friends Scrapbook & also tell your friends not to write too much personal. There might be people who can regularly read your Scrapbook & know your complete whereabouts.
4. Restraining from making Net pals until & unless you are confident of your pals true identity.
5. Don't just go about joining /creating innumerable communities just for the heck of doing so.

Though this post talks about Social Networking sites, the same thing holds true to other innumerable Bulletin Boards / Message Boards / Forums floating on the Net.

In my school days I had once participated in a debate on "विज्ञान - वरदान या अभिशाप" (Science - Boon or Bane). With the uncontrolled growth of Internet, I have lately started realizing the importance of the above debatable topic.

Living in a World of Radiations

In todays world we all are surrounded by some or the other kind of radiation. Some of the common radiations we encounter in our day-to-day lives are emissions from our GSM / CDMA Mobile Phones, Microwave Radiations from tall Microwave towers, AM / FM Radio Signals, Wi-Fi / Wi-Max signals at office & many many more such radiations. Do we ever think about the adverse effect of these radiations on our health - I guess NO. Nowadays every technology is attaching the concept of WIRELESS along with it. This wireless approach is increasing the Radio frequencies even further. In fact we cannot imagine a life without our TV / Music System / AC REMOTES.... can we ? Remote Management is the need of the century. Only time will tell whether these radiations take a toll on our health.

Energy Efficient Advertising

This Friday I was travelling across Thane & found something very interesting on the street-side - Solar powered Advertising Boards. This is a novel idea started by TMC (Thane Municipal Corporation) for Outdoor Advertising. It is called "Solar Sign". In a power hungry state like Maharashtra only such energy efficient technologies can save the state from severe power crisis. I always used to feel bad when I used to go past Nariman Point looking at advertising boards consuming loads of electricity for lighting those Halogen lamps. But with such wonderful initiative from the government agencies, things will definitely move towards a brighter future.

Download your favourite YouTube videos !!!!!

Watched some interesting video on YouTube & always thought that it should have been a part of your PC's Media Library. Unfortunately YouTube doesn't provide a direct way to download its videos :( , then how to go about saving your favourite stuff. Don't worry, I will guide you throught some easy steps to download THAT favourite YouTube video.

1.First copy the YouTube video link, something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkhxIa8qV_w, from YouTube.

2. Then open the URL http://video.qooqle.jp/dl/ .

3. Paste the YouTube video link in the Video URL text box provided.

4. Now click on the Get Download URL link. This should generate a link for you.
5. Click on the generated link & you should soon see the File Download dialog box popping up.
6. Save the file with a .FLV extension.
7. Download & Install the Free FLV Player from http://applian.com/flvplayer/download_flv_player.php .

Now enjoy, that video is all yours !!!!!

How about a flexible, fully-coloured display screen?

Just had a glimpse of the YouTube video of an amazing release by Sony - a flexible, full-color OLED (organic thin-film transistor (TFT)). Technology is just racing ahead of time. Things that we could only dream of & see in Sci-Fi movies, are fast becoming reality. Why don't you all watch this amazing YouTube video to see Sony's new release....



Download this Video (Save as .FLV file)

My Tech Review article on Rediff

I have a habit of frquently searching my name on Google to find out how many search results it returns. Yesterday when I did the same the first search result was something which made me feel very happy.

Actually a few days back Rediff had asked its readers to mail them Tech Reviews of gadgets & Gizmos which they use. I thus mailed them all the Reviews which were already published in my Blog. I found that the Tech Review of my LG Sound System was published on Rediff. Check out the same on http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/may/08gizmo.htm .

Enjoy your Scrapping experience

Is your Corporate Proxy Server blocking Orkut ? Don't worry, I'll give you two sites that will allow you to scrap even in your workplace. One of them, http://www.orkuch.com, can be said to be an Anonymizer; but the other one can be said to be an Orkut Front-end application (http://www.powerscrap.com). Powerscrap converts Orkut into a menu-enabled web-site. It also adds many powerful options to enhance your Orkutting. It shows your friend list in a Combo Box & has many other features. So explore these sites.

Happy Scrapping !!!!!

My first weekend @ Mumbai

So atlast I'm back at Mumbai after completing my joining formalities at Infy Pune in the past few days. It feels great to be associated with NRN's company, my dream company. The ambience & atmosphere provided here is just great. Initially I was a little bit sceptical about leaving my comfortable new home at Mumbai & start working in a city which is somewhat new to me. But my past few days have given me the confidence to stay away from my family & work in Pune. I have also arranged for a shared accomodation where I shall shift this Monday. This is for the first time in my life that I will be working somewhere without staying with my family. Anways there is always a first time everywhere, & I believe whatever is happening in my life is for my betterment. I have been offered a Consultancy role in my new profile & have finally shifted from pure Technical Service to Technical Consultancy. I will draw my inspiration from my seniors in my team to excel in my new role.

So I shall stride henceforth with a positive approach leaving back the negative things that have happened to me in my previous firm.

Solution to Codec related Errors

You might have faced a problem several times wherein you try to play your favourite Music or Movie on your PC but your Player gives you a "Codec Error". What to do in such a case ? You have 2 options - Either install an application like GSpot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot) which gives you sufficient information on the Codecs required to play the specified media Or download a Codec Pack (http://www.cole2k.net/), like Cole2k Media Pack, which is freely available on the net. The second option is actually easier for a layman because a Codec Pack contains almost all basic required Codecs.

Migrating your Blog from one platform to another

As you all might be aware that I recently migrated from Windows Live Spaces to Blogger to get more out of HTML/JavaScript. I will give you few handy tips & tricks for Blog migration. In Windows Live Spaces or say some other Blogging platform you might find some ready made pluggins/add-ons (called Microsoft Gadgets by Microsoft) to integrate some dynamic content on your Blog. The dynamic content can be anything from a Windows Media Player add-on to a Flickr addon. If you are migrating to Blogger (I have not tried out other platform) the main advantage you get is the independence of Coding, provided you know a little bit of HTML/JavaScript. Even for the non-tech people Blogger is a good platform since it is WYSWYG (What You See is What You Get) complaint.

When talking about HTML & JavaScript you need not know the intricacies of both, but just the basic knowledge of how to search for specific code on the net & integrate it in your Blog's template/design. Take the example of the section of Live Video Feeds in my Blog, which is nothing but an embeded Windows Media Player code freely available on the net. The same thing applies to the "Add to Favorites" link.

So if you think you want to incorporate any interesting feature on your Blog which can be done through HTML/JavaScript then welcome to Blogger.

Place from where I Blog

Thought of sharing some selected pics of my new Home, a place which gives me the perfect ambience for Blogging. I derive all my creativity while Blogging & designing the home page due to this wonderful place of mine. A dream home whose interior design has been entirely done by my mom & me. Hope you people like them.

Cisco PIX & VPN Concentrator Simulator

Few days back I found a lot of people in one of the Orkut communities looking out for a Cisco PIX Simulator. Infact one of them has also shared a link to the Simulator. So I went ahead & downloaded the same.




Its a Cisco PIX & VPN Concentrator Simulator which is CLI based. Its a 22 MB RAR file. It seems to be a good one for practicing commands. So thought of sharing it with others. Those of you who want to download it, you can find it on http://rapidshare.com/files/11472783/file3.rar.html . Since it is hosted on Rapid File Share Server, I cannot guarantee the availability of this file. If anyone is unable to download it please intimate me & I will upload it somewhere else.

iPod Shuffle look-alike

I was just browsing through Rediff this morning & to my surprise I found the latest Apple product, the iPod Shuffle, for just Rs. 2,199, available on Rediff Shopping. The MRP of iPod Shuffle currently in Indian markets is around Rs. 3,990.




I decided to cross-check this product from eBay. And finally eBay solved my query. The product which I saw on Rediff Shopping was an iPod Shuffle look-alike (Made in China) & was infact a 1 GB MP3 player. Don't believe me, just check the link above & you will start realising how much China has pioneered in the Electronics market by encouraging Small Scale Industries & SEZ's.

So those of you who don't want to burn a hole in their pocket by shelling out Rs.3,990 on an iPod Shuffle, this look-alike is then made for you.

Trying to monetise my Blog

Yesterday I read a small booklet on Blogging & thought of making some quick money. Also someone commented in my previous Blog about Google AdSense. So I finally decided to move my Blog from Windows Live Spaces to Blogspot, after Blogging for about 5 months in Windows Live Spaces. So I will spend my entire day today importing my posts from my previous Blog (http://baudhayan.spaces.live.com) to here (http://baudhayan.blogspot.com).

I must say that Blogspot has some cool features. It gives me more options to customize my HTML code & also to change the date of my posts. So you will feel as if I have been with Blogspot from November 10, 2006, the day I entered the Blogosphere.

Is Rediff getting inspired from my Posts ?

I don't know, but I find a strange coincidence between the topics being discussed in Rediff's Message Board immediately after very similar posts on which I've written in my Blog. For example, in the month of March I wrote about "Work from Home" & to my surprise I found a discussion on "Work from Home" in Rediff's Message Board. This is not the only instance. If you see my previous post "Plastic Surgery - The Balaji Telefilms Way", you will find that a very similar topic "Which movie scene did you find most absurd ?", which is being talked about in Rediff from yesterday। Strange enough, but "बडे बडे शहरों में ऐसी छोटी छोटी बातें होती रहती है".

Plastic Surgery - The Balaji Telefilms Way

Are you an avid viewer of all the "K" serials ? I'm referring to all serials produced by Ekta Kapoor on TV nowdays. Its most certain that these serials have become a big time hit these days & kudos to Ekta for doing such a brilliant job. But you will inadvertently at some stage find that a character gets replaced in most of the serials owing to the fact of unavailibility of the actor/actress in that character. So in what way does this replacement take place. Its mostly shown as some tragic accident resulting in the actor's death. But later on you will find that there is reincarnation of the same character by means of some Plastic Surgery. There would also be some flashback clipping which will prove that the character somehow escaped the jaws of death but his/her face was burnt beyond recognition after which a Plastic Surgery was the only way left.

Plastic Surgery done..... fine. Whats so strange about it ? The funniest thing is that a Plastic Surgery just involves skin grafting & nothing else. But in the "K" serials once the Plastic Surgery is done all the vital statistics of the character viz., Height, Weight & Voice, also change. Isn't this quite funny? Atleast I find so :)

Taking care of your Data using "My Briefcase"

Due to fast improvent & stability in computing technology we sometimes tend to become reluctant of our precious data stored in the Hard Drives. I am not talking from a very technical perspective but from a layman's point of view. The Hard Drive data might contain your important project work or might be some lovely snaps of your last picnic or some other very important stuff. Remember that Hard Drives are mechanical devices & are bound to failures how much ever guarantee or warranty the manufacturer may offer. What to do in such a case ?

You don't even need to shell out much on expensive Backup devices or infact Backup softwares. Just be prepared to invest a little on the Portable USB Hard Drives readily avaialable in the market. To have a smooth backup of your Home or Office data just create BRIEFCASE type folders (in Windows) in these USB Drives corresponding to your Home or Office PC, as required. Once the Briefcases are created, just copy the folders in your Home or Office PC to the respective Briefcase folders. The adavantage of Briefcase type folders is that it easily synchronizes with your PC's Hard Disk. It only updates the files & folders from your PC to USB Drive that have changed after the previous backup. Thus you need not copy the entire file / folder once again to backup your data. This saves on repetitive copying & offcourse time. Also ensure to defragment your Portable USB Hard Drive from time to time & keep it in a secluded location so that your data is always safe & secure.

A stich in time saves nine.

Tech Review: Canon MP160 Print Scan Copier

Its almost a week that I've become used to my new gadget in my Computer Trolley - the Canon MP160 MFD. Though it has a large Form Factor (i.e. bigger in size), it turns out to be a decent MFD (Multi-Function Device) by paying out Rs.4000 at Cassette World, Lamington Road. Its a Print-Scan-Copier bundled package. I actually had planned to buy HP DeskJet F380 but ended in buying the Canon one after the shopkeeper suggested. So let me list some positives & negatives about this MFD.

Positives:

• Low Price
• Ease of installation of Printer & Cartridges
• Paper Feeder is from top & so easily picks up paper
• It has a Flat Bed scanner & so it becomes easy to scan thick documents
• Scanning quality is also pretty good, though some other reviews suggest it to be a bad. As far as my experience goes, a human eye cannot differentiate minor errors in scanned images
• Since it is a bi-directional printer, print speed is really quite fast
• The printer driver provides a feature which can select the Ink tanks intelligently if any of the Inks (Black or Color) runs out & you have not replaced the same cartridge
• Printed very neat passport size photos on Photo Glossy Paper using the EasyPhotoPrint bundled software
• Scanning software provided (MP Navigator) is very easy to use
• OCR software provided (Scansoft Omnipage) is easy to use & feature rich. I printed a formated excel worksheet & then scanned it & did an OCR. The text recognition was 100% & also the software allowed be to export the scanned document in excel format once again
• Copier does good copying both in Black & Color mode
• Can print directly through the PicBridge Port from Canon Cameras or any other Camera supporting PicBridge standards

Negatives:

• By shelling out little bit more money you can buy the Canon MP180 which provides more copying features like Enlargement & Reduction. The MP180 also has a memory slot
• Takes a pretty long time to print the first page
• USB Printer cable is not included in the pack
• Large Form Factor
• The LCD gives you to select 9 copies in the copy mode & after that it shows "F" which means 20. So you cannot select anything between 9 & 20 copies while copying

All in all it is a very good SOHO printer. But I would personally suggest you to buy a Canon MP180 which provides little bit more copying features though the Print & Scan qualities are identical.Canon MP160 gets a rating of 4.25 out of 5 by the Gadget Guru.

Be an Alert Citizen

Around last week or so I was on my way back home travelling on the compartment footboard, as usual. While standing, the guy standing on the footboard right in front of me interested me. Why ? Probably because he was taller & well built than I am & moreover he was obstructing my view & the cool breeze hitting me in this hot summer. Though the guy interested me for some strange reasons as mentioned earlier, but as time passed I started becoming more curious about him. The next para will illustrate everything.

I boarded the train from Elphinstone Road station & was heading towards Kandivali. I guess he must have boarded at some other station prior to Elphinstone road because right from the beginning he was in front of me. He seemed to be in his late 20s & was well dressed with a creamish coloured cotton jeans trouser & a stylish shirt. He wore a metal bangle in his wrist with Sai Babas engraving on it. Right from the time I was behind him he started receiving calls on his Nokia 3250 cell phone. I could easily makeout that he spoke with a female (probably his fiancee) in 1 or 2 occasions. I don't know what struct me, as soon as he received his 3 or 4th call I just peeped across his shoulders to checkout who might be calling him. To my surprise I found out some strange name "Phir Ne Men Sa Chu" or so being displayed on his screen. I soon found out that almost all the names in his Contacts list where kept in an encoded format. So most of the names looked like "Hi Ne Ka Tum", "Koti Me Su" or some other garbled character. But believe me the guy spoke in Hindi throughout. Another thing which I noticed was that he used to delete his call records (Dialled Numbers & Missed Calls especially) after completion of every call & also delete all incoming SMS's after reading them. Since it was a moving train I couldn't read any of his SMS's (though unethical) nor clearly hear what he was speaking over the phone. By the time I could collect all possible information & be an Alert Citizen & actively participate in the Mumbai Unbreakable campaign Kandivali station had already arrived & it was time for me to get down. That guy travelled further, probably till Borivali or probably to some suspicious activities.

Since I didn't have sufficient proof against him or probably because I feared a bit, I couldn't report this matter to Police. But believe me we all need to be very alert while travelling, because you never know a terrorist might be sitting next to you.

Jai Hind..... Mera Bharat Mahan !!!!!

Excellent broadband usage monitoring tool to MTNL & BSNL users

With the year 2007 tagged as "The Year of Broadband" by the Indian Telecom Ministry, it becomes very important for us to track our downloads. Because with skyrocketting speeds of 2 Mbps at our homes, things just happen too quickly & by the time we realize how much we have downloaded using Torrents & other P2P softwares, we have a big fat bill from MTNL / BSNL charging us for exceeding the download limits.

I know its too boring to visit their extremely slow sites to check our Account Status. Then why not use a browser like Mozilla Firefox which also gives our account statistics in its status bar. Thats what a brilliant chap named Brian Fernandez has developed. He has developed an extension for Firefox which queries the MTNL / BSNL Servers & shows your account statistics in its status bar. You just need to save your username & password in its settings. Don't worry its totally safe & is being tested by many people in the India Broadband Forum (http://broadbandforum.in). So what are you waiting for, just install Mozilla Firefox along with this extension available at http://thegoan.com/firefox & keep your Broadband bills under control.

Taking ownership for Successes & Failures

My job experience has now been almost 4.5+ years. Most of it has been in the IT industry offcourse. Right from my initial years upto now I find one thing that has remained unchanged..... guess what ? Most of my colleagues as well as my seniors in my workplace, whether a small time company or the topmost company, always jump in to take credit for all achievements that me & my team achieves in the organisation. When it comes to accountability for failures its only me who is ready to take the burden. This attitude is prevalent right from my technical colleagues to my Managers. Though this attitude has helped me in achieving leadership roles much earlier than what other people do, it still sometimes bothers me. If you or your team do something marvelous & instantly take credit for the same then why don't you also hold yourself accountable for failures. We all are humans & not machines, & are bound to commit mistakes. Why does the saying "To err is human & to forgive is divine" stay only as a bookish knowledge & not realised in real life ?

Atlast a perfect Cake baked in Microwave !!!!!

Right from my school days I used to hear from my sister that Microwave ovens bake excellent cakes। I am talking about the 90s era when my sister used to frequently visit one of her friends place & would always tell me about the different Microwave delicacies she used to taste there.

We had to wait up to 1999 or so when the first Microwave oven, from IFB, first arrived at our place. After experimenting few dishes few finally decided to bake our first cake in the oven. After the entire baking process we found it pretty disappointing that the cake was not up to the mark & definitely not what we expected after investing Rs.15,000 on a Microwave oven. After discussing with other people we finally realised the flaw..... ours was a standard Microwave oven without the convection feature. We started cursing the sales person who didn't inform about the absence of this feature. We had no other option but to continue with this model until & unless the oven malfunctioned & we had an excuse to get a new one.
1 year, 2 years, 3 years..... Gradually as years progressed we realised that our oven was from an old stock due to which it used to give us frequent problems. Finally we procured a new LG Microwave oven..... off course with the convection feature in Feb'2007. After the demo from the technician a few weeks back, we finally decided to bake our first cake yesterday. We already had our preparations done & my mom had also purchased an Aluminium vessel as the baking vessel. The confusion started in the afternoon about how to go about with the baking process..... whether to bake it in Microwave mode or Convection mode or the Combination mode. I searched through lot of Internet sites & finally decided to use only Convection mode with the Aluminium vessel, which the technician had also suggested.
My mom prepared the dough & in the meantime I preheated the oven to 200 deg C, as instructed in some sites। Finally we transferred the cake mix to the vessel, placed it in the lower rack & set the time for 30 mins. 1 min, 5 mins, 15 mins...... we started getting the lovely cake odour. When it completed 25 mins, I decided to pause & check whether the baking was complete. I took a fork & pierced the centre of the cake & when I removed the form it came out clean. This meant that our cake was ready. So I now stopped the baking process & kept the vessel inside the oven to absorb the remaining heat. After 10 mins or so I finally took out the vessel & allowed it to cool for an hour. Coincidentally my sister also turned up in the evening & was delighted to see the freshly baked Microwave cake, which she always talked about. Finally we cut the cake & relished it to the maximum.

So our patience for almost a decade payed off !!!!

Sale of Sunfeast Biscuits set to decline - Just a joke

So after the pathetic cricketing performance by the Blue Billion (our Cricket Team offcourse), no one would prefer to have Sunfeast Biscuits which promotes on the tag line "AB GHAR GHAR MEIN SACHIN". We don't want the big names at all. What we want is young, enthusiastic team which gives more than 100% on the field, which the current team is not capable of.

DTH price war

With the successful launch of the latest series of INSAT satellite, we will soon see few more parties joining the DTH bandwagon. One of the topmost is Reliance's BlueMagic. And we very well know that Reliance is very good at initiating a price war in any market. So very soon we will find an upsurge in DTH service providers added with some cool Value Added Services. Monthly subscription charges will soon come down drastically offering customers a very low price for DTH services. What remains to be seen are the charges for Installation & Set-Top boxes. So the coming years will be an interesting ones for all of us. So don't be in a hurry, continue with your old cablewallah, coz you might repent very soon for investing much higher on existing DTH services.

Work from home

Few days back one of my friends working in New York said that due to heavy snowfall he was said to work from home. I am desperately waiting for such a culture to be widely accepted among corporates in India. Take the case of heavy rains which happen in Mumbai every monsoon. Even on the worst affected days we are expected to come to office. My job is such that I can easily provide remote support to anyone with my home PC switched on & connected to net via broadband. Though I do have the flexibility to work from home, its unofficial. If I request my seniors to officially permit me to work this way, it wont be accepted. Thats the way it goes right now. Eagerly waiting for the dawn of "work-from-home" era .....

The Moon Eclipses on a HOLIday

4-Mar-2007 was one of the perfect days to watch a Lunar Eclipse. Coz 4-Mar-2007 was a Sunday with everyone celebrating Holi. The preparations for Lunar Eclipse began at home since the news broke out on News Channels on 3-Mar-2007. Immediately after the news broke out, me & my mom managed for a quick Saturday afternoon nap on 3-Mar-2007. Then it was an endless wait till 4-Mar-2007 1:30 am when the Eclipse was scheduled to begin. Exactly at 1:30 me & my mom rushed to the terrace. Since it was a full moon day the entire atmosphere was lit with bright moon light. Our locality being little bit away from the heart of the City, gives you to watch an amazingly clear Night Sky (a thing to cheer about for Sky gazers). But what about the Eclipse ????? We waited for about 15-20 mins & returned back home, disappointed not to find anything interesting. Then set our Alarm clock to 4 am (coz 4:15 am was the time of total Eclipse).

Beep...Beep...Beep...4 am. Me & my mom rushed to the terrace once again & saw something which we were really looking about for. Our cool & calm Moon had been overshadowed by its master, our big blue Planet Earth, by almost 98%. Finally at quarter past 4 it was completely engulfed by the Earth's shadow. We enjoyed this natural beauty of a total Lunar Eclipse for about 10-15 mins. What interested us was that though the Moon was Eclipsed by the Earth's shadow, it was still visible in a Copper colour. We felt as if someone had lit a red colour bulb inside a huge Table Tennis ball in the sky.

We again came back home & watched many TV channels which were showing the Night Sky। I then connected to Net & also browsed through some sites which were showing live Eclipse pics all the way from Geneva. While browsing I also found out an interesting fact about the Copper colour of Moon during the Eclipse. Actually the Earth acts like a prism. So the Copper colour is due to the bending of all reddish light generated in the Earth from different countries on account of Sunrises & Sunsets occuring at that instance. Really interesting fact na.....

Finally we retired to bed at around 5 am & woke up at 8:30 am to get ready for the HOLI day.
The entire day was then colourful for me celebrating the festival of colours with my friends & relatives at my new residence.

Configuring Outlook 2003 as a BOT

Have you ever thought that Outlook 2003 can be configured to give functionality of a BOT (a short name for roBOT). Right from Unlocking user accounts in Active Directory to restarting specific Services on Active Directory, or for that purpose any machine, you can cleverly use Outlook. In the Rules wizard just create different rules with criteria something like,

Check if the SENDER is <abc@xyz.com>
Then
If SUBJECT is
Then EXECUTE APPLICATION
Else Ignore
Else Ignore

In the above given scenario I can configure an IMAP/POP3/Exchange account in Outlook on a PC. As soon as Outlook finds all the above criteria satisfied it executes the specified application. With regards to application I am referring to Windows based scripts freely available on the net.

You can now be worried about Spamming. But the security in these Rules ensure that just anyone cannot get the job done by just sending the mail. In the Rules Wizard you can specify the E-mail addresses from which this account will perform admin activities on received E-mails.

So with this setup Outlook can help in doing many repetetive Admin activities, but in an unattended manner... like a BOT. The only requirement is you need to continuously run Outlook in a Remote or Console session of the said PC.

Example:
1. Subject: UNLOCK testuser, Application: unlock.vbs, Activity: Unlocks the testuser account when a specified E-mail ID sends E-mail with the above mentioned Subject.
2. Subject: RESTART DHCP, Application: dhcp-restart.cmd containing (NET STOP "DHCP Server" & NET START "DHCP Server"), Activity: Restarting the DHCP service without any users intervention.

Outlook 2003 as a BOT is my creativity or you might say my invention. I have frankly not found anyone using Outlook for such a useful purpose. I am right now researching on having a Datacentre with Artificial Intelligence & which is self healing. I would love inputs from different people thinking in this direction.

Preventing Mumbai from Monsoon Woes

Just look around Dadar station. You will find that all drains have been totally covered by wooden sleepers. Why ??? Not because they want to keep the drains clean, but to hide the pathetic condition of the highly choked drains from the public. Even when this activity of drains being covered started, the Western Railway didn't ensure to clean the drains before covering them. The same situation prevails in many more stations.

Now coming to 2 critical bridges built over nallas. Incidentally both of them come between Goregaon & Jogeshwari stations. Especially the one just before Jogeshwari station is fully choked with plastic bags with hardly any space for water to pass. Also the water which passes is used for crop cultivation besides the Railway tracks. So you know what kind of healthy vegetables we eat day to day.

When Monsoon arrives 2 most important agencies i.e. Western Railway & BMC, start acting reactively rather than being proactive about regular cleaning to prevent flooding. BMC is also not strict in implementing the 50 micron plastic bag regulation. Any implementation of regulation means another channel for the local Police to syphon in some under-table funds.

I guess every Mumbaikar should believe in "Prevention is better than cure" policy. Avoid taking plastic bags from shopkeepers. Don't dump your small little wastes like chockolate wrappers, food packets in the open. Always try to locate a nearest dustbin to dump garbage.

TOGETHER WE CAN & WE WILL BE MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN

(Issued in Public Interest)

Tech Review: Beetel CB 12000 Cordless Phone

On this Republic I finally replaced my big old Sony SPP-Q110 Cordless Phone with a brand new Beetel Cordless Phone (Black Color). After exploring the new Phone for about 2 days or so I was amused by the fact that how technology is rapidly changing & how innovative Gadget makers are becoming. You will realize this as & when you read my complete review about this model.






First of all it has a Polyphonic Base Unit with LCD Display, Dial Pad, Speaker Phone & a reciever with wires. So even if there is a Power Failure, your Cordless Phone still continues to function as a normal Phone. Wait...wait... don't worry about Power Failures as the Power Supply to this Phone as an inbuilt rechargable Battery which can be turned On or Off depending on your requirements. So if your area is severely affected by Power problems you can permanently keep this On. The Battery is only consumed during a Power Failure, else it directly operates from raw Power. The CLI is shown on the LCD Display. The CLI in the Base unit can store 29 incoming calls. The LCD Display helps you to view & change all the phone settings such has Ringtone, Date, Time, etc. You can select upto 16 different Poyphonic tones in the Base Unit. All said, now let me mention the most interesting feature of the Base Unit... the CLI system is a TALKING CALLER ID system. So I guess you have already got it... whenever there is an incoming call the Phone loudly reads out the incoming number. There is also another interesting feature associated with this Phone which is the ANTI-TAPPING feature. This feature can be both a boon & bane. Coz if this remains enabled you cannot use any of your parallel Phones at home because the Cordless Base Unit starts beeping loudly & jams the Phone line. The benefit being that your privacy is not intruded.

Now coming to the Handset, it has a pretty small form factor as compared to other Cordless Handsets avaialble in the market. It closely resembles those old Nokia 55xx Mobile Handsets. Its LCD Display shows the Date & Time & also the last 35 Incoming calls in CLI mode. The only drawback with the Handset is that it is not Polyphonic & lacks Speaker Phone feature.

Both the Base Unit & the Handset have extendible Antenna's & gives you a whopping range of 30 metres. So I could actually use my Handset from the Terrace in 8th Floor though I stay in the 2nd Floor. The INTERCOM feature allows you to talk between the Base Unit & the Handset & also allows to you transfer calls amongst each other.

All in all the Phone is an excellent one & I would rate it 4.5 on 5. Would have rated it 5 on 5 if the Handset was Polyphonic & had Speaker Phone feature.

Windows XP Device Manager Error Codes

Are you a Desktop Support or Helpdesk Engineer & desperately seeking a permanent solution to all device driver problems & Device Manager errors. Then why don't you visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123 . This is an excellent site which gives you the answer to all Device Manager error codes in Windows XP.

Vista Tips n Tricks

Now that Microsoft has officially launched Windows Vista, how about learning some handful Tips & Tricks about Microsoft's new offeriing. I was just browsing across Microsoft home page & found an interesting link which I thought worth sharing with all. Just visit http://www.windowsvistatnt.com . Its got all the interesting docs & videos which shall make the Vista experience an interesting one. So what are you waiting for ???..... just click on the link & be the first to know about Vista.

When will Indian govt. stop Moral Policing ????

AXN - BLOCKED, Star Movies - BLOCKED..... How many more such blockings are we going to see in the days to come. Come on..... its our life & its not the government who should decide what we see & what we do not see on TV. For kids & teenagers their parents/guardians should be responsible enough to protect their kids from watching objectionable content. Morever, almost all TV's & Set-Top Boxes now have the option of configuring Parental Lock which password protects certain channels. If the government is so keen on filtering content thats being viewed on the TV, they should better arrest those guys selling pirated 'C' Grade movies near Railway stations. I believe no channels air adult content in the peak hours. Whats shown is way late night.... say 1 am or 2 am. If the parents cannot regulate their children, it should not become the governments responsibility to do moral policing. As far as I know, all movie channels now blurr out all the nude scenes. Then whats the governments problem. Due to all these blockings we end up missing good series & some nice movies which might hardly contain any adult scenes.

The return of KBC

So atlast KBC is back !!!!! And that too with a new host SRK. So all of us got to see both the Don's on the same sets. After watching both the episodes what I feel is that though SRK is doing a good job in hosting the show, but still the Shehanshah proves to be mightier than the Baadshah. Though SRK tries to be more close to the participants & the audience, he still lacks a lot of charm which Big B drew. Thats why Big B is rightly called the SHOWMAN OF THE MILLENIUM. Big B needed no other extra acts like Shoulder massage or gifting away his watch to impress the viewers. Morever Big B's voice is awesome & I believe no one can ever replicate the Shehanshah. Anyways my best wishes to SRK once again for the small screen adventure; with which he had began his career as a Fauji. Remember a Fauji never retires while fighting & the same will also apply with SRK.

(Photo Courtsey: My TV Tuner Card)

Tech Review: TATA Sky - Isko Laga Dala to Life Jingala

I being a member of the TATA group finally gifted my sister a TATA Sky DTH connection on 10-Jan. Within 2-3 days the TATA Sky customer care people did something due to which multiple dealers started approaching my sister for the connection. Finally my sister fixed the deal with one of the dealers who delivered the Digicomp on 13-Jan & the installation finally happened today.

Since there was Line of Sight problem from my sisters balcony we settled to install it on the terrace, quite aware of the fact that cable guys keep fidling with it due to loss in their business. It took them around 1.5 years to align the dish & do the wiring stuff upto the TV. Finally everythign was plugged in to the right place & the POWER ON button pressed. BINGO....everything starts fine & the first thing to watch was Raageshwari....ya that ex-MTV-VJ. You might be thinking why the hell did I first talk about Raageshwari. Thats because there is a dedicated demo channel on how to use TATA Sky connection & the Digicomp & Remote features, & this channel is hosted by Raageshwari. So any problem with your settings....don't worry....press 999 from your Remote & Raags is there to help you out. The interesting fact is that both HINDI & ENGLISH audio tracks are available for this channel. Then comes a small green button which is used to change the audio track. And anytime you want to come to the main menu, just press the HOME button. Not to worry.....the usage was pretty simple. The picture & sound quality was obviously excellent. I guess to experience the excellent picture quality you need to get yourself a Plasma rather than sticking with your old 21' TV. Otherwise you will not realise the realistic images. Rest all the features worked fine as told by Raags. One nice thing was that even without using your Recharge vouchers you get free viewing time of 10 days.

Do you think everything is heading towards a positive & profitable direction. Just hang on. There is a small CATCH when it comes to the installation. Though you pay Rs.2999 for the Digicomp & Rs.1000 for installation..... you STILL DON'T OWN THE DISH.....you ONLY OWN THE DIGICOMP. So next time to plan to shift your house ensure to return your Dish to your current dealer & shell out Rs.1000 as installation charges in your new place from another dealer.

Thats why the tag line goes like ISKO LAGA DALA TO...........

Grab Handle Advertising

Trousers, T-Shirts, Bill Boards, Print Media, TV......where else to post your Ads?......how about the handles in the public transport systems. Don't worry, I am not any enterpreneur or any Ad guru like Prahlad Kakkad. I am just referring to the new method of Advertising started in the Mumbai BEST buses.

I happened to catch a BEST bus yesterday from Lower Parel & got a comfortable window seat, as the bus was quiet empty. While I looked here & there I found something really interesting. All the Black Nylon handles for the standing queue had been replaced with transparent fibre handles. Also these handles had a Ad attached with each one of them. You could see not only Ads but also public awareness messages being inserted. This is really a very nice way to educate people.

Its true that Indian Advertising Industry will be the best one globally, very soon. 3 cheers to the person who conceptualised this unique Advertisement strategy.

Whats this "Solutionz Unlimited"?

My friends & colleagues keep asking me that I frequently use the term "Solutionz Unlimited" everywhere on the net. I thought this would be a nice place to share my dreams with you all. "Solutionz Unlimited" in short is my dream company. No...no...I'm not a big time enterpreneur like Bill Gates, Anupam Mittal & many more successful ones in the industry. I have some nice & useful ideas which I think of building upon & starting a firm named "Solutionz Unlimited" in future. I don't know whether I'll ever be successful in doing so cause I don't have that much of financial stability in taking a risk of leaving a handsome paying job & venturing out in the wilderness. So atleast for the next 10 years or so I guess this dream will still remain a dream, until & unless there is someone who can fund this dream.

Now...the big question..."What will Solutionz Unlimited provide ?". It will truely be a IT Consultancy company & will not get involved in any kind of implementations. The consultancy will not be restricted to my current field, which is Computer Networking. It will provide end-to-end IT consultancy even for Applications, Remote IT Support, Graphics & Animation, Audio / Video editing, Infrastructure Services & much much more...which I'm still keeping a note. The main target will be SOHO users who can't afford to invest a lot in Infrastructure. I'm actually a person who is very good in suggesting workarounds for any technical problems. For eg, You buy 'X' & 'Y' application which provides you 'A' & 'B' services respectively. You now want a service 'C' which is not available totally in 'X' & 'Y' applications & thus you need to buy an application 'Z'. What I can do is extract some functionalities from 'X' &amp; 'Y' & corelate them & provide the service 'C'. This will result in a lower TCO & higher ROI.

Nowadays most of the big companies invest a lot in new applications (from big time application vendors) to get a small functionality. I will save the investment on new applications in the way suggested above, else I'll have a team who can give you a customised solution. I have practically seen the above scenario in the IT industry from the projects I've been involved in.

Above all I also plan to provide a Test Lab for all IT related activites like Application Testing, Testing of Routers / Firewall & other Network devices. This is just a small list of things for which I plan to provide a test environment. I have ideas for other things also which will keep on striking me working with this industry.

Thats it...about my dreams. If you think I dream something which is sensible enough, do get in touch with me.

Thanks for the time you spent reading this post.

Always remember..."An IDEA can change your life"

BEST buses, WORST attitude

I have lived my life at various parts of this sub-continent. I must admit that the Mumbai BEST bus service is probably the Best bus service in the country. Best not only in terms of frequency (excluding few buses), but also in terms of cleanliness & maintenance of these buses.

But when it comes to Conductors & Drivers, they are one of the worst people I have ever interacted with. Why???? Have you ever tried to give a note of higher denomination when you run out of change or have you ever waived your hand to request the bus driver to slow down in a turning to board the bus. Try doing this & you will come to know how customer unfriendly BEST conductors & drivers are. I have lately heard that BEST runs in huge profits (obviously, the ticket rates are one of the most expensive in the country). But does that mean you behave arrogantly & rudely with people who are giving you the business. Not done at all !!!!!

I just happened to travel to Borivali Station area a few days ago, for shopping. My mom also accompanied me. After we wound up our shopping, we found a BEST bus destined towards where I stay, waiting in the stop with people unboarding. When everyone got down me & my mom boarded the bus unaware of the fact that the stop was not supposed to be a boarding point. Just when the bus started the conductor rudely told us to unboard, for which we obliged. Now we requested him to stop the bus, as my mom was aged. Even before my mom could fully get down from the bus, the bus again took its speed. My mom was almost going to fall. When I asked the conductor that was waiting for extra few seconds going to disturb the buses' schedule, he started behaving more rudely & started using abusive language for which I retaliated back.

This is just one of the few thousand incidents which daily BEST commuters face & ignore in their busy lifestyle. I hope BEST depot Managers read this article & train their staff to be polite with commuters.

Lage Raho Mum-bhai

What you see in the pic beside is nothing unusual. Its a daily routine which every Mumbaikar travelling through Mumbai's lifeline, the Suburban trains, follow. With the population increasing in leaps & bounds & finding no other means of Rapid Transport, travelling on Roof-tops is what is left behind for the people out here. As days progress we see more & more people travelling the way depicted in the pic. Metros are scheduled to roll-out only by 2009. What to do till then? MMRDA, BMC & the Government please do something.

Kudos to the people who stay in this city & adjust their daily lifestyle with whatever is offered to them.

LAGE RAHO MUMBAI.....


(Photo Courtsey: Times of India, http://www.timesofindia.com/)

The Year that was - 2006

The Year

• Sad demise of Pramod Mahajan
• 7/11 Blast
• Soaring SENSEX
• I shifted to my Dream House
• End of Saddam's era
• Remakes, Remixes & Sequels
• HIMESH's dream year
• ASH-ABHI wedding news
• I completed 300 Orkut scraps
• I published my first Blog