Vibhu

Happy New Year !

2012-01-01T16:05:00.001+05:30

Happy New Year to you all !

As the new year begins, I look back at the last year and can't help but be amazed at how much was squeezed in that one year. What a year it was . 2011. So many things happened on a global scale that things happening to your life seemed to be quite dwarfed. A quick recall...

Personal Front

On the personal front, not much to report. Life going on as usual. Working in McAfee and working on tailoring solutions to various partners on the mobile front. I guess I am a household name in people interacting with the partner world in McAfee :D

One place though I was able to tick off from my list of places to go to - Amritsar's Golden Temple.

Golden Temple

Biking

Not a good year for my biking. Hardly any rides worth mentioning. We had the BN annual meet at Goa. This year we don't want to have it in the places we already had the meets on.

Breakfast ride near Gurgaon

The Highs

A couple of memorable events stood out this year.

India won the World Cup! Yeah ! I am not a big cricket buff, but then, you dont need to be a buff - its a religion. Now I hope Sachin can get his 100th 100 this year.

The biggest wedding on the planet - of British royalty - happened. About 2 billion people ( one out of every 3 people ) watched the live event.

Gaming
Big year for gaming. Lots of good titles. However, I don't play everything available, and also I am limited to the PC so, heres a short list.

World of Warcraft raid.

World of Warcraft continued to hold its sway in the online gaming world. I had started a guild in the end of 2010, which finally disbanded in early 2011 due to efforts of an individual called Easha R. Swamy. Apparently, I am not a good guild master, so he forced me to give the guild master over to him, after which he just squandered away all good will and killed of the guild. Next effort was around the year end but this time i wisely stayed away from any role of responsibility in the guild - which was as well as office work takes up a huge chunk of my time. Finally a guild was formed on the Horde side on a server, and then the guild moved to the Alliance side on another server ( You can join the facebook group if you are interested). I think the downfall of all the Indian endeavors is the politics and favoritism that plague us in any sector.

Skyrim was launched, which became an amazing experience with its open worlds and fighting dragons. However, mid-way across i lost interest as it is just too vast and my time is quite limited.

Diablo 3 : I don't know when the game will be launched. But , somehow I got into the beta, and had a blast playing up to level 13 ( which is the level cap in beta). As the game is getting ready for launch, the characters keep getting reset and you need to keep start playing from 0. I just cant wait for this game to be released.

Star Wars : The old republic : This is a new MMO from Bioware and Lucas arts set in the world of Star Craft about a few millenia before the movies. I got lucky, and my secret santa clause gifted me a 90 day subscription. I find myself playing more of this game now than WoW cause its new and the story telling is really epic. Right now i am playin as a Jedi Sentiniel - who can wield 2 light sabers at the same time :)

I tried a few other games also like DeadSpace, Crysis 2 etc, but FPS is not my cup of tea specially when all the action happens in closed spaces. Crysis 2 was specially a big let down. Apart from the opening cinematics, the game was quite stupid. You are asked to meet someone at a location, and when you get there after being the death incarnate, you get to know that person has moved somewhere else and has asked to meet there. And this kept looping, till i lost interest.

Celebrities & Death

So many celebrities died that its not even funny. A list can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2011

Steve Jobs, an icon for many - either of adoration or hate, passed on. I think this effect will be felt through the world. The last decade had apple featuring prominently in pushing the boundaries of usable gadgets, lead by the iPod. I don't think that today's generation will ever know the pains of using tape-recorders, which is not a big loss to be frank.

Osama Bin Laden was killed in an American mission on foreign soil. I think the one thing I found quite interesting was the stealth copter that crashed into the compound.

Kim Jong of North Korea died. The supreme leader was not as supreme as he thought.

India had its share of prominent people passing off:
Dev Anand died at the ripe age of 88. He was still going strong in his late years, and I think he had a great life.

Shammi Kapoor , another iconic actor breathed his last. Tareef karoun kya uski - indeed ! I think I will miss the antics of Shammi Kapoor more than Dev Anand.

Jagjit Singh the ghazal maestro passed away. I get nostalgic, remembering playing the tapes of his and Chitras and humming along with the music while studying ( any analytical task i do, it helps me to have some music in the background). Oh, the random player just switched to a track by Jagjit - Hoshwaalon Ko Khabar Kya.

Mario Miranda, another great person, a cartoonist also passed away. He had his own distinct style, which cannot be copied.

Nawab of Pataudi breathed his last this year. The one eyed Tiger of Indian cricket will always be remembered by Cricket fans - of which there are plenty in India.

Disasters

These can be man made of natural. Man made disasters are the slowdown in economy, and the fall in rupee. Man, is the Indian government incompetent or what ?

The disaster that hogged the most deadlines is of course the earthquake in Japan ( and that country does not get a break - there was another one this morning). That lead to widespread Tsunamis and the meltdown of the nuclear plant. On the bright side ( if you are a sci-fi buff), there is now more probability of having a real Godzilla.

Damn ! That was a happening year. Now, lets see what 2012 will have in store for us ! Which are the 2011 events that you remember most clearly ?

Making Android Better

2011-12-12T13:09:00.000+05:30

You may have read my last rant against Android. After posting that I got into a more constructive mode and started thing how the OS can be improved. This is based on the 2.x (Gingerbread) version of the Android OS as I do not have access to a 4.x version (Ice Cream Sandwich).

I have also defined ownership to Google or the Manufacturer as they need to work it out. Unlike apple's iOS, Android has much more complexity as it has to synergize with multiple vendors and a plethora of hardware.

1. Get rid of the internal memory concept.

At this point, Android phones act like the older phone OSs which assumed a small internal memory and user expandable SD card slots to keep data. The problem with this approach is that with the Android market, users have the option to download hundreds of applications. But the internal memory limit means that you can hardly download more than 10 apps before the phone starts to cry out about issues with the memory being full.

Since the SD cards are cheap now, we can argue that a manufacturer sourcing a large number of memory chips ( without the plastic casing etc to put in the phone) should be able to get it quite cheap. Even a 2GB internal memory will do wonders. Most vendors provide an extra SD card anyways with your purchase, so to me it makes more sense that they have the memory as part of the device. If required, they can keep an additional SD card slot also for extra brownie points.

Ownership : Google, Manufacturers.

2. Make sure that the default apps do not crash.

If there are some 3rd party apps that you download from the app store that crash, you expect it. But when the installed apps start crashing - that is just sloppiness. I have seen multiple crash on the default apps - most of them on the Android market application. This should not be happening.

Ownership : Google

3. Make it an easy way to reach the top of the screen.

Due to the screen size limitations of the phone, many of the applications display content in a list view ( e.g. Twitter, Facebook etc). Android does not have an easy way to scroll up , so if I want to see the topmost tweet in a list of 100, i have to swipe up multiple times.

I have a solution : implement a long-press on the top bar which will make the currently active app jump to the top of the view.

Ownership : Google

4. Battery longevity.

The battery life of an Android device is crap. The Samsung Galaxy ACE that I have was hardly lasting a day in my initial usage. If a call comes and lasts an hour ( my conf calls go on for longer than that) then I need to immidiately plug it in to charge even now.

Some ways are there of switching off Wifi/data etc - but then why would you want to buy a smartphone ?

Juice Defender is a great 3rd party software which helps out in the batter management. I strongly recommend that Google buy this company and integrate the battery savings into the core part of the OS.

Manufacturers also need to look at better battery options - either as default , or in worst case as available battery packs. My phone has a 1350mA capacity battery. Why cant it have a 2500mA battery pack ?

Ownership : Google, Manufacturers

5. Define different hardware profiles.

One of the most irritating thing about Android devices is that they promise a lot in terms of features, but when it comes to actually running them, they are really bad. For example, live wallpapers are sooo cool, but they suck up the mobile's performance. Since nowadays manufacturers are coming out with all sorts of Android based devices - from low end to high end phones, it makes sense to have different hardware profiles for different hardware levels. This will tie into the Android Market, so that you can only download and install applications which adhere to the settings on your phone.

Ownership : Google, Manufacturer

6. Clean up the Android Market

The market is in a mess. Its hard to find anything. Search will list down a lot of stupid apps which you do not want and going through the lists is a pain.

Google needs to curate the applications submitted and have a guideline for minimum quality. Like Apple did, they should also disallow multiple frivolous apps. Its not a number game to see which appstore has more downloads, but it should be a quality game to see which appstore has better apps.

Also, i think that allowing manufacutrers, telcos etc having their own app stores is killing the user experience. This was a pretty bad move on Google's part. There should just be one android market not multiple ones on the phone. And even if you do have multiple markets, then the logins should be the same.

Ownership : Google, Manufacturer

I dislike Android phones now

2011-12-01T17:01:00.000+05:30

I have started to dislike using the Android phones.Sure there are a lot of people who swear by it - but I am getting hit by issues which I did not have to contend with in the last couple of years that I was using the iPhone. Here are just a few of those.

Why is it that the phone manufacturers do not learn from apple and provide substantial internal storage ? Here I got a very stupid error which wants me to uninstall applications. WTF ! Why have an Android market if you cannot even install programs on the device ? The internal memory of the device is just around the 200MB mark - its a joke.

Also keep getting frequent crashes. I understand if there is a crash due to a 3rd party application - but this crash occurred in the android market application !

And now the straw that breaks the camel's back. See the message underlined in red. The damn device rejected an incoming SMS ! WTH !

The phone manufacturers are still taking the consumers for a ride. I am also guilty of being a gullible party - but this is also to do with my friends who let me down in guiding for a new phone. They did not point out these issues - and now when I come across this - they say its there.

Unfortunately I am stuck with this phone for sometime till the price of the 4S comes down in India or I get it from a friend. This is quite frustrating. Simple common sense has not been used by the Android team and the Android vendors.

Sometimes, in interviews people ask what can be changed for a product. If someone asks me about Android - well, they will get an ear full.

Show me the apps !

2011-11-27T12:43:00.000+05:30

Somedays, i just love the new interface in Ubuntu unity. This is one of them. The 'Windows'+ W key combination shows me all the running apps ont he desktop neatly arranged. Then just click on the app you want to go to. This is much better than using the Alt+Tab combination to cycle through applications if you have many of them open.

missing org.eclipse.wst.sse.core

2011-11-13T13:22:00.000+05:30

If you get this error with Eclipse on ubuntu, this is how you solve it. This is because of faulty default apt-get repository for Eclipse. You will most likely get this error when you are trying to install the ADT for Android development.

Help -> Install New Software ...

There add the following source

http://download.eclipse.org/releases/indigo/

My current Eclipse install is indigo - which you can find from the splashscreen. To make sure that the URL exists , just open the url you think you should be using in Firefox and it should not give a 404 error.

Now you should be good to go. Go to the 'Install Software..' and try installing the ADT plug-in again - it should work now.

/Rant
Linux is supposed to be a dev friendly environment, but the amount of time I spend getting things to work after every new upgrade to the system is insane. No wonders Linux is still not capturing the market ( apart from being a lousy platform for games).

Happy Diwali !

2011-10-26T09:20:00.000+05:30

Have A Great Time this Diwali !

This Diwali, may you be blessed with

Good Fortune as long as Ganeshji's trunk,

Wealth and Prosperity as big as his stomach,

Happiness as sweet as his Laddoos and

Your Troubles be as small as his mouse !

Review : Samsung Galaxy Ace

2011-10-19T23:42:00.001+05:30

Most of my friends know that I am a big fan of iPhone. So it may come as somewhat of a surprise that I ended up getting an Android phone. The Samsung Galaxy Ace to be exact.

Lock screen on my Android

One of the main factors for going in for this phone was the cost - at a bit over 13K INR it is almost a third cheaper than the iPhone4s which is still not available in stores in India. Another factor was that I wanted to try out Android programming.

The most often asked question that I get from people is how do I find the Android OS and the phone after having used the iPhone 3G over the last 3 years. Here is my review.

My main criteria in looking for a new phone was as follows :

- Android 2.3 as that is the current latest OS for phones available ( Samsung just launched with aOS4, but it is not yet available in India).

- Within 15k INR

- Have a camera with a flash

- Be able to create a wifi-hotspot

The ACE in my research came out to be good on all counts.

Now onto the actual review broken into categories. Comparisons are based on my experience with iOS4 on iPhone3G, iOS5 on my iPad, and Android OS 2.3.4 on the Galaxy ACE.

Notifications

Notifications on the Android rock ! The multitasking and background processing is phenomenal. Whether you are on gtalk, or twitter or facebook, any updates that you get are instantly displayed on the top notification bar. iOS5, with its new shiny notification system does not match up to Android in terms of notifications.

User Experience.

Android still needs to go a long way in terms of user experience to match up with iOS5. The experience on my old iPhone is still better than the new phone. The screen transitions, the font rendering , the display of graphics is just so much better on iOS than aOS. Lets take the simple case of double tapping in a webpage. On the iOS it expands that table or div element to span the screen perfectly. Easy to read now. However, on the aOS, it just expands to what it thinks is a readable size which gets the lines to go out of the screen ! Horrible !

Battery Life

The 3 year old iPhone has better battery life than the few weeks old Ace. It is probably due to the fact that I can have multiple background services running, while the iPhone3 cannot multi task at all. the iPad has the most amazing battery life so far - i can get through a week with it.

This is my biggest pain point as of now. My current work involves me being on calls for quite a bit during the day, and I cannot get through a full work day on one charge alone . To be fair my work day is long - 10am -10pm kinds.

Edit : Battery life is horrible!

Music quality

Both are good. The speaker on the ACE is louder than the iPhone.

Camera

The Galaxy ACE wins hands down. the 5MP camera does great pic and video recording and also has a flash. However, the iPhone4s has an amazing camera which will beat the Galaxy Ace to pulp.

Unprocessed pic of a view in Dehradun with Mussorie hills in the background.

Earphones

Typically people do not pay much thought to it, but the default earphones with the Galaxy Ace actually hurt the ears. I need to get a new one. The default earphones with the iPhone on the other hand are very comfortable.

Customization

The aOS allows for many customizations that you cannot even dream of in the iOS. For instance below is my home screen on the phone - the date and calendar widgets are down loaded from the app market. iPhone gives much better apps, but the screen layout by itself is limited.

A customized home screen

App Store

Here, the apple's appstore is much better. The categorization and browsability - either throught the phone or itunes is much much better than Android. If you want to just browse apps in android, you will get lost. Its better to figure out what you want and then search for it. Also the quality of apps is much better on the iOS than on the aOS. Lets take the case of the facebook app - it is much better on iOS.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to price. If price is a constrainging factor, the android based phones - like this Galaxy ACE is total value for money , paisa vassol. If however, you are not constrained by money, then the iPhone4S is an amazing device to get.

Anna Effect

2011-09-06T17:28:00.000+05:30

There was a lot of euphoria about Anna Hazare breaking his fast. It was no mean feat to go 13 days without food - most of us cant last a day.

However, now that things are simmering down, and the Govt. is after the group associated with Anna for various petty reasons ( in-spite of a much greater stashes of money being siphoned off), the question that comes to my mind is whether the Anna Effect will last - and if so - for how long ? Will it lead to a transformation of society ?

One sure thing about the last month or so is that the Nation has got to know about the larger issues of Corruption. I dont think everyone necessarily agrees with the dictacts of the LokPal Bill, but they do agree that our Country is riddled with corruption - and it is in each and every rung of the society.

Talking with a few cab-drivers on a recent visit to Bangalore , got some insights into their mind.

The one in Delhi had gone to RamLila maidan to be part of the movement. He was adamant that changes will come, and he and his group of friends will not be a part of the corruption. The cab waala in Bangalore was equally vehement and was feeling miffed that he had paid Rs500 as bribe to renew his driving license.

But, once the euphoria settles down, I fear that we will just go back to our old ways. People will rather part with Rs500 than stand in multiple queues trying to get things done the right way. Call me a pessimist, but the behavior of our countrymen does not inspire much optimism in me. I had seen the demonstrations during Mandal commision and the more recent OBC reservation policy, and have seen that people have short term memories and easily forget the pledges they have made when the reality of life strikes them.

What are your thoughts ?

Zen moment

2011-07-17T23:51:00.000+05:30

Today I had a Zen moment.

Usually, you have heard it a lot. "Still your mind" say people. "Meditate and it will help you. Do yoga" etc. Of course you would have tried it, but never succeeded. How to still the mind when as soon as you close your eyes, you get thousands of thoughts coursing through it ?

The key is obviously, to still the mind.

The key is not meditation, rather anything that can still your mind.

For me, it came in the form of exercise. I am quite overweight, and my current lifestyle is really bad for health. I sit at the same place from morning to well into the night - 5 days a week. Sometimes even on weekends. Work is quite stressful and does not give much time for leisure activity. So, today, after a lot of mentally pushing myself, I went down to the park and jogged, and ran and jogged, and walked. Pushing myself as much as I can go.

And at the point of exhaustion ... the mind went blank. I was just doing the things without thinking.. the mind was completely blank. As I started the walk to cool down, I started getting some thoughts - with a clarity that I was amazed. Then it struck me - to empty your mind, you do not need to necessarily meditate. You do not even need to empty the mind - just to still it. And for me, exercise works. Then I started looking back at all of my ideas, and I realized I used to get them just after some strenuous exercise. That was my 'Zen Moment'. It was like a cloud lifting in front of my eyes. And suddenly, the world looked more vibrant - the shrubs greener, the flowers more vibrant, the vision seemed to see far. I had a smile on my face - and I am sure many people would have been thinking what the hell was I thinking of ?

If this is not a Zen Moment, I do not know what it is.

Now, I need to push myself more. Double benifit of losing some weight and getting some great ideas :)

Resume : A new style

2011-07-01T15:19:00.001+05:30

I think people get confused when I try to tell them about my current work, and also about the time I worked in Good Technology. The confusion is mostly around the fact that I was in multiple companies but working on the same projects. So, I came up with a new way to visualize my work life - as a infographics.

What do you think ? Makes sense ?

Lunar Eclipse (pics)

2011-06-19T12:58:00.001+05:30

June 15th had a total lunar eclipse. Which means that the earth came between the sun and the moon, and overshadowed the moon. What was a full moon, disappeared and then came back to its full shine. This took place in the wee hours of the night, and i would probably have slept through it ( I was to drive back to Delhi the next morning), except that I was unable to sleep. So, got out of bed and went out with the camera to look at the show being put on by the heavens !

Pics are on facebook in the Album 2011 Lunar Eclipse

I am still trying to figure out how to embed the pics from facebook here. Any ideas ?

Living - Faliure or Success

2011-06-19T01:25:00.000+05:30

If you havent failed you havent lived.

This post by a friend on FaceBook started off a thought in my head. Is that really living ?

I think that failure or success has nothing to do with living.

As an example : Lets say you are in some hill station. You have a beautiful view before you - trees rolling down in the valley before you, the mountains further away with snow on them, a cool breeze flowing. You soak in the view and feel alive. Its not about failure or success at this time.

Like this, you can see many examples in your life where you felt alive - and nothing to do with the outcomes.

I think we have been brainwashed into thinking of failure and success. What is success anyways ? How do you define success ? Too often people miss the point and start equating success with wealth.

What are your views ?

OSama or OBama ?

2011-05-02T12:50:00.000+05:30

Errors as reported by the media. Know more ? leave a link and I will include the pic !

NDTV

Fox40 News

BN updated with 2011 calendar pics

2011-04-28T23:06:00.000+05:30

I have been having a real dearth of time. The last few months have been really hectic after tenCube got acquired by McAfee and I joined McAfee. There is just too much to do and time is running short.

So, after a long gap, the BN website has been now upaded with the 2011 calendar in soft copy. The pics have all been taken by members of the group and the design was done by Chaitanya, another BN member. We have amazing talent within the group.

Last year, I had been editing each pic and uploading. But this year since CV had done all the work, I only had to resize and put it up on the site. So, I wrote a small python script for resizing the huge original pics into web manageable ones. The
script reads all the images in the directory and resizes in 3 different sizes. Following is the python code - and its amazing how small a piece of code this is.

from PIL import Image
import os, glob

#adjust width and height to your needs
thumb = 200,150
small = 800,600
normal= 1600,1200

for infile in glob.glob("*.jpg"):
    file, ext = os.path.splitext(infile)
    im = Image.open(infile)
    im.thumbnail(normal,Image.ANTIALIAS)
    im.save(file + "_normal.jpg","JPEG")
    im.thumbnail(small,Image.ANTIALIAS)
    im.save(file + "_small.jpg","JPEG")
    im.thumbnail(thumb,Image.ANTIALIAS)
    im.save(file + "_thumb.jpg","JPEG")

Neat eh ?

RIFT - First Impressions

2011-04-23T11:01:00.000+05:30

Started playing RIFT yesterday - I got totally bored with WoW and anyways it was too demanding a game at end game. I just was not able to find the time required to raid.

So, after a lot of thought, I signed up for RIFT.

Initial thoughts on the game : Its a game which could have been great. Comparison's with WoW are of course going to happen.

A lot of people would have told you that its a polished game. I will differ. Its got more 'realistic' graphics than WoW. However, a lot of things that we think about when we think of WoW are missing.

Some things which I think should have been taken care by the devs are :

All races of a faction start at the same place. I find this a put off. If you have 3 races per side,they should start of in different starting areas.
All the races look the same, with hardly a difference in how they look unless you are a dwarf. Sure there are hundreds of customizations on how you look, but once you start playing in the 3rd person perspective, they all don't matter. Contrast this with WoW where the orcs look totally different than the taureans than the undead.
An element of fun is missing. All the quests, the feel etc is so serious. It gets boring.

The good and the bad of the game has to be the soul system. Essentially what it means is that you have 3 talent trees, and you can choose which 3 trees to use out of 8 available. This is pretty cool as it allows for a lot of customizations. However, since this is thrown at you pretty early pretty fast, you end up confused. As you get each new tree, you get 2 new spells with each. The spells in the different trees overlap many times, and this is lame.

I initially started out with a Warrior class - as I was looking at end game kind of content, but got bored.

Rerolled as a mage - who got the souls of a Warlock , a Necromancer and a Chloromancer. So far, this is feeling much better as to what I like playing.

More updates at the end of the month of playtime.

शायद ज़िंदगी बदल रही है!!

2011-03-30T11:20:00.002+05:30

I got this as a forward, and loved it. Sharing for your reading pleasure.

शायद ज़िंदगी बदल रही है!!

जब मैं छोटा था, शायद दुनिया
बहुत बड़ी हुआ करती थी..

मुझे याद है मेरे घर से "स्कूल" तक
का वो रास्ता, क्या क्या नहीं था वहां,

चाट के ठेले, जलेबी की दुकान,
बर्फ के गोले, सब कुछ,

अब वहां "मोबाइल शॉप",
"विडियो पार्लर" हैं,

फिर भी सब सूना है..
शायद अब दुनिया सिमट रही है...

.
.
.

जब मैं छोटा था,
शायद शामें बहुत लम्बी हुआ करती थीं...

मैं हाथ में पतंग की डोर पकड़े,
घंटों उड़ा करता था,

वो लम्बी "साइकिल रेस",
वो बचपन के खेल,

वो हर शाम थक के चूर हो जाना,
अब शाम नहीं होती, दिन ढलता है

और सीधे रात हो जाती है.
शायद वक्त सिमट रहा है..

.
.
.

जब मैं छोटा था,
शायद दोस्ती

बहुत गहरी हुआ करती थी,
दिन भर वो हुजूम बनाकर खेलना,

वो दोस्तों के घर का खाना,
वो लड़कियों की बातें,

वो साथ रोना...

अब भी मेरे कई दोस्त हैं,
पर दोस्ती जाने कहाँ है,

जब भी "traffic signal" पे मिलते हैं
"Hi" हो जाती है,

और अपने अपने रास्ते चल देते हैं,

होली, दीवाली, जन्मदिन,
नए साल पर बस SMS आ जाते हैं,

शायद अब रिश्ते बदल रहें हैं..

.
.
.

जब मैं छोटा था,
तब खेल भी अजीब हुआ करते थे,

छुपन छुपाई, लंगडी टांग,
पोषम पा, कट केक,
टिप्पी टीपी टाप.

अब internet, office,
से फुर्सत ही नहीं मिलती..

शायद ज़िन्दगी बदल रही है.

.
.
.

जिंदगी का सबसे बड़ा सच यही है..
जो अक्सर कबरिस्तान के बाहर
बोर्ड पर लिखा होता है...

"मंजिल तो यही थी,
बस जिंदगी गुज़र गयी मेरी
यहाँ आते आते"

.
.
.

ज़िंदगी का लम्हा बहुत छोटा सा है...
कल की कोई बुनियाद नहीं है

और आने वाला कल सिर्फ सपने में ही है..
अब बच गए इस पल में..

तमन्नाओं से भरी इस जिंदगी में
हम सिर्फ भाग रहे हैं..

कुछ रफ़्तार धीमी करो,
मेरे दोस्त,

और इस ज़िंदगी को जियो...
खूब जियो मेरे दोस्त,
और औरों को भी जीने दो

Overall, I just wanted to thank you

2011-03-28T10:30:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was not particularly a good day. Still recovering from a bout of seasonal flu, and was feeling quite low in the day. Late at night, was not feeling like sleeping and was browsing the net, chatting with friends. When suddenly an email popped up. A reply to a mail written 2 years back! Wow! This changed the total 'feel low' mood. I am a firm believer of Karma, and this coming up makes me an even bigger believer.

Sumit was an intern in Symantec, and on the time of completing his internship came up to me to ask for advice. He was in a different team - but still wanted some advice from me. It was probably cause I was more approachable than other managers. The conversation and the reply are below with kind permission from Sumit.

Firstup the mail I had sent out on 2008.

from    Vibhu Rishi
to    Sumit Agarwal
date    Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 3:38 PM
subject    Best of luck in future endeavors

hi Sumit,

My interaction with you was very brief. But here are a maelstrom of thoughts that I have i wanted to share with you but never seem to get the time to say them :) . They are in random order, so maybe difficult to read the mail at one go ;)

I see great potential in you. Go forth and conquer.

Great men are not born. They are made. From time immemorial, even with kings, its not always someone who is born in a great family that becomes great, but people who think different that they reach heights others did not even dream off.

As Steve Jobs (one of my icon figures) says : Stay Hungry Stay Foolish .

some criticism and helpful ( in my opinion which may be totally wrong ;) ) tips
- Dressing is important. make sure you dress for what you want to become and not what you are. I should probably not be giving this advice as I myself don't dress appropriate, but then I do not know what I want to become ;) .
- Keep your body language positive. Most people will have good looks, wear good clothes, but not know how to keep their body language positive. Walk with purpose. Look with intent. You already have some of it, just keep it in mind , and you will develop a 'presence'
- Your interaction here has been with some individuals who are ... umm.. hyper. This may give you an impression that maybe that is the way to go, yelling and getting the things done. On the short term it works well, but if you plan to have your own company, you get better loyalty out of people in other ways. I know people in pretty high positions ( govt service and private firms) who are the most humble people - but the people who follow them are loyal to the hilt. Its your choice which path you take.
- You stammer a bit. I notice that it hampers your communication abilities. This is normal. I had it in school ( 11th class ) . it happens when your thoughts outrace you, and your words cannot keep up with your thoughts. The way we mostly try to cope up with it is to try and talk fast. But sometimes, to go fast , you have to go slow. Slow down your vocal speed. Think through what you are going to say, and say it slowly, deliberately. You will get out of this habit of rushstammer.

You want to become someone great. Know that you cannot have everything in life. there will be setbacks in life - most of which are out of your control, some , because you messed up. Don't be hard on yourself. Give yourself room. One learns to run by falling repeatedly. You can't blame yourself for falling. Just get back upright and go ahead. Rough roads lead to smooth ones with time .

In fact I believe rough times are not that bad as everyone makes out them to be.

Develop a few role models. I find it helps me. If I am in a particular situation where I am not getting answers, or do now know how to proceed, I think what my role models will do. That gives you the answers.

Baki, enjoy life. There is much more in life than work and making money. Take care of your health - no amount of money can give you back your health after you have lost it. Live life to the fullest - the time does not ever come back. Make time for doing things that you want to do. My philosophy is to sit aside sometime, and think - what are the things i would think of and say 'oh shit ! i did not do this' , if it was the last day of my life. That gives me a list to work with.

chalo. enough of gyan. :)

Have Fun.
Ride Safe.

Vibhu..

The reply I got yesterday out of the blue. Thanks Sumit :)

from    sumit agarwal
to    Vibhu Rishi
date    Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 11:11 PM

Hi Vibhu,

This might feel weird as i am replying to 2.5 years old mail, but your mail became younger day by day through all this time. The thoughts are coming randomly as am typing, please bear with that.

After my internship at Symantec, I got a PPO as gautam had pushed my CV. But as I had already shared this with many of our team mates and may be with yo also that I didn't like tech much and wanted to pursue a career in finance or do a start-up.

So after college, I declined the offer from Symantec and started my company in Gurgaon. We ran it profitably and professionally till Jan-2011 and then arrived at decision to exit. The whole start-up experience (1.5 years) was great and may be can share it some other day :). This was the period when I got to see the world closely and learn from it.

After exiting from the biz, I applied to number of finance companies, but got call from just one company and that was JP Morgan. After multiple rounds of grilling, they hired me in Investment Banking division.

Tomorrow is my first day at JPM, Mumbai and I would like to thank you first. May be we didn't spend much time during my stay at Symantec, but I have been following you continuously since then. Reading about your bike trip from Pune-Hyderabad-Nagpur-Bhopal-Jaipur-Delhi-Dehradun..... was quite a experience and definitely some day I wanna pull something like that.

I wanted to attend the recent bike nomads meet in goa but couldn't because of biz commitments and exploring my options. Now I feel that I can think straight and can afford to do more things I always wanted to ( Riding long is one of them).

I plan to purchase a bike in next couple of months, hence will need your expert advice.

Overall, I just wanted to thank you.

See you soon.
SUMIT AGARWAL

Shaken by Japan

2011-03-14T21:10:00.000+05:30

I was horrified to see the distruction caused by the quake and the subsiquent tsunami. People say that the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian ocean was more distructive, but the images from the current one are the ones that make a dent in ones mind.

This is the second time that I am having this feeling of awe and horror together. The last time was when the planes crashed into the Twin Trade towers. One manmade calamity, and the other by Nature.

Its a wakeup call. No, I am not talking about the predictions about the end of the world. I am more thinking in terms of living our lives. I used to have a blast. But somehow, I too have been drawn into the rat race and living has just become a stream of days of just exisiting. Working, working, working.

Need to wake up. Look out. Look at life again and enjoy each day again. The world wont end in 2012, but you do not know when your life does. Its doubly important that each day you live you have memorable experiences.

Do it your way. But, Just do it.

2010 recap

2010-12-31T23:37:00.000+05:30

The year went fast ! But then a lot of things also happened... just a minor recap in no particular order

Movies seen

Avatar ( non 3D version)
Dabang
Ishquiya
Udaan
Shrek 4
Percy Jackson and the Ligtning Thief
The Social Network
Tron

Bike Rides/Bikenomads

Rode to Neemrana Fort. The only ride this year :(
Had to cancel the BN calendars due to delays in the printing. Now 2011 calendars are on the way to being printed.
Had to cancel the BN annual meet - again due to delays and low response. However 20XI meet is planned for Goa and seems to be getting good response.

Other Trips

2 trips to Dehradun, one in car. Love that place.
2 trips to bangalore
A trip to Singapore
A trip to Santa Clara, went via the North Pole ;)

Gaming

World of Warcraft : Cataclysm got released. I have a level 85 character now. My favorite game for many years now, and my wife's nemesis :)
Started a Guild in World of Warcraft called 'Vinash'
StarCraft 2 : completed the single player. Dont have any enthusiasm about the multiplayer part.
Batman : Arkham Asylum : Neat game.
Assasins Creed II : Classic game. Love jumping off the buildings.
Civilization V : The best civ game so far
Torchlight : an Indie game - the closest to Diablo you can get. Since Diablo seems to be delayed indefinitely, this is a good passtime.

Sports

Football World Cup Yeah !
Olympics
And how can one forget the Vuvuzelas
CWG gold rush in Delhi
I dont follow cricket, so please do not ask anything for that. ;)

Government/India

Mostly can only remember the corrruption.
CWG scam
Radia scam
2G spectrum scam
Wikileaks

Work/Tech

Joined McAfee. Working with the WaveSecure team - the whole reason for me to join McAfee. This is phone software not AV software, so do not ask me any AV questions
In One97 worked on an OutBound Dialer - which got shelved just as we got the 1st version running and stress tested on 1500 ports - tripple that of the previous best. Worked on PayTM a mobile payment initiative.
Tried out ChromeOS from hexxeh's builds, booting off the USB drive
Did a bit of prelimnary coding on Android.
Learning Django coding.
My Configuring Bugzilla post was a hit this year. Lots of people were able to install Bugzilla and left their thanks in the comments field :)
iPad got released this year. Waiting for iPad 2 before I buy it ! :D

Hmm, now I look back - damn. Thats a lot of stuff for a year ! Lets see what 2011 has in store.

Mark Zuckerberg : Time person of the Year

2010-12-16T23:33:00.000+05:30

Oh man ! The youngest billionaire in the world - just by getting people to connect to each other !

Reading his biography, you figure out that he was a genius from a young age. I guess that defined his success.

Congrats Dude !

The Magic of Flying

2010-12-11T11:19:00.000+05:30

Usually I just take the aisle seat while flying on night flights - what all can you see outside the window - right ? Flying has become so common-place that we just dont give much thought to it. Its another boring 2 hr flight is what we think.

But, I chanced upon this video a few weeks back.

So, this time I decided to keep my mind open. At checkin for the Delhi-Bangalore flight I asked for a window seat ... and experienced the magic of flying... again.

The Magic of Flying

As the flight took off, the lights on the runway start rushing by and with a final heave the plane takes up to the air. Isn't that amazing ? We are there - in a small tube - up in the sky ! Peering down, looking at delhi lighted up I wondered about the amazing amount of electricity needed to run the city. Houses, streets all lighted up. And yet, the most intense light was from the columns of cars lighting up the roads, making even the street lights look dull.

The plane took off in a direction where we were headed towards central Delhi, and had to take a U turn to correct the direction. The world from above looks so different , and as I was peering around for where we might be, I got my bearings by a beautiful sight - the Lotus Temple lighted up ! In the distance I could see the tall buildings around CP.

As the plane started approaching the Delhi suburbs/ Gurgaon, the topography of the houses changes to single or double story houses. Suddenly a flash caught my attention and looking in that direction I saw another unforgettable sight - fire crackers bursting. From ground level, we look up at the glitters these cause, but from the plane they are way below - just above the house levels. Different ways of seeing the same thing !

Pollution Line

Suddenly I got a feeling that there was some kind of shade above me. It felt wierd... a blackness and I was wondering ... untill ... all of a sudden I realized that it was actually an atmospheric effect. The blackness was actually the air at this level, free from the pollutants, while below it was the brownish glowing air with all the trapped pollution of Delhi. God ! It suddenly struck me how much of an unhealthy place we live in.

Just above the line demarcating the pollution line was the moon. A thin crecent moon, and since the air was so clean up here, I could make out the dark side of the moon - where the earths shadow was falling. So, I could see the entire sphere of the moon - the lighted part and the showded part. Mesmerizing.

I see shapes

As the flight progressed, and the pollution from Delhi became lesser, the entire country side started to become darker as the dispersion effect of the pollutants became lesser. The small towns and villages were dotted across the landscape. A beautiful sight. The villages in India are not really well planned, so they have these amorphous shapes - which take the shape that your imagination gives them - something like how you give shapes to clouds. The most interesting one I think was the JellyFish. The main town was the body of the creature, and since it was a big enough town, there was a bit of dispersion effect from the smog - giving the body a bloated kind of image. The tentacles were the roads leading to the town. Some Imagination eh ?!

MoonSet

Near the end of the flight, I saw the moon set. The moon by this time was at the horizon, and as it was slipping below it, all sorts of light refraction effects were happening. First the crecent changed from being circular to more angular with two vertical ends attached to a flattening horizontal line, till only the stright horizontal line was left, which itself winked out of view. Unforgettable. A MoonSet , seen for the first time.

I did not have any books with me this time. But the flight was anything but boring, and flying is such a wonderous magical experience which we seem to have forgotten.

Microsoft shooting itself in its foot ?

2010-11-19T15:29:00.000+05:30

For sometime I have the feeling that Microsoft is shooting itself in its own foot.

My observation is not from the angle of an industry pundit but from a gamer's viewpoint.

Today, we have a lot of operating systems - Windows, Linux, AppleOS. They are quite polished and basically on par with each other. However, Microsoft Windows has the unique distinction as being the only desktop OS for which games are developed actively - and I do not mean games like Farmville, but AAA games like World of Warcraft, Need for Speed etc.

However, off late, the games on PC seem to be going down as Microsoft focuses more and more on the XBoX. For me and a lot of other gamers, this will mean that the PC as a gaming rig is loosing its significance. If I need to have a gaming console to play games, I do not need to get Windows for my PC - I would rather get a Mac or install Linux - most probably Linux for my desktop ( which is already dual boot for many years) or a macbook if I buy a laptop.

I predict that if Microsoft continues to neglect desktop gaming in favor of pushing its Xbox systems, they will be surprised to find that their desktop OS share dropping...

And if you think that I am wrong here, just compare with the OS growth for mobiles. iPhone has become such a big phenomena because its also a gaming platform. No other OS has realized this apart from Android which is trying to get more games up on its app store - as the recent Angry Birds release shows.

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

2010-10-09T20:59:00.001+05:30

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

The book's name grabbed my attention as I was browsing the books at Om Book Shop. Intrigued I picked it up and started to read the first 2 pages... and I was hooked. This was a man working on a mission ... trying to get literacy to the schools of Nepal and then the rest of the world.

Have just read a few chapters, and it is hard to put down. I highly recommend a read and also check out the foundation : Room to Read.

Edit : 12/10 Finally finished the book yesterday. This is a great book. John Wood, ex Microsoft started an organization with the aim to provide books to children in various places. Its a touching book - descriptions of how the people reacted on getting the things.

Takeaway from the book.

If you find your calling in life - its the best you can give in your life. Finding it means that you achieve more than what you can ever hope to do. John was a great exec, but once he found out his inner calling - he became a positive force of change for the unprivileged children.
When you do something will all your heart - people around you get influenced, and help you do better.
Its better to concentrate on the good stuff rather than to criticize. e.g. in the book he mentions that some NGOs use pics of crying kids to get grants on the basis of pity. He on the other hand used pics of happy children going to their new school or reading a book.
You dont have to be a billionaire to change the world.

Loved the book. I recommend it to everyone.

Ebb and Flow of the Yamuna

2010-10-06T14:31:00.004+05:30

Took this pic a few days back from the Delhi metro as it enters the Yamuna Bank station:

The river was full and filled with water from bank to bank.

Today, the river looks like below:

there is a large island formed in the middle due to all the silt deposited by the flooding river. The area around the river would have been very fertile if the river had been allowed to overflow the banks - but now its all concrete and houses.

The Roger Federer Video

2010-08-19T08:45:00.001+05:30

Just wow ! Thats what happens if you are able to reach the pinnacle of your profession

Jailbreaking the iPhone

2010-08-14T18:57:00.005+05:30

Ok. So I finally succumbed to jailbreaking my iPhone. The main reason is being that I am now in Singapore, and the 'unlocked' iPhone I bought in India does not accept a SIM from singapore. What a stupid thing !

After a few days of carrying two phones, one which was actually 'unlocked' I decided to jailbreak the iPhone. As per a recent US Ruling, iPhone jailbreaking is legal.

Scouting around the web, the easiest way to jailbreak is to just browse to Jailbreakme.com. It shows a nice page with a "slide to unlock" . Ho ! this is going to be easy I thought. But just before doing the jailbreak, I thought about doing a backup... and thats when things went horribly wrong. So, this blog post is also an attempt for people who may face the same issues.

The adventure started with the update. I did not realize that a new iOS4 version ( 4.0.2) had come up, and without thinking I cliked 'update'.

Now, the 4.0.2 version from apple is a sneaky piece of software - it only blocks the jailbreak hack. So, ofcourse Jailbreakme.com did not work. Looked around on the web, and the only way forward was to downgrade the iphone.

Here is how you do a downgrade.

Download the relevant build. Go to this page to download the relevant firmware. Choose 4.0.1 (thats the latest as of now which can be jailbroken).
Start iTunes.
Connect your iPhone and select it.
You will see a button which says 'Restore'.
While pressing SHIFT click on Restore. This will prompt you which firmware version to restore to. Select the firmware you downloaded in 1 above.
The restore process takes some time. Go make some tea or something.
Once restored to 4.0.1 , navigate to Jailbreakme.com in the browser on the device. Slide to start the jailbreak process.
Jailbreak is just part of the process. What it does is opens up the iPhone to be able to install other 3rd party apps which is not part of the Apple Store - cause apple does not allow applications which messes with the system internals. The next step is to open up the SIM.
In point 8, one new app gets installed. Its called 'Cydia' which is an app store not controlled by Apple. Search for ultrasn0w in that. This is the SIM unlocking software. Install it.
Now you are good to go. Change the SIM to a local one.

Have fun now.

Issues etc.
One has issues with supported software, and here we are talking about unsupported software. So there are bound to be issues. Here are a few things that I faced.

For some firmware versions ( e.g. 3.1.3 ) you need to put the phone in the DFU (Device Firmgrade Upgrade) mode. If you are not able to get out of this mode after putting in the firmware, you will need RecBoot installed to get out of that mode.
Sometimes you get an error ( error code 10) during the downgrade portion. This will kind of leave your device in the hanging state ( happened to me). If this happens, disconnect the cable from the computer to the iPhone and use it on another USB port. Also make sure that the cable is the original iPhone one. I am using a different cable which was cheaper, but that causes problems.

Resources:
I did not dream up this process. The following sites were incredibly useful. Check them out:

U.S. declares iPhone Jailbreaking Legal, over Apple's Objections : recent ruling in the USA makes it legal for users to jailbreak the iPhone.
Rolling back your iPhone 3G to OS 3.1.3 : If you are not happy with the iOS4 as it really slows down the device, you may want to follow this guide to downgrade to 3.1.3. Just make sure that you download and install RecBoot before you begin the process as you are definitely going to need it.
How to Downgrade Your iPhone 3G[S] from iOS4 to iOS 3.1.3 : Similar to the one above, but has a good video of how to get into the DFU mode.
RecBoot : Download RecBoot from here.
iPhone firmware files : List of all firmware restore files.
How to Unlock the iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G using UltraSn0w.
iOS jailbreaking : Wikipedia article on jailbreaking.

Hello World - in Android

2010-07-07T00:54:00.004+05:30

Its been quite some time since I coded something in Android after setting it up. In the meantime, my system got formatted, and change in office project meant I was not getting much time to work on programming. After all, Managers don't code - eh ?

Well, I dont know. I like coding. Its an itch I have to take care of. So, after the initial Android examples, I tried a little change in the Android's Hello World. I was awake anyways watching the Uruguay vs Netherland's World Cup match! :)

The code changed a bit from the default 'Hello World'. Instead of static text, I added a edit box and an 'ok' button. Clicking on it will make an alert box pop up with a small message.

Its a small piece of code - about 40 lines. However, the API is a bit confusing for me, especially since I am also relearning Java as I go along.

Next on the agenda - make a small graphics app.

Microsoft's Kin is no more

2010-07-01T13:41:00.005+05:30

It looks like Microsoft has pulled the plug on developing their own phone - which they had named Kin. There are a lot of theories around why it did not do well, and why they shut down the Kin.

I think that the KIN was killed due to 2 major reasons :
1. It was not doing well.
2. Politics.

1. It was not doing well

Here, I think that the problems were 2 fold.

First the shitty name which no one can identify with. It just does not sound cool. The chap doing the branding , he is not worth the money that was being paid to him.

Two, it was being targetted at the teenagers - but in a way that is patronizing. It was supposed to have all the wow features - facebook , twitter integration etc. However, I doubt they even tried to look at the psychology of teenagers. Teenagers hate it when people tell them what to do - and that was exactly what Kin was doing. Teenagers love to be treated as adults - which Kin was not doing. Teenagers go for brands and cool names - the Kind did not have that.

However, I dont think that this was why the Kin line was pulled up. Microsoft has very deep pockets and can afford to have a loss making product in the market for quite a long while - as one can see from the xbox.

So, my hypothesis about pt 2.

2. Politics

I think internal egos and politics killed the Kin. The people in the Windows mobile had much more of a say than the people developing the Kin. There would have been a power struggle behind the scenes - and Kin eventually lost out. Interestingly, people seem to shun talking about office politics - its taboo to speak about it - but not speaking about it does not mean that it is not existing.

Now, I got a bad feeling about the 'Kin'nect - the motion detection stuff that Microsoft is building. They should change that name to something else ...

How Google can clean up the Android Market

2010-06-29T20:50:00.002+05:30

Google has an application market just like Apples AppStore called the Android Market.

Apple naysayers have been touting the benefits of the Android market saying that it is open and anyone can submit apps to it, quite unlike the draconian process for the Apple AppStore. This has lead to its own problem with a deluge of apps on the store which are malicious or substandard.

Om has written an article on ways to clean up the Android Market.

I have a different take on it.

Google can ill afford to go the Apple way and start certifying all the apps. Neither can they go putting the kill switch on the apps. What my suggestion is that Google go the way Twitter has and start to certify legitimate apps.

The process will be simple.

The company which wants it apps to be certified will submit its application to Google. Google after its due diligence can certify it, or point out what is wrong with it.

For making this work, Google will have to :

Setup a system for recieving applications.
Setup QA for certifying the apps.
Make a few changes to the market application (both web and mobile) to show that an application is certified.

This will go a long way towards making sure that people can get around all the fluff that is there and be sure that genuine applications exist.

At the same time, it also allows developers to put their app onto the market even if they have not been certified - giving a better time to market.

Related Posts :

Jon Lech's : Google's Mismanagement of the Android Market
Om's : 4 Ways Google Can Clean Up The Android Market

9 Lives

2010-06-16T15:50:00.003+05:30

9 Lives is the latest book by William Dalrymple. I have grown fond of his readings after reading City of Djinns, The Last Moghul and In Xanadu.

When I got the book ( borrowed from my cousin in exchange for the Last Moghul), I was wondering what the book would be about. It was about 9 lives - or people that was clear. But what was not clear was how it would be played out.

Well, its simple really. These are 9 different lives. Its like the biographies of 9 different people. Each life is contained in its own - a separate story.

Each story is about a religious sect - which you may heard of, but in the urban worlds we live in, these are shunned. Its a peek into the lives of the sadhus and other holy men and women of India. It delves into their psyche as to what makes them do the things they do. Be it a Jain nun, or a Tibetan Monk or a Tribal Singer or a Tribal dancer. Following these unlikely people and learning about their lives , WD has presented a look into a world we know exists, but never bothered to find out about.

This book is definitely a must read. I am sure you will be touched by these lives, and would want to find more about India.

iPhone vs Android

2010-06-14T22:38:00.002+05:30

For those who did not really like my write up :)

( Courtesy : Greywulf's blog )

In Xanadu

2010-06-14T18:19:00.003+05:30

In Xanadu is William Dalrymples first book, and his 3rd book that I have read after City of Djinns and The Last Moghul.

Unlike the other 2 books, which deal more with the people and their lives, In Xanadu is more a personal journey story by the young William. In this book, he undertakes the journey following in the steps of Marco Polo all the way to Xanadu - the summer palace of the Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan. At the time of Marco Polo this route was a major route on the silk routes, but not much known to the western world.

At the time WD undertakes the journey, the world has transformed a lot. In giving descriptions of the places where they are travelling through and comparing with notes from Marco Polo one feels the differences that have undergone. Some routes are just too dangerous or just not doable due to political reasons which were part of the main thoroughfares. A kind of comparative history of the route takes place all throughout the journey.

Another feature that I felt was quite apparent was the differences in descriptions. While the world of Delhi was populated with colorful characters and you can imagine the various scenes in Delhi, the populance of the journey almost seems drab. It could also be because I am reading about places that I do not know much about. Ultimately, it felt to me, that India with all its shortcomings, is just a place which warms the heart more.

If you want my opinion of the book - I can say that you can give it a pass. Nothing really sticks to my mind about the book. Probably it is as I say before - I am unable to visualize the places that the journey took place through.

--

Next book is "9 lives" and the update will be up in a few days.

Android vs iPhone

2010-06-05T11:38:00.005+05:30

Yesterday I got a chance to chill out with an Android phone - the HTC Desire. Its being used by one of my team mates (recently I have started working on a project with tenCube which makes the security software WaveSecure).

As a long time user of the iPhone (one and a half years now!), and having a good knowledge of current trends in the market I can say that I would passably know what I am talking about :)

At the end of the playtime ( which was like a few hrs since we were celebrating 5 years of tenCube in a lounge ) , I am left with mixed feelings. Let me elaborate.

What the Android has that the iPhone does not.

The biggest +like factor is the ability to multitask. That was like wow ! coming from the limitations of the iPhone. My colleages gtalk was working silently in the background, and he got an IM from another colleague from Singapore - which shows up as a scrolling text in the top status bar. I was like WTF ! cool !

Since its a google android, it works seamlessly with gmail. In fact - when you first start an android based phone, it will ask you for your gmail id - and if you are not using gmail as your primary email - you are not gonna enjoy the integration. But I suppose, if you are reading this post, you do have a gmail id.

Apart from this...

... nothing much.

Some comparison Notes

These are the things that I noticed while playing around with it.

iPhone has a kind of 'multiple desktop' concept where you can just scroll around by swiping left and right. In Android you require 2 steps : 1. click the button to bring out the list of apps and then scroll through them.

Android has the gadgets concept which is like the Windows or Google gadgets that you have on your PC. I think these are highly overrated as per screen you cannot really fit in more than 1 or max 2 gadgets.

Game quality on the iPhone is much superior to the Android. I have Assasin's Creed and Hero of Sparta on my phone, and going through the Android market I was not really able to find out any similar kind of game.

The Android market is tiny - and also not very well categorized. For instance, on the main screen you just have 'games' and 'apps' category. in games you just have some 4 different categories. In spite of what people may say about the android market place increasing - it still feels very limited and stifled.

Another annoyance is that the size of download is tucked away in the text and not shown at the top. Further it is greyed out - its like they want to trick you into downloading without knowing the size.

Form factor both were near enought. I guess thats cause of HTC engineering rather than Google.

Some pages have login screens with the login and password boxes. On the iPhone when you touch any of these, the page zooms so that you can easily see what you are typing in. On Android there is no such functionality. On top of it, double tapping does not work as expected. On the iPhone double tapping expands the table element , so for instance, if you double tap on a text column, it will 'fit-width' and you can continue with it. On android, it just zooms without looking at the element you are tapping. So most of the time, you end up pinching to zoom correctly.

The HTC also does not do landscape view - which is a mystery to me. Some text is still a bit small when you look at it in portrait mode. So, i am used to tilting to horizontal mode and can easily read it. On the HTC, I was not able to find such stuff.

The Facebook app for iPhone is much much better than that on Android. I think that the app is still new to Android and expect it to improve, but the one on iPhone is just better.

oh, and gmail integration is also doable on the iPhone by hooking up your gmail account as an exchange account. So that advantage goes away.

Conclusion.

On the whole - the User eXperience is much better on the iPhone, even now. Android has one upped on the functionality scale, but I have a big suspecion that the iPhone release ( on 7th June 2010) is going to blow away that advantage.

At this point I will not recommend any phone to you. Wait for the 7th , and i will be doing a review of the iPhone OS.

But one thing I do know - my iPhone 3G will not be doing multi tasking as apple is deliberately crippling that option.

Multiple GTalk accounts

2010-05-11T16:01:00.002+05:30

If you are like me, you will probably be having multiple Gmail accounts. I have a primary gmail account, and a couple of google apps accounts. The issue always cropped up that I could not use gtalk for all the accounts. Fortunately a bit of digging around, and it is quite a simple solution !

Just create a shortcut on the desktop for gtalk. If you have an issue creating the shortcut, navigate via the start menu to gtalk , right click -> copy -> right click on desktop -> paste.

Now right click the shortcut, and chose 'Porperties'.

In Target, add a /nomutex option at the end. E.g. : following is how it looks like in my shortcut.

"C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /nomutex

Now, just click on the gtalk shortcut to start a new instance of the talk messenger. Add your gmail and domain accounts.

Have fun !

The iPod Revolution

2010-05-11T13:57:00.000+05:30

[Source: Online MBA for MashableMashable.com]

Thoughts on The Last Moghul

2010-05-02T10:39:00.003+05:30

Just recently completed reading 'The Last Moghul' by 'William Dalrymple'.

Its a moving account of the Mutiny of 1857 and the twilight days of the Moghul empire - with Bahadur Shah Zafar as the last of the line. This blog post is not a book review - read the book - its worth it. Its more of the thoughts that crossed my mind when reading the book.

Delhi used to be hot, but the heat usually started around May. Nowdays , April is itself considered summers.
The British came as merchants, but were able to rule and conquer India, as the various tribes of India kept fighting among each other. The rebellion of 1857 was with sepoys from UP and surrounding areas. The British used Punjabis and Gurkhas against them.
Equally horrendous atrocities were committed by Indians and British. The main difference was that while Indians went about it just like that, the British went about it efficiently.
While the Indians did not know whom to attack ( was he a conspirator of the british or not) , the British treated all brown skins the same.
The British were able to spy in the city of Delhi , while the Delhi governance were cluless about what the British were upto.
While the sepoys were Indians, the officers were British. So when it came to strategic thinking, the British had the upper hand and were able to win the battle, even though their forces were outnumbered 10 to 1. Again and again, it is shown that Quality matters over Quantity, but still people continue to value quantity more.
I keep wondering what the Red Fort would have looked like before the mutiny. After the mutiny, many parts of it were torn down by the British and the remaining were made as company barracks and officer mess & quarters.
Many of the traditions of 150 years ago still remain in the indian culture.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was an incompetent ruler. However, he found himself as the unwilling leader of the rebels ( or Pandeys the colloquial term given to the rebel sepoys after Mangal Pandey). He was not able to make up his mind whether to side with the sepoys or call of the mutiny. Being an old man 70+ years in age, it can be conceded to him that he was not able to take decisions - but ultimately it lead to his demise and the demise of the line of Moghuls.
Was also wondering if Zafar could not take clear decisions, what would happen to India now with the top politicians also in that age bracket and not able to take clear decisions.
Zafar was ultimately brought down by his wife, who wanted her son to take on the throne. Behind every unsuccessful man there is a woman also.
The accounts of Chandni Chowk etc are too good to be true. The Chandni Chowk now is a dump.
I also was struck by the fact that Indian leaders are so weak as they have no idea of actually leading and governing. For ages before India got independence, all the decision making was in the hands of British, which they never gave to the Indians. As such after the partition, India was lead by people (and still is) who have no idea how to govern. And so the sad state of the country.
The British found it easy to rule Indians by playing off one side against another. The same is still being done by Indian Politicians ( MNS, etc. ).
There was a lot of greenery around Delhi.
Nizammudin was a different village - away from Delhi.

Such books should be part of the school curriculum. They make you think.

non-US iTunes

2010-04-12T00:16:00.002+05:30

I always had this problem .. whenever i used to tap the iTunes icon on the iPhone, it would say that it is not available in my country.

Stupid. I can't imaging why a company like apple would be so short sighted about iTunes, while the appstore works ( except that the india app store does not have Civilization Revolutions). Also, after getting my new Acer netbook and installing Ubuntu on it, it becomes difficult to access the iTunesU - a great resource for any kind of knowledge seeker.

I am yet to see the apple keynote from 8th April - for the OS4.0 details. I downloaded on my PC in iTunes but forgot to sync to the iPhone. Now, I am trying to get it to download on the ubuntu netbook, but firefox crashes for any itunes link!

Finally, in frustration, i browsed to the itunes web store in safari on the iPhone ... and ... it opened the itunes app ! I was delighted. Now I can browse all the stuff - from the ringtones ($1.29 per tone - boo!) to the movies and songs downloads to the podcasts. Damn - this thing is a gold mine ... and if you have the moolah to fork over for the movies and songs - you can damn near get anything !

I dont really like the iTunes software on the PC - because I was primarily using it for my music collection. But now, browsing through the podcasts and videos - it was an enlightning moment. This , together with the appStore and now the iBook marketplace , defines why apple is getting so far ahead - and why it will remain so far ahead.

Sometimes I think that locking up to the walled garden of apple wont be too bad after all.

Network not working after upgrading Ubuntu

2010-03-30T17:03:00.003+05:30

So, I upgraded to 10.04 beta, and the network stopped working. Ping to local machines based on IP was working, but pining google resulted in host not found. Firefox was also not working...

After much R&D finally figured out that the problem was with the DNS resolver - which got overwritten during the upgrade somehow. The quick hack is to just edit the file and enter the DNS name servers. Here's the output :

vibhu@zion:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8)
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN
nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx
nameserver xx.xx.xx.xx

Put the IP addresses of your name servers instead of the xx's

The puzzle which still exists is why the DNS is not put in automatically. Still looking at that

Happy Diwali !

2009-10-17T22:36:00.000+05:30

From Diwali 2009

Daddyhood II : The powerup sequence

2009-09-29T14:56:00.002+05:30

I am sure everyone has wondered at one time or the other about the 'machine' called 'man' (or woman if you feel offended by the classical way of referring to humans).

I have.

I wonder about the complexity of the machine. The different parts that go up in making it. The co-ordination required. The development of each part which become a whole.

And now, with Vansh, I am seeing the development of a human being.

It reminds me of a powerup sequence of a very complex system. More complex than anything man made - like for instance - a nuclear plant.

You may have read about how each part of the plant under goes many tests in powering up.

It seems to be same case for humans also.

Sequence 1 : It started with the breathing aparatus - the lungs, windpipe and the vocal chords. As a new born baby, whenever it is awake - it cries a lot. I suppose its to get the lungs working. A few minutes of crying and then the fatigue sets in - and he sleeps. It does not matter that he is fed, and is warm. He has to have his hourly dose of crying - without which it does not fall asleep.

Along with this sequence is the digestive system coming online. At start only a liquid diet of mother's milk - which over the coming months will move to semi-solid and then eventually solid.

Sequence 2 : The eyes. At first unseeing - with each eye's control not fully functional. So, at times the kid will seem to be looking at his nose. Scary the first time you see it. Slowly the eyes start to look in the same general direction.

Sequence 3 : After the lungs sequence is ok'd by the body, the system shifts to other things - like moving the arms and legs. It learns to control the vocal chords so that he does not howl all the time - unless in discomfort - like when it wants to be fed.

Sequence 4 : The facial muscles come online now. The start with sequence 1 was frown and a screwed up face. Now the muscles start to strengthen the 'smile' and he starts to smile a bit, then a lot more. I am not sure if he understands what a smile is at this time - cause anything can trigger it. A touch on the cheek, a sound of a voice - or just simply smiling while lying on the back and kicking his legs.

Sequence 5 : The eye muscles having found that they are in sync, now start to follow people.

Wow ! They say life is a miracle - and its hard not to believe !

India's Achievements ?

2009-08-14T09:49:00.002+05:30

Tomorrow is Independence day.

Once more people will get drunk it being a holiday - oh wait ... its on a Saturday. Damn! One holiday gone ! WTF !

I though am thinking on other lines.

Its been 60+ years now since India gained Independence. And I wonder.

I wonder how. I wonder why.

There are almost no world class achievements.

I can only think of one achievement which puts India on par with other world powers. The Delhi Metro. I see that and think - wow ! This is something which the people have done which we can proudly say we are shoulder to shoulder with other countries.

I am sure there are other achievements, but I can't think of any.

Achiements like a gold medal in the Olympics don't count - for a country so vast and with so much potential, a single gold medal is like a consolation prize. I am thinking more on the lines where can say 'hum kise se kum nahi' .

What are your thoughts ? What achievements can you think of ?

TFD : Patanjali

2009-08-11T11:11:00.003+05:30

When you are inspired by some great purpose
Some ExtraOrdinary project
All your thought's break their bonds
Your mind transcends limitations
Your conciousness expands in every direction
And you find yourself in a new and wonderful world
Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive
And you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

Cost of a Mac

2009-08-02T09:45:00.008+05:30

So, someone was telling me the other day that if one wants to get a laptop of the same spec as a Mac, it would cost more.

Is that true ? I decided to check it out.

I decided to check it against the Alienware laptops from Dell. ( Alienware used to be a different company, but Dell aquired it a few years back. I guess they thought they would benifit from the reach of Dell).

Here I am not going to go on about the OS part of it. Just the hardware part. OS is a personal choice. If you like to let the OS do everything - its a Mac for you. If you want to configure everything - go and get Linux. If you want something in between - try Windows. Whatever.

This is a comparison purely for gaming rigs. I am looking at the cost vs specs of a high end gaming rig.

	Macbook Pro	Alienware (custom rig)
Cost :	$2499	$2074
Screen :	17"	17"
Memory :	4 GB	4GB
Hard Disk :	500 GB 5400rpm	500GB 7200rpm
Processor :	2.8 GH Intel Core 2 Duo	2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600
Keyboard :	Backlit	Backlit
OS :	Mac OS X	Windows Vista Home Premium 64
Colour :	White	Black
Graphics :	9600M GT (512MB)	GTX250M (1GB)
Weight :	2.99kg	not specified
Battery Life :	7 hrs	not specified
Screen Size :	1920x1200	1440x900

Matching the specs of the apple , the Alienware rig comes out to be less costly !

What Wizard Colour Are You ?

2009-07-30T14:08:00.002+05:30

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

warning : Don't take such things seriously ;)

Daddyhood

2009-07-29T13:43:00.003+05:30

So, finally my relatives heaved a sigh of relief. I became a daddy.

Its strange, relatives have an insatiable hunger for fiddling with other people's lives. First they hound you to death for getting married, then they keep asking .. "when will you become 3", and now that I finally have a kid, they want to know when is the 2nd one coming ! WTF ! People ! If you have messed with your life, don't go and mess with mine !

Anyways, rant over, back to the topic.

So, finally I became a dad. Kid is doing fine. a pic on facebook. People/Relatives decreeing that I should not be posting up more pics as they will catch the evil eye. gah !

Mixed emotions really. At first its unbelievable - not like 'it cant be happening' but more like 'has it really happened?' No matter how much people tell you about the 'miracle of life' you don't realize what they mean till it happens to you. So much for learning from history. I guess thats why we keep making the same mistakes ... we dont learn from others mistakes.. but I am digressing.

I was called in first to see the kid in the Infant ICU. He was sleeping peacefully on one side, legs crossed. took a pic to show to my in-laws as they were not allowed inside. Took another pic the next day which I uploaded on FB. Thanks for the wonderful comments folks ! :)

Wifey and baby got discharged after a couple of days at the office. She felt great coming back home. Hospitals kind of freak her out.

The next night was the 'i will keep you awake' night. The kid started crying at 3 am till about 7am. I had slept at 1am. Only 2 hrs sleep. Took to doctor as soon as we could. He checked and said everything is ok - just some gas.

Also he said that kids are usually active at night, and the patterns change after 2-3 months.

/sigh

so, as of now, more sleepless nights. Getting to know the kid. Sometimes he frowns in his sleep. Sometimes he smiles , then wakes up, realizes he is not where he was dreaming, and starts to cry. sometimes he just wakes up, makes a slight sound - making us think he is getting up, and then calmly sleeps for another hour. sometimes we think he is sleeping when he gets up. Somehow he knows when we are getting ready to sleep, and he gets ready to wake up !

a new experience. its a 'wow' experience.

Different Perspectives

2009-07-12T18:55:00.003+05:30

Today, while working on my laptop I realized that it is becoming more and more irritating to work with Windows. Its the simple things that get your goat. E.g. extra confirmations for everything (Windows Vista). Un-accessible software (e.g. visio drawings) which you cannot view till you have expensive software installed.

As a good regular twitter user I twitted this:

"At one time Windows was the easiest to use. Now it is a lesson in frustration."

The responses were quite interesting :
From a friend from darjeeling, who is a non-techie user of the PC :

"its still the easiest for me, coz i never had a chance to try the rest hehe! but lots of problems i agree"

From a friend who is quite into tech:

"for me its always frustration, most things r non-intuitive & when things dont work, its difficult to figure out why, no logs :|"

I think this quite goes to show that most of the users are not worried about the technical aspects of the software we use on a day to day basis. They are quite ok working with familiar software and yeah, some issues are there, but they take it in their stride.

The tech junta on the other hand, who work quite a lot with the softwares are tuned to the nuances of the stuff, and quite know what works and what doesn't. They are the ones who give the reviews about stuff which works and which doesn't. But does that really matter ? Cause most of the persons using the software are ok with what they have. Does it really matter to have intellectual discussions dissecting the software when the regular user is ok with it ? I still know people who are running windows 98 and are quite happy with it.

Just going to the ATM

2009-06-25T18:38:00.002+05:30

Thats what I told my parents.

Thats what I did.

But took a slightly longer route.

And man, it felt so good !

at around 10pm, I had to go out to the ATM to get some money. You know us geeks, always empty pocket. I was to initially go with my sis and bro-in-law, but they got delayed. I did not want to take out the car. So, in the ultra warm air of the evening, I decided to use the natural evaporation of sweat to keep me cool, and started Tweety.

Rode to the ATM, in the nearby sector. Took out cash. Went to the paan stall and had a meetha paan. Enjoyed the sweet taste, and then took off in the direction opposite to home. Unfortunately, with parents at home, I could not afford to go on a long ride, so after some time of aimless riding, took a U turn, a pic and headed for home.

Aaah ! this feels nice, even though the weather was doing the utmost to slow roast it even without the Sun out.

Impersonation round 2

2009-06-04T22:35:00.003+05:30

A year back I had written about some loser impersonating as me.

Well, he and his crones are back again. Here's mails that some of my friends have recieved.

From: Vibhu Rishi <rishi.vibhu@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:06 PM
Subject: BN is shutting down.

Yes guys, you read it right, we are shutting down. Will keep you all posted on future updates.

The email id is the dead giveaway. Its the wrong way round.

So, if you get a mail from this A*****E, ignore it. If you do reply , make sure that you change the reply to address to rishi.vibhu , as this loser has set the reply to address to my original id.

Howto install Bugzilla on Ubuntu 11.04

2009-05-13T17:04:00.007+05:30

Update : 1st may 2011 : Updated the installation for Ubuntu 11.04 and Bugzilla 4.0

I was trying out bugzilla installation on Ubuntu. Although there is a bugzilla3 package I never was able to properly configure it. Today, decided to look at this issue again and googled for any HOWTOs. I got this sweet piece of setup at : Handyowner . There are some formatting issues which made me struggle a bit - so here is the reformated installation guide.

Assumptions:
Ubuntu is already installed and configured on your target machine.
The machine is connected to the Internet you can browse the World Wide Web.
Here are the main steps:

Install Per l(5.8.1 or above)
Install MySQL
Install Apache2
Install Bugzilla 3.2
Install Perl modules
Bugzilla using apache

1. Perl
Verify if Perl is installed:

$ perl -v

If not installed :

$ sudo apt-get install perl

2. MySQL
Verify if MySQL is installed:

$ mysql --version

If not installed :

$ sudo apt-get install mysql-client mysql-server mysql-admin

Create “bugzilla” user with a strong password:

$ sudo useradd -d /home/bugzilla -m bugzilla
$ sudo passwd bugzilla

Tip! Here is what makes a password strong: make it lengthy, combine letters, numbers and symbols, use words and phrases that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess.

Create a database ‘bugzilla’ and grant privileges to ‘bugzilla’ database to ‘bugzilla’ user:

Tip! I usually set the bugzilla user password through the mysql admin interface ( Application -> Programming -> MySql Adminstrator).

$ mysql -u root -p
mysql> create database bugzilla;
mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| bugzilla |
+--------------------+

2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> grant all privileges on bugzilla.* to bugzilla@localhost;

3. Apache2
Verify if Apache is installed:

$ apache2 -v

You can also view in a web browser the default welcome page at http://localhost
If not installed :

$ sudo apt-get install apache2

4. Bugzilla 3.2.2
Download Bugzilla from the site “ http://www.bugzilla.org/”.

Tip! Download a stable release, unless (1) you would like to go bleeding edge, (2) you do not care about spending time with your girlfriend, your wife, your kids or your buddies, (3) your boss said so and you couldn’t say no.

Untar the downloaded file to your download folder

$sudo tar -xvf bugzilla-3.2.2.tar

Move bugzilla dirrectory to /usr/local/

$ sudo mv /download/bugzilla-3.2.2 /usr/local/

Make a symbolic link from /usr/local/bugzilla3.x to /var/www/bugzilla

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/bugzilla3.x /var/www/bugzilla

5. Perl Modules
Bugzilla’s installation process is based on a script called checksetup.pl. The first thing it checks is whether you have appropriate versions of all the required Perl modules. The aim of this section is to pass this check.

Verify if Perl modules are installed

$:/usr/local/bugzilla-3.2.2$ sudo ./checksetup.pl --check-modules

If not installed:

$:/usr/local/bugzilla-3.2.2$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e install

Edit the ‘localconfig’ file

$:/usr/local/bugzilla-3.2.2$ sudo gedit localconfig

Change the $db_name, $db_pass and $db_user value to the correct values. Here's how it looks like in my localconfig (replace the password with your actual password, this is just a placeholder here)

# The name of the database
$db_name = 'bugzilla';

# Who we connect to the database as.
$db_user = 'bugzilla';

# Enter your database password here.
$db_pass = 'bugzilla@123';

Run the checksetup.pl again. This will add a whole lot of tables for bugzilla, and you can verify that by looking at the tables in the 'bugzilla' database.

$:/usr/local/bugzilla-3.2.2$ sudo ./checksetup.pl

6. Configure Apache2 for Bugzilla
Add the following directives to /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

$sudo gedit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

*Note : Since the brackets give problem with blogger, added pic for the relevant code changes. All the non commented lines are what you have to type in.

7. Additional security
create user “apache2″

$ sudo useradd -d /home/apache2 -m apache2
$ sudo passwd apache2

Edit /etc/apache2/envvars to add. This is how my config looks

export APACHE_RUN_USER=apache2
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=apache2

Note : The default user and group is www-data. I don't really know how to setup the export to use both the www-data and the apache2 user simultaneously. If anyone can help with the syntax, it will be great !

Edit /usr/local/bugzilla-3.2.2/localconfig to add

$webservergroup = ‘apache2′;

Rerun checksetup.pl

$:/usr/local/bugzilla-3.2.2$ sudo ./checksetup.pl

This will ask you to setup your administrator for bugzilla. Go ahead and enter the password and email ids.

8. Check the Installation
Restart the apache server using the command

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Type the in your browser http://localhost/bugzilla/ . You should be getting the bugzilla login page. Login using the email and password you did at end of pt 7.

Commandline Twitter

2009-05-06T14:09:00.003+05:30

Got this idea about seeing if I can make a command line app for Twitter. I just don't want the full fledged thing, just the basic latest updates. Since I am also interested in learning python ( call it a geek itch), I decided to take it as a sample app for my foray.

It took me about 1 hour from setting out to finding the library to use and to write the code, and put in some text beautification. Nothing fancy, but does the job.

for those interested the code is as follows :

import twitter
api = twitter.Api(username='username', password ='password')
statuses = api.GetFriendsTimeline()
for s in statuses:
print "%s \t: %s" % (s.user.name , s.text)

An IDEA can change ur Life ... But, a Girl Can change Ur IDEA

2009-05-06T11:52:00.000+05:30

Heat is On : Fire Blooms

2009-05-05T12:42:00.004+05:30

Just another day's drive to the office.. or was it ? Yesterday evening's rain had made the temperature bearable. Also, this time I was with my camera looking for an opportunity to take a pic.

Its not easy though.

The traffic is the slow stop and go types. There is no place where you can pull over and get out of the car without the cars piling up behind you and blaring their horns. At a traffic light ( I was trying a new route through RK Puram), I saw a flash of yellow. Took out the camera from my bag and took a couple of pics. The gulmohar trees ( I hope I have identified the tree correctly) bloom in the summers , painting the treelines in reds and yellows.

The Heat is On : Its a dogs life

2009-05-04T13:23:00.003+05:30

I have got a lot of suggestions about the 'Heat is On' photography project I am doing. I am still to start taking around my camera for the pics, so all the shots till now are from the iPhone's camera - not too great quality. This weekend I was moving around , shifting to Dwarka, so did not get much pics.

Blazing Hot Evening

The sun setting on a very hot Delhi evening. Unfortunately the pic does not bring out the riot of colours that were painting the sky. And since I was in peak traffic times, I did not stop the car to take a pic from a good place. Next time for sure. :)

Glucose Drip for the Dog

On Saturday I had to go to the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Animal Hospital , taking the Dog along. He had not eaten for 2 days and was flopping around , hardly moving. Sunday morning, I took him to the hospital, and he was put on the glucose drip. After him a few more dogs were put on glucose.

The trees are now coming in colour, and I will try to get those pics. I also need to start travelling with my camera always in my bag, else I miss some neat shots.

The Heat is On

2009-05-01T16:22:00.003+05:30

Its HOT.

Let me repeat that.

Its HOT. Really HOT. And its gonna get Hotter!

The screenshot shows the temperature today. The wind blows - hot. Its called लू (loo) in Hindi. It sucks you of energy, makes you want to find shelter out of the sun as soon as you can. The sweat dries off as soon as it forms, hardly giving any respite.

However, I have decided to figure out what can I do about it all. I am planning to start photographing the heat. What I want from you is ... give me your thoughts on what the heat brings to your mind. I will try to find those subjects and take pics and see how it goes.

Speed of Infection

2009-04-28T16:29:00.002+05:30

I was just going through the news of Swine Flue. 2 things struck me
1. how the hell did it go from the pig to the man ?
2. The tag of Pandemic given to it.

pt 2 set me thinking. A few centuries back this would not even be a point of fear. Some place halfway across the world has a flu outbreak. When Ashoka was an emperor in India, Mexico was not even on the world map. So that place has an outbreak, its contained in that village , probably a couple of more, and people die. The rest of the world does not even know that they existed.

Fast forward to the 20th century, and information is going around in newpaper print. People get to know that some people died in a far away land. Shrug, talk about how bad it was, and go about their world.

Enter the 'flight' age and then the 'information technology' age. People travel across the world at the drop of a hat. Information is now spreading through casual networks like facebook and twitter. People get to know of a happening even before it happens. ... err... read that as when it happens. No more waiting for DD news or the morning's paper. You get to know it in office... AajTak and other 'sansani' channels pick it up - usually with a video from youtube and have people who don't even know what they are talking about proclaim we are in danger. Add to it , people who are travelling, catch a virus and before the day is out bring it to another country , and it spreads out there.

Scary scenario.

Is it happening or is the media irresponsible in shouting that it is happening ?? How can the death of 150 people be labeled a pandemic ?

Why Indians have to be reborn !

2009-04-18T09:16:00.001+05:30

The angel Gabriel came to the Lord and said 'I have to talk to you. We have some Indians up here in heaven and they are causing problems. They're swinging on the pearly gates, my horn is missing, they are wearing Dolce and Gabana saris instead of their white robes, they are riding Mercedes and BMW's instead of the chariots, and they're selling their halos to people for discounted prices. They refuse to keep the stairway to Heaven clear, since they keep c rouching down midway eating samosas and drinking chai (tea).. Some of them are even walking around with just one wing!'

The Lord said, 'Indians are Indians. Heaven is home to all my children. If you want to know about real problems, give Satan a call.'

Satan answered the phone, 'Hello? Damn, hold on a minute.' Satan returned to the phone, 'OK I'm back. What can I do for you?'

Gabriel replied, 'I just wanted to know what kind of problems you're having down there.'

Satan says, 'Hold on again. I need to check on something.'

After about 5 minutes Satan returns to the phone and said, 'I'm back. Now what was the question?'

Gabriel said, 'What kind of problems are you having down there?'

Satan says, 'Man I don't believe this ... Hold on.'

This time Satan was gone at least 15 minutes. He returned and said, "I'm sorry Gabriel, I can't talk right now... These Indians are trying to install air conditioning and making hell a comfortable place to live in by putting out the fire...fire is there to keep them uncomfortably hot!! Since they are so tech savvy, they were trying to start a telephone connection between heaven and hell...I am having such a hard time controlling and dealing with them!! Some were trying to start a chai - pakora shop, which I had to stop...I am requesting Lord to send them back on earth as soon as they arrive as re-birth".

Indians will be Indians...

So this is the story why Indians are re-born!!!!!!!

iPhone on the mind...

2009-04-15T18:38:00.001+05:30

Delhi, A Trip and a New Job

2009-04-09T11:06:00.004+05:30

So, here I find myself finally, back in the hometown of Delhi ... Delhi NCR to be more correct as the office is located in Noida.

Moving to Delhi was a different experience. I usually associated Delhi with pollution and bad traffic. It still has that, but the pollution seems to be lesser than what would be there in Pune in peak hours. The amount of vehicles on the road is mind boggling !

My first impression of Delhi was ... "hmm.. pleasant weather" , especially coming from the sweltering heat of Pune. The second one was "mmm. Good Food ! " !!

Trip to Dehradun

I still had a few days left in hand before joining the Job, so I decided on a quick journey home to Dehradun. This time I decided to go in the car, rather than in the train as everyone was suggested.

The route is not enjoyable for a drive. I think that the next time onwards I will be going by Train. Most of the road is a single land with mad truck drivers. Many times I had to slow down and almost get off to the road shoulder to avoid trucker/busses overtaking other vehicles.

A stop on the way.

But once you reach roorkie, the road becomes good. It is fun to drive through ! Then , once you get to UttaraKhand , the roads become even better ! The last few kms are through the Shivalik ranges and skirt the outside of the Rajaji National Park - absolutely fun !

Lapwings in the field behind our house

Mom and Dad with the Car

Roads just out of Dehradun - Paradise !

I just stayed a day in Dehradun, and then headed back. This time I took the canal route. This is a seldom used road, so the traffic is quite less, and it runs alogside the ganga canal from Haridwar to MuradNagar so you basically cut out all the Heavy Vehicle traffic. However, when I was doing the drive, many parts of the road were in bad condition, and at many places, the construction of the brick railings were in progress. Furthermore, at many points this road crosses other roads - basically bridges across the canal, and just before and after these junctions, there are unmarked bumps - which you have to be careful about. Apart from these irritations, this is quite a cool route.

The Canal Road

One97

On 6th I joined a new company. The company is in the mobile VAS ( Value Added Services) space. I was surprised to see around 15 people joining with me ! In the days of economic slowdown, the VAS industry is doing quite good ! I also had this feeling that we Indians don't have a Product mentatlity , as most of the software we use is from companies from elsewhere around the world - but this company proved me wrong. Many of the VAS products are being used by the big operators in India ( Airtel, Idea , etc ). The work seems to be quite exciting ! !

The office space is also designed in a very open manner. The managers share the same space as all the developers , and the cube (if it can be called that) height is half - so you can see from one end of the floor to the other. Advantages and Disadvantages abound - as you can easily see the length and breadth of the floor, but at the same time, it becomes noisy. Now, it is quite the same as what Wipro was, but I have been spoilt in the last few years of working in individual cubes - so that it feels quite noisy to me ! However, its a thing about getting used to , and I think that in a few weeks, i will not even be realising the noise ( the body is an amazing machine!)

What I really liked in the first few days of work is that there is a lot of Enery and Enthusiasm in the people here. There are hardly any whiteboards here, so the glass walls that are the walls for the few discussion rooms are used for writing. Pretty cool usage if you ask me . Also, there is no hard and fast rule of what to use and what not to use - e.g. I am using Linux as my standard OS on my laptop and a few other people are using Macs etc. Nice.

Now, for the new few weeks my concentration is going to be on work and finding a house. So forgive me if I do not update here more often !

iPhone view for Google Reader

2009-04-05T18:48:00.005+05:30

I don't really like the cluttered interface of Google Reader

I always had problems reading RSS feeds using the Google Reader. If you use the default scroll, it marks as read the items that you were just scrolling through, and if you change the settings, you have to manually click the items that you have read to be 'mark as read'. I don't know who designed the UI, but it sucks.

On the other hand , the interface on the iPhone is pretty good. I realized I was reading more on the iPhone than on the desktop. Hmm..

What people don't tell you is that it is doable on the PC also ! All you have to do is use the correct URL for the google reader and presto, it shows the blog items as though you were on the iPhone ! Now this is comfortable for me !

The URL you have to use is :

http://www.google.com/reader/i

Neat and minimalistic interface of the Google Reader in iPhone view.

Have Fun !

How to setup Dual Screens

2009-03-29T18:57:00.004+05:30

The screenshot that started it all

My post on facebook about my extended desktop got a lot of people interested, and they want to know how to setup the same with their systems. So, here's how !

This is in 2 parts. Howto do it with a laptop, and how to do it on the desktop.

HOWTO setup Dual Screen on Laptop

My first attempt at dual monitors

This is the comparatively easier approach, and one probably you can try out first. Simple steps to follow are as follows :

Connect the monitor cable to the laptop ( the blue port ... it should either be on the sides, or on the back of the laptop.
On your windows desktop ( XP here as I have not used Vista on laptops) , right click and click on 'properties'.
Go to the 'settings' tab. It should show your current laptop screen, and another monitor greyed out.
Click on the greyed out monitor, and click on 'extend desktop to this monitor' . Make sure that the resolution is set to something your laptop's graphics card can support and the monitor can support.
Click 'Apply' and that should do the trick!

Upside : 0 cost if you already have a laptop and a monitor lying around.

2. HOWTO setup Dual Screen on Desktop.

Ok. This requires quite a bit of more work. This can again be achieved in two ways.

2.1 Using a graphics expansion module.

A maxtor graphics splitter

Companies like Maxtor provide you hardware which you attach to your comp and it then connect to the monitors. The upside is that you don't have to get fancy graphics card. The downside, not so much available in India.

Steps :

Buy the hardware
Install drivers and follow the instructions.

2.2 Using a Graphics card.

Nvidia Graphics card with 2 DVI output ports

This is how I use it. I am a game buff, so I needed a good graphics card. Now, what most people don't tell you is that the graphics cards come with 2 DVI ports ! Woot ! So, you can connect the monitors to each of the graphics output. The advantage - crystal clear graphics at high frame rates !

Steps :

Install the graphics card ( in my case the NVIDIA 8800GT )
Connect both the monitors and start up the system. At this stage only one monitor will actually display the output.
Install the Nvidia software (you should download the latest from the net, as the ones available in the CDs are quite oudated).
Go to the nvidia control center and enable dual screen.
Viola ! You are done !

Linux steps :

These steps are a bit unintuitive. So, you need to do a bit of mumbo jumbo ( if you dont like command line) or just a bit of command typing (if you are comfortable with command line).
First boot into linux if you are on dual boot. The default drivers on linux suck, so you need to download the ones provided by nvidia.
run the command 'sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings' from a terminal. Let it install.
Run the command 'sudo nvidia-settings' and save your configuration.

And thats it ! you are done.

My current setup running linux.

You may want to refer to some of my earlier posts and other links :

How to raise the DPS for a Hunter

2009-03-24T23:00:00.004+05:30

I was actually looking all over the place for this simple question that I had on the Hunter in World of Warcraft - and I got no straight answer. Finally through a lot of hit and trial and reading a lot of mumbo jumbo, I got some results. From a dps ( Damage Per Second) of 1300 I was able to go upto 1700 ! Woot ! So, this is a short writeup for those people who are in the same boat as me.

Since I am at present staying at my in-laws house, I am playing on a rather low end machine - I get around 30fps at minimum settings ( /sigh ) . It also has a wierd keyboard ( HCL Office 8500 ) and for some reason I am not able to get screenshots to help in this guide. Anyways here goes.

Once you hit level 80 - the max level in WoW, the options open up to you for Heroic Dungeons and Raids . These enable you to vanquish tougher bosses and get some nice loot , apart from the Badges of Heroism. However, as a DPS unit ( Hunter, Warlock, Mage , cat/moonkin druid, rogue, Enh/Ele shaman, Fury Warrior etc), your role in the group is to burn down the Boss fast. That means that you need to do massive amounts of damage. Therein lies the problem. Up till now, you have been working hard at levelling your character , and things like increasing dps was not something that you have worked on really. So, suddenly you are doing a Dungeon run, and while others show a 2000+ dps, you are stuck at around 1000dps. How embarrasing. And you have no idea what to do.

I am in the same boat. And I hope my experiments help you to. Keep in mind, I am a n00b raider - and it will show :)

The first thing was that after multiple wipes at EoE , and having dps lower than even the Tank, I started to look at how to do up my DPS. Off I went to IronForge ( if you are Horde, go to Orig or any city) and started to work on the target dummies to check how much is my dps. As the mana bar depleted , the values shown in Recount was approx 1300 ( which reads - just below 1300). Not bad, but not good either.

The first thing I did after this was to change my spec from a BeastMaster hunter to a Survival Hunter. I used the spec which BigRedKitty uses.

2nd round at the dummies. Woah ! Crossed the 1500 barrier - just about .

Next I headed over to Elitist Jerks. These guys do a lot of number crunching on almost each class and spec and try to figure out whats the best way to go forward. Also I did an audit on my character using Be Imba , a website which checks your gear and tells you the most common things missing. In my case it is the jewels missing from a few sockets , and enchants. Looked up EJ for what gems I needed. Spent a small fortune at the Auction House and got all the sockets gemmed , including the socket created using an Eternal Belt Buckle ( which adds a socket to the belt item - I did not even knew this happened !) . Also a quick trip to Dalaran and I exchanged the badges I had got by running UK and Nexus for a Hand slot item ( I had 61 badges! ) .

Back to IF. change in shot rotation. Started killing the target dummy.

Woah ! Spiked to 1900 before averaging out at 1700 dps !

A 400 dps jump in a Day ! Wonderful.

Decided to jump in and test it with a heroic. Today's daily was HoL and pugged it with other guys. Sure we had a couple of wipes, but in the end, got Loken with 2 achievements under the belt :

Ooh. That is a big confidence booster. However, I somehow did not get the 1700dps I got while testing :(

Next on the agenda, farm some money to enchant all the items that are enchantable !

7 Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World

2009-03-24T20:55:00.003+05:30

I got this as a forward. Some amazing stuff this !

The classical natural wonders are huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to spot. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world.

1) Sailing Stones

The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.

2) Columnar Basalt

When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.

3) Blue Holes

Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

4) Red Tides

Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals. In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.

5) Ice Circles

While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.

6) Mammatus Clouds

True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.

7) Fire Rainbows

A circum horizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomenon.

Twouble with Twitters

2009-03-17T23:58:00.000+05:30

Found this amusing clip about Twitter ! :D

Farewell Ride with Pune BN

2009-03-17T10:43:00.005+05:30

Last weekend was probably my last ride with the Pune BikeNomads. I am relocating to Delhi/NCR and this called for a ride.

Initially the plan was to ride to Murud as we had a couple of friends of Jolu who were going to do some documentary shoot with us, but they got held up with their college work. At the same time, a friend and I were discussing about going to Ahmednagar to meet H as his dad had passed away. So, late of Saturday evening, the plan was finalized. We called up all the people who were to come on the Murud ride and told them about the change in plans. Some people were to come from Mumbai also, so we had to apologize to them and explain the reason. I would say it was something I influenced, as I felt that we should visit a nomad to show out solidarily and support, and cause I knew that I would not be meeting H again. Added to that was the attraction of visiting the Tank Museum - a one of the kind place in India, which is based out of Ahmednagar.

Sunday morning the plan was set - meet up at AdLabs Kalyani Nagar at 7:30am. I reached there and only Amit was there before me. It seems that S & N told everyone else that we were to be meeting at 8, while they told me to be there at 7:30. Nasty. :(

Waited and people started turning in. Finally we were short only N. He was getting late and said he would catch up with us on the 5 ( R15). So, around 8 we left. 7 bikes + 1 pillion.

Its a nice sight to see so many bikes on the road following formation riding rules. However, due to heavy traffic and also because the road was mostly single laned, it was difficult to maintain it for long. Within a few mins we got split. I was the tail, but the one in front of me was a bit slow, so I moved on ahead and caught up with the main body of the riders. At the 2nd toll gate, which is at Ranjan Gaon, we had a puncture. It was Jolu Warrior's bike which went flat as soon as it crossed the gate.

From Ahmednagar Tank Museum

Asked around and we found a puncture shop just before the gate . I guess it is not coincidence that most of the punctures happen in the viscinity of puncture shops ! The tyre tube's valve had a cut also - and the chap only had splendor's tyre tube. While a couple of guys went to look for a more fitting tyre tube, we had our first cup of tea in the morning. While having tea we got a call from N, he had crossed the tool gate, and had gone ahead. We asked him to turn back and try to get tyre for the rear wheel of the Karizma. Finally after a lot of calls between J, S and N we got a tyre tube - which was not for the zma, but finally giving up the hunt for the time being lost, we settled for this. Around 1.5 hours were lost in this.

It was almost 11am now, and we still hadn't had any breakfast. so we decided to stop for breakfast .. but S & A were ripping ahead and went on ahead. Called up S and told him to turn back to the BP petrolpump for the breakfast stop. Along with them also came PS , whom these guys had seen up ahaed. So, there we were 10 bikes in all !

From Ahmednagar Tank Museum

The next bit was uneventful. The road becomes progressively worse with some road narrowing work in progress ! We reached Ahmednagar around 12:15 and PS was in the lead as he had been to H's house earlier. By his estimation we were still some 30kms away, when he suddenly pulled up at a gate saying we had arrived ! ;) Talk about distance estimations ! lol !

All of us parked up outside H's house where a prominent board displayed "no parking for boys" !

Had tea and general gupshup and timepass. H's Uncle also joined us. He used to be a bike fanatic in the heydays and regaled us with stories of his bike and how he took away the door of a car once ! One comment which would not go out of my mind was when he ashed whose bike the blue one was, and then the subsequent comment " mere ko maloom tha woh kise chickney ke hogi ! " ;-)

From Ahmednagar Tank Museum

The next stop was the Tank museum but it being almost 2:30 we had to have lunch first. Around 4 we reached the tank museum which had on display the tanks of yesteryears and the wars. Did you know Roll's royce also made armoured cars ? It was an eye opener with the different tanks on display.

From Ahmednagar Tank Museum

5:30 we moved out and said goodbye to H, but it was almost 6 by the time we left Ahmednagar as there was a politician bigwig giving a speech to a crowd bought for the purpose. After sometime the guys stopped for a 'ciggy break' , but i decided to move on. I am not as fast a rider now, and wanted to put in as much distance as possible before dusk. Stopped for a shot of the windmills and then moved on again. I really need to get a waist pouch for my camera as its a time waster having to stop, take off my bag, take out the camera case, take out the camera etc etc.

As darkness crept up , we stopped for tea, and decided to follow formation for the rest of the ride. However, again due to the night and traffic we managed to get split up after 15mins. I was getting left behind, and with no markings on the road, it was difficult for me to find any guiding signs to go fast. After sometime, reached ranjan gaon, and with the road becoming better and the road marking reappearing, I started moving faster. Latched onto an alto which was going fast and followed it for some distance and then it suddenly slowed like the person driving it got terrified of doing the high speeds. Luckily there was a Scorpio who was going fast, and I started to follow it.

At Shikrapur we grouped up as PS ( who was leading with his allpoweful HID) was splitting up for Mumbai. The only person missing was S, and we called him up. He was riding the last, and he though that I was still behind him. Little did he know that though I don't enjoy night riding, I have a few tricks up my sleeves to still go fast ;)

After this the road became quite crowded with the traffic suddenly increasing, like everyone had just woken up and suddenly came onto the road ! I was following Jolu now , and we finally arrived at the dispersal point - Dass at Kalyani Nagar. C then took our group pics with auto shoot mode, with experimentation using various motorcycles as the base :) . Finally satisfied , we split up, but hardly had I gone 100mts that I had to stop. Some politician was going to the airport and the police had blocked the roads :( .

Reached home at 9:15pm, 256kms done. Not a very long or fast trip, but quite memorable.

What is Recession?

2009-03-13T12:30:00.001+05:30

An amusing anecdote that came via email. Enzoy!

This story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.

He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more a more raw material and buns and sold more. He recruited more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove. As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?" The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV. He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colorful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his Hotdog stand. And his sales started coming down rapidly and so did the profit. The father said to his son, "Son, you were right". "We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of the Story: It's all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think.

Dev D : my thoughts

2009-03-10T18:54:00.002+05:30

Yesterday night, a friend and I went off to see DevD. S was planning to come along, but at the last moment she opted out as she was not if she would enjoy the movie.

DevD is a different kind of movie. It can be also called 'wierd' as it is not the usual Bollywood fare - boy , girl, dance etc kinds of movie. Its based on the story of Devdas - immortalized in Indian cinema. But with twists adapted to the current life of the young and rich and spoilt. Well, thats all been blogged/written about. My thoughts are different.

I had been listening to the songs of the film "Emotional Atyachar" etc etc. I wanted to see how they fit in... and it was beyond my expectation. The songs has been wowen into the picture at different points. The songs repeat depending on the situation. The positioning of the songs change depending on what the protagonist is doing. E.g. in one scene when Dev is walking, the song fills up the screen, but then he turns into a street and the song fades to one side , as if it was being played in some music system in some home. Another one is when he dunks his head into water, and the songs/ambient sounds becomes muffled like when you hear something under the water.

The cameramanship is also awesome. The scene where he is drinking, the camera revolves around him. At the start of the drinking binge you can make out the shapes around him, but they soon become blurry as he drinks more and more... Visual represntation of the person's mind.

This is not a movie to be watched at home unless you have a good movie station at home with surround 5.1 systems. Go to the theatre to watch it before it gets taken down.

My Rating : "Must Watch! But probably without people who like mushy movies"

Good Morning Pune!

2009-03-07T09:50:00.001+05:30

Good Morning Pune!
Originally uploaded by vibhu

Got up early today in preparation for a small ride tomorrow to Mulshi. The nomads from BN are to meet up at CC at 6am , and move off at 6:30am. I am a late riser, and so to get into the rhythm, I got up today at 6am ! Got out of bed at 6:30 ofcourse ;)

From the balcony of my house, with a warm cup of water in my hand, I was seeing the sun rise, thinking its been so long since I have seen it. The air felt fresh and tingling with a slight chill. Dumbo, i said to myself, get your camera and take a pic ! So, thats what I did.

With construction on in most parts of pune, there was no escape from the scaffolding on the apartment blocks, or the wires strung in between. But the distant hills bathed in a slight haze, and the sun warming up the morning sky, it gave a particular feel to the place. A feel of Pune.

Good Technology brought over by Visto

2009-02-25T12:15:00.003+05:30

Good Technology was one of the companies that I worked with during my last 10 years as a techie.

And it was the best time I have had working ... worked there twice.

The first time was when I was working in Ruksun. That time they were my clients.

The 2nd time was when I worked as a full-time employee of theirs. Good Technology was also the single biggest factor for my leaving Microsoft after just a few months. GTG rocks ! I never felt that I was working there. It was more about having fun and a passion working with the other people, working on new tech, working on beating RIM's hold on mobile messaging systems.

However, like most start-ups, things change. It was first bought by Motorola almost 2 years back ( and I was there during the transition) . Now, Motorola has sold it to Visto [press release]. And the most amazing thing that I feel all throughout the transitions is that Good retained its Identity. The power of the brand was so much that whichever company bought it, retained the Good logo.

The experiences in Good Technology will always remain with me. Some of the best people I worked with. Some of the coolest technology I worked with. Some of the coolest devices I got hooked onto. Being part of the entire group/company in a way its not possible in most places. And most of all, the fun I had doing what I was doing.

Anil Kapoor Watch

2009-02-24T20:10:00.006+05:30

Got this as a fwd from a friend who got it from another friend ! I had also been wondering what Anil Kapoor was doing... but not to this detail !

I may or may not have told some of you over the weekend about the Kapoor-watch that Anil and me have been doing over the last couple of weeks. He has been a major source of comedy and cringe-worthiness in equal measure through his appearances on American TV and clueless interviews. Yesterday was the crescendo, obviously. Here is a choice collection for you to enjoy.

A few excerpts from various articles!

Steven Spielberg announced that Slumdog Millionaire had won Best Picture last night, did you happen to notice which hilarious Bollywood egotist was the first one to the stage? Of course it was serial podium rusher Anil Kapoor! Once Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson arrived at the microphone, they had to motion for the film's cast members to follow them — but not Anil, because, somehow, incredibly, like a pompadoured bolt of lightning, faster than a poop-covered slumdog, he had already made it out of his seat and up the stairs. How did he do it? Did he bodysurf over the first ten rows? Had he just been hiding under the podium the entire night? - NY Mag

Millionaire's eight-Oscar haul has got Anil Kapoor (pictured with Danny Boyle) , the Bollywood star who plays the movie's oleaginous quizmaster, thinking about an alternative career. Egged on by two of the biggest names in the business, Sir David Frost and US talkshow giant Larry King, the 50-year old actor says he's considering taking up full-time TV presenting."I've been encouraged by Larry King and David Frost," he told the Independent. "Both said my television presenting skills were second-to-none. When such icons of the form give you a compliment like that you simply cannot ignore it. David said I could go on to be one of the great television hosts of our time so it is something I'm seriously looking into." He adds. "Perhaps I could front my own show here. I'll rule nothing out."

Anil adds that more than him, it was a proud moment for all Indians. "Today, I wasn't thinking about myself or from my point of view. It was like an Indian award and I was thinking of India winning â€“ not me. It was an Indian moment. I could see Indian faces around me. I wasn't floating on air, India was!"

It's time to stop the petty bickering and small-minded behavior amongst us in the film industry. There are only a few films like Ben Hur and Gone With The Wind which can come on the same level as Slumdog. Slumdog is the triumph of the human spirit against all odds. Everyone, all over the world, loved the film. We all got a standing ovation from the entire audience at the Oscars. It was one of India's proudest moment of glory."

"I felt so proud when I came out and was greeted by my old friends Goldie Hawn and Will Smith who came to congratulate the Slumdog team and me. They both were like "apna bachcha jeet gaya". Rahman, Danny, we are all together. I was so thrilled!"

And what is it in your case?

I feel it is the role. It's an integral part of the story. And it's a very performance oriented role. It has lots of layers. And critics from The Washington Post, NY Times, London Times and others have singled me out for a mention. I don't think people have ever seen an actor play a host. A lot of people asked Danny (Boyle) if I was the host of the show back home.

How has your family reacted to the success of slumdog?
My family teases me about it. They keep telling me, 'Control, control.' They rag me and say, 'Stop giving all the these interviews now. Enough!' My wife says, 'You are coming out of everybody's ears. For heaven's sake, stop! Wherever you go, London, US, LA, you're just doing interviews.' I tell her, 'What can I do? Rahman is impossible to get. Toh ghoom phir ke main hi aa jaata hoon." Maybe I should also try to play hard-to-get now. But I like to be myself. And I have been told the foreign press appreciates that I am myself. When I am happy and excited, I show it. More than the success of Slumdog, they are thrilled with how I behave and how I speak.
Slumdog resurrected you literally...
Maybe the exposure, and opportunities, are more now. Maybe a thousand more people know me. But, yes, it’s a nice feeling when people in the aircraft and airport come up and shake hands. After Barack Obama’s win, there’s a strong ‘loving underdog’ sentiment sweeping the world. And Slumdog is also about the win of the underdog.
Have you decided which Oscar you will go up to collect?
At the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, we had to follow a protocol. The cast was asked to go onstage. I being the seniormost amongst the actors, held fort and spoke. This time, too, we will follow protocol. I don’t know the situation yet. Whatever role is given to me, I will take.
At the Screen Actors Guild Awards you touched Anthony Hopkins’s feet onstage and got introduced to Angelina Jolie through Irrfan Khan. How did they react?
Sir Anthony, I later thought, must have got the scare of his life! He didn’t understand why I suddenly bent down to touch his feet. He must have thought I would pull his leg! I explained the ritual to him later and he smiled. Angelina was sweet.

And from earlier on this season,

“Kapore” strides out in a suit and light-colored tie like he’s got tickets to the gun show…and by that I mean that he’s doing the “I am victorious!”-arm-thing. He immediately growls something like, “Hey!” and proceeds to grope Regis via a bear hug which lifts Reeg off the ground. Let me type that again: Anil Kapoor has just bear-hugged Regis, whose feet are dangling in the air. Wait! It gets better! Kapoor is now spinning him around, as his co-host, Kelly Ripa, cackles gleefully and claps like a seal. Regis, who is shaken, then grabs Kelly, growls at her and spins HER around, and by doing so imitates Kapoor while reclaiming some of his threatened manhood. Or something. Kapoor is delighted at what he done started. Regis turns back to shake Kapoor’s hand and Kelly steps up to air-kiss him on both cheeks. They settle in to the most awkward-looking chairs/stools on daytime television.“OH BOY!”, Regis exclaims. Kelly points out that Regis is going to “suffer tomorrow, just so you know” for his foolish act of hugging and spinning-bravado.

Regis compliments AK about Slumdog, “you played it so beautifully”. Anil returns the favor by smarmily telling Reeg that Reeg reminds him of someone…ah, yes. Dean Martin. Regis is concomitantly flabbergasted and as giddy as Kelly, who immediately asks, “Aneeel, who told you to say that to him!” AK then says “Ve Indians never lie!” They cut to a clip from the movie. Anil claps for himself enthusiastically, but at least he doesn’t clap like a seal. Kelly tells AK that Reeg saw the movie before she did and later told her that it was the best movie he had EVER seen. Yowza. They discuss how he’s having the time of his life on awards shows and how he’s the toast of hollywood; when asked where he had dinner this weekend, AK exults, “Dustin Hoffman’s house!! What a host! WHAT! A! HOST!”

"Slumdog Millionaire" star Anil Kapoor exits his New York hotel and does his best to please every paparazzo with a picture. Followed by his own, personal videographer, Anil stopped for the New York photographers before climbing into a town car for a trip to his next meeting. Unfortunately, the Bollywood superstar climbed into the wrong vehicle and had to make an embarrassing exit! - http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/3627118

Oscar Fever ! 8 Oscars !

2009-02-23T11:06:00.004+05:30

I am backstage. The presenter has an attack of nerves and is crying. A lady (indian) makes up her mind and moves to the stage, and says "Sorry for this , we have had a change in plans". The audience boos. The stage ? The 81st Oscars.

The dream breaks. I get up and look at the clock . 7am ! Just in time for the Oscars...

Wife was sleeping . Had to keep the volume really low. And lo and behold what a run for Slumdog Millionaire ! 10 Nominations. 8 Academy Awards ! Double Oscars for A.R. Rehman !

The list of awards:

Best Movie : Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director : Danny Boyle
Best Music Song : AR Rehman for Jai Ho
Best Music Score : A.R. Rehman.
Best Editing : Chris Dickens
Best Sound Mixing : Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
Best Cinematography : Anthony Dod Mantle
Best Adapted Screenplay : Simon Beaufoy

Phew !

It's more amazing cause you know that the movie is based on Amchi Mumbai, with the crew and cast of people from India.

Now, all the above has been already talked about by everyone, and all websites are covering it - oscars.com, TOI, CNN, BBC - you name it , and they are rattling out the figures and the accomplishments. But, I have a few more thoughts...

The message of the film - reel and real.

The movie is about a small time guy, in love, dreaming always, and making it in the end. The 'hope' that keeps one going.

The movie is also about a small rag-tag crew, with a small budget, working with passion and love and dedication, working together as a team, making the unbelievable happen. I am sure none of the guys would have even thought at the start that they are going to one day be part of history.

I thought such things existed only in movies. But here I see a live example. Here is one of the things that I have read in books .. even like the Bhagwat Gita... not really believed in it - but it has happened. Phal ki chinta mat karo, karm karo. Do not wish for rewards, just do you job. I never did believe in that. Without an end goal, how am I to work with the passion and towards a goal ? I always thought i needed that . But many places people say that if you really put your heart into it, you will achieve your dreams.

And here I see that. And I am getting convinced, that one has to just work their best without thinking of the end gains. Difficult to change the programming in your mind for many years, but I think that the seed has been sown.

The 'its indian' syndrome.

No, the movie is not Indian. Its a British film with Indian actors and part of the crew. It was released in the US in August 2008. The Indians did not freaking even consider it. Its only when it started to gain international fame that we Indians started to look at it. Its only when it started to get rewards that it was released in India in end Jan 2009. And now that it is winning awards, the media in India touts it as an Indian film.

Dudes in India, the govt and others, I have a question for you. Why do you only pick up stuff related to India after it makes an international splash ? Why did distributors in India not pick up Slumdog Millionaire for shows here after it was released worldwide ? Why do we suddenly want to claim people of Indian origin as Indians after they have lost hope in the Indian system, moved to a foreign country and make some inventions ? Why do we suddenly find Yoga and Mehendi (Henna) the 'in thing' after the west starts to tout them ?

India. Wakey Wakey. I believe we are letting too many opportunities, inventions and innovations go waste because of the society we have created. We need to promote and nurture talent here. Then , when we start winning on the global scale , we can say we have truly arrived !

For the people with hopes and dreams (including me!). Think about the reel and real life stories for Slumdog Millionaire. Think AR Rehman. Be passionate and love what you are doing. Don't just look for quick results. You will succeed.

Jai Ho !

What Sena ?

2009-02-12T10:51:00.003+05:30

Recently there has been an explosion of groups in India with either 'Sena' or 'Ram' or both in their name.

And I think they are a disgrace to the legend that was Rama.

Well, what do we know about Lord Rama ? The first thing that comes to mind, and the first thing that we are taught as kids is 'Dharma', which means the virtuous path. Another thing about Rama that comes to the forefront was how he followed the path of non-violence, unless in self-defense or the defense of the others. He also corssed the length of the country to wage war on Ravana, but even there , he had sent out a peace treaty first.

From wikipedia :

Rama is always shown with a bow (called Kodanda) on his shoulder. As per Valmiki Ramayana, Sita once enquired as to why her Lord, Rama always carried a bow with him. Sita was upset with Rama's promise to sages that he offer protection while they performed their sacrificial rituals and therefore petitioned Rama that 'We are in the forest and we should live life of sages so why wield this weapon?'. Sita then narrated a story about an ancient sage who became violent simply by having a weapon in his possession (in this case a sword). Rama smiled and promised to Sita that he would never attack anybody unless the other person provokes him to do so, a promise that he kept throughout his life. In fact he had always given two chances to his enemies Tataka, Maarich, Vali and even Ravana. He even offered a peace treaty to Ravana before starting the war. Angada took his peace message to Ravana which was declined.

Persecution of women was not his passtime.

The only place in Indian Mythology that I remember reading about anything against women is the vastraharan of Draupadi by the Kauravs. I think that todays political parties who indulge in such passtimes should be named Kaurav Sena.

One of the usual refrains that these people have is that they are the custodians of Indian Culture. What a hoot ! Which culture are they talking about ? A few hundred years back when India was under colonial rule and the culture was about sati, child sacrifices etc ? Or more years back when India was under the rule of the Emperors Shah Jahan and created the Wonder that is Taj. Or even a few years back under the rule of Akbar when the grand trunk road was made ? Or earlier depictions on the walls of temples of India with nude and semi-nude people ?

If they are so worried about culture and going back in time, about the negative influence of "western culture", then why do they use the inventions from the west ? Dear xyz sena, do not use the inventions from the west. Here are a few.

All the people in the video are wearing jeans/trousers and T-shirts. Go and wear traditional indian dresses. Why don't you do that ? Don't you know Jeans, Tshirts are from the west ?
Don't use electricity at home. Yup, thats also from the west. No louspeakers, TV, radio as they were invented in the west and use electricity.
Don't use a phone or a mobile phone. Oh boy , how can you do that ? thats also from the west.
Don't use cars, motorcycles etc. These are also from the west.
Don't use posters as they are printed with technology from the west.
Don't use any allopathic medicine as they are also invented in the west.
Don't use computers.
Oh ! dont use the internet also. I mean that's also from the west.

There's been a lot of outrage, but the government seems to be totally lacking in decision making, or maybe they are taking decisions, as this is the election season, to not do anything.

The high handedness from these self proclaimed culture custodians has resulted in some people taking up innovating ideas. I came across this totally novel concept of Pink Chaddis !

At some level, this all hurts me. This is not the India I grew up with. This is not the India that I read about in books when I was young. This India is a place where we are afraid, not only about cross-border terrorists, but also about terrorists who don the garb of the culture police.

TFD : If you really hate what you're doing

2009-02-10T19:50:00.000+05:30

If you really hate what you're doing, stop telling yourself to hang in there. Your first duty is to yourself. These are hours of your life. Spend them happily.

Lunar Eclipse

2009-02-10T13:34:00.003+05:30

Did you know yesterday evening was a lunar eclipse. However, its not a complete eclipse, but a penumbral one, where the softer shadow of earth falls on the moon as the moon is too far away.

TFD : In the company of great people

2009-02-06T20:28:00.003+05:30

Today, I came across one of the best quotes I have ever heard.

In the company of great people, the journey is its own reward.

This is such a profound quote that for a few minutes I was stuck speechless ! Hope you find it good too !

TFD : Dance Like

2009-02-02T20:49:00.003+05:30

Quite a fav quote of mine. Filched from a friend's signature.

Dance like no one is watching
Love like you'll never be hurt
Sing like no one is listening
Live like it's heaven on earth
Work like you don't need the money

LOTRO Finally

2009-02-02T20:29:00.005+05:30

Oops ! I missed something ! Dumb ! Dumb ! Dumb ! Apologies to LOTRO devs.

My earlier post about LOTRO was way off the mark ... and the amazing part is that I found the problem and managed to fix it myself !

/cheshire cat grin

/pats back

/looks suitably amazed at my own amazicity !

Well, here was the peroblemo hombre...

The .NET did not install.

Yup. You got that right. .NET 1.1 does not install on Vista directly. Viva le Microsoft !

erm. But then one wonders why 1.1 is not available properly on Vista, and also one wonders why developers are not using .NET3.5 - the latest and .. errr.. greatest (?) .NET framework out there.

Anyhows, the following was the error I was getting while installing .NET ...

Duh. Amazingly precise and helpful ( /sarcasm) message from the devs on what is happening.

Fortunately, Google is finally working ok today, so gave a search for the error ... and viola, got a great link for it.

Installing .NET 1.1 for Vista

Essentially the steps are as follows ...

Download .NET 1.1
Download .NET 1.1 SP1 <-- this fixes the install problem, but unhelpfully not bundled as a stand alone installer.
Put both of them in a common directory (e.g. c:/dotnet)
Start a command prompt as Administrator (rt click on the cmd prompt icon. no sudo here you dumbo!)
Mumble a few voodoo words and run the following commands... esentially the commands make a single installer from the 2 you downloaded above.

c:\dotnet>dotnetfx.exe /c:"msiexec.exe /a netfx.msi TARGETDIR=C:\DotNet
c:\dotnet>dotnetfxsp1.exe /Xp:C:\DotNet\netfxsp.msp
c:\dotnet>msiexec.exe /a c:\DotNet\netfx.msi /p c:\DotNet\netfxsp.msp

Huzzah ! Ze magik Werks !

Run LOTRO

WTF ! Maintainence !

Finally is not Finally enough...

Wait for more demented updates ...

LOTRO

2009-02-01T10:55:00.003+05:30

LOTRO = Lord of The Rings Online.

I guess you already know about Lord Of The Rings . Well, LOTRO is a MMORPG based on the setting of the universe created by JRR Tolkien in that book. Its one of the online games which came out last year which created a flutter, but WoW still held its own with its expansion release.

Anyways, I have been off WoW for sometime - 1.5 weeks to be precise. Currently playing NWN2 - sequel to one of my favourite games NWN ( NWN = NeverWinter Nights). What being off MMO games does is, it frees up your time a bit. At the back of your head is not the nagging thought that if you do not play you are losing money (its a monthly subscription!). However, MMOs are addictive because of a simple thing - you are playing with and against other humans. The social aspect is something which hits you like nothing else. Its like a transition from the days of snail mail to social networking sites like facebook and orkut.

Right now I don't want to go back to WoW - been playing that game on and off for 3 years now. My main is a level 80 (level capped) and the only progression is via end game instances - which with my current work life - I just cant give the time (raids start at 6:30pm IST, and I am in office usually till 7:30pm -8:00pm)

So, I started looking for alternate MMORPG experiences during breaks from NWN ( I am still in ACT I there). Eve Online - already done some playing. Warhammer Online - its basically a PvP game and I just don't like PvP. That lead me to LOTRO. Well, this game hasn't done so well, but there are lots of fans of it - including someone who created a google map for it !

Like most MMOs nowdays, this also provides a 10day trial period, where you can try out the game for free. Huzzah !

So, I started the download yesterday night.

WoW was a 1.2GB download (followed by another GB or so for each expansion and expands upto 10GB on the disk). EVE was around 900MB download. This game is showing me 10GB ! And people wonder why this game did not do so well ?? LOTRO devs, do yourself a favour . Figure out how to slim down the initial install so that people do not have to wait a long time for the game to download !

Hedvi

2009-01-30T12:04:00.007+05:30

5am. Man its so tough to get up. Shake myself off the lethargy of the warm cosy comforts of the bed, and get up feeling a tinge of excitement about the upcoming ride.

6am. Down in the parking. Fixing up the haversack with bungie chords. Funny, its been so long since I have fixed the bag in this way - takes me almost 15 mins. Cramster saddlebags have spoilt me - but they are too big for just a night-halt-over kind of ride. Just as I am finishing off , i get a call from Jay - he has already reached the staring off point - Chandni Chowk in Pune.

I headup to my house. Lock it up. Open the door again as I think I did not switch off the light, find it switched off and head back down. Put on the gear, except my gloves, which i stuff inside my jacket and move off.

There is something exhilirating about an early morning. Some promise of something grand. A whiff of enthusiasm about a new day. I am amazed to see so many people already on the road - the sky is completely dark at this time. Kids in school uniforms waiting for busses at 6:30am near the Pashan circle as I head up towards Chandni Chowk. As I pass the army area, the chill hits the hands. Wow ! The drop in temperature was quite sudden !

6:40am and I am at Chandni Chowk. Jay and Somnath are there. Rishi and Narendra, the other two guys from my office are MIA. Tried to call them up, no response - they are probably on the way. The dawn is just breaking ... and I try a few shots in the semi-twilight.

7:00am [ 0 kms ] Finally everyone is here, and we start off. Somnath is to lead the way , and he has been cautioned to go a bit slow as we have new riders. 80kmph speed limits and the next stop to be for breakfast. The rookies have been let in on the big plan - we ride without many stops ! Thats it. No over speeding, no racing, just very few stops. The traffic on the highway is quite sparse, and we make good time.

8:30am [ 52kms] Stop at Ram Vade Waala for breakfast. This place is crawling with people ! I am stumped - why so much of traffic. Thats when Naren says - probably all going to Mahabaleshwar ... aah ! We quickly assess the route again - do we go through mahabaleshwar and head over to Nh17 or go via Umraj and make a turn to chiplun ? We decide on the later . The pleasures of riding with a group - new plans made constantly !

The ride after that was pretty simple. Nice straight highways with the run rising over the small hills on the left side. A few breaks for water and we reached Umbraj at 11:30. Hmm, we should reach chiplun by 1, so we decided to ditch having lunch there and directly go to Hedvi . Somnath called up the fellow in Hedvi and asked him to get lunch ready for us.

Umbraj to Chiplun is ghat roads. Till halfway, the roads are bad, but around 30-40 kms before chiplun they become smooth and are fun to ride on ! On the left side is a river ( i dont know the name , and google maps does not show the river) .

Chiplun took us some time to get through. The helpful people there pointed us right at the center of the busy weekend market, where progress was at snails pace. Finally out of it and we chugged along ahead towards Hedvi. Rishi was keeping up with Somnath far ahead in the distance, while I brought up the rear. After asking directions again and again , a few turns later, we were at Hedvi.

13:30 [288] Reached the resort in Hedvi. The less I write about it , the better - its not something I would recommend to people. Just a room to stay in, with common toilets . sigh.

We wasted no time and called for lunch. SouthIndian style. Finshed that off and Jay and I decided to take a breather and sleep the afternoon off - and got joined by Somnath. Rishi and Naren decided to chill out under the trees near the beach.

Finally around 4:30pm we moved onto the beach. It was still quite hot, but Jay and I were hoping for some good sunset shots - the only dampner - the clouds on the horizon. However, it were the same clouds which turned the sky into a riot of colours ! Check out the pics cause I can't describe it in words.

Evening went in gupshup and another round of dinner which was same as lunch. We also settled our bills there to take care of the early start, and also as we could not bear another round of the food there !

Next Day

Jay was to leave really early, and in the process all of us got up :) .. though we finally started off quite late around 8:30am. I took that opportunity to use the public loo before others ( ;-) ), and also to take a few shots of the dawn. Man, it feels so fresh up at that time. Pity, I don't do it more often.

Breakfast stop was at Chiplun. The ghats from hedvi to chiplun are quite good, but this time, for the first time, I got a backache . Somnath gave me a couple of disprins to eat - which lasted me quite a bit almost all the way back to home.

After that we followed the same route back. At the top of the ghats, we stopped for a photo shoot . Somnath had zoomed far ahead, and it was just the 3 of us. At that place is a police checkpost - where the chap after seeing us stop called us over to the hut. Asking for our DLs etc. Then started filling in info in their book. Luckily for us the first person he asked was Narendra...

Officer : Whats your name ?
Naren : Narendra K
Officer : Na... ?
N : Narendra
O : Fullname ?
N : Write Narendra K
O : give full name.
N : Narendra Katlamudi
O Writes down "Narendra K" ;-)

That was quite funny ! Then I asked the cops why they are harrasing us when we have stopped and they are not stopping the other people who just zoom past. Officer said that tomorrow is Republic Day so he has to do these things, but I guess by this time he got tired of writing down a single name, so he said ok. Being the evercheerful guy that I am , i asked if he can take a pic of ours ;) . He passed on the duty to his hawaldar, who in turn called the local shop owner and told him to take pic :D

The journey after that did not have much to write about. It was a very hot day though, and we had lots of water breaks. The good thing was that all 4 of us kept together almost thorughout the journey, with a couple of dashes to break up the monotony.

4:30pm [588kms] and we are back at my house. Somnath had parted way just before Pune, while the remaining 3 split up at my house.

Felt good to have a trip after a long time :D

And then in the evening I went out for a short drive ;)

Pic Links :

Hedvi Ride - Vibhu
Hedvi Visit - Jayaram

Police Work

2009-01-27T09:31:00.005+05:30

Did you watch Gajhini ? Theres the scene where the heroine finds girls being taken in a train for flesh trade. Or Slumdog Millionaire where they take away young kids for begging ?

It's been a bane of society, wherever there are people you will have all sorts of miscreants also. However, its heartening to see that people are fighting the crime.

Recently 3 minor girls aged around 12 were abducted from Sikkim. My sister, who is SP in Sikkim worked with other police agencies , tracked down the woman who had kidnapped them, co-ordinated with Delhi Police ( where the kids had been taken) and rescued them ! Awesome !

Quote from her email :

Wanted to share this: we just cracked an important case. A woman here had kidnapped 3 twelve year old girls from here and taken them to delhi. Obviously for trafikking for no good purpose.We have just nabbed the accused, got 3 more accomplices, recovered all 3 girls and also rescued an 11 year old who was stuck with them. Good to feel that this job is worth doing ... The news is in Sikkim Express check for 07/01/2008 article titled: "Four minor Sikkimese girls rescued from Delhi locality"

Way to go Sis ! You make us proud !

Unfortunately, Sikkim Express website is down at the time of this writing.

iPhone BrainMap

2009-01-06T15:41:00.002+05:30

Work of an idle mind.

2009 Wish List

2009-01-02T12:29:00.002+05:30

First and foremost ! Welcome to the new year ! If you are from hyderabad, you will be especially excited about the new year as it ends in 9 - and Hyderabadis just love that number !

What were your resolutions for the year ? Great ! And now you have broken most of them ;) Ha Ha Ha ! Thats the way they are supposed to work !

Anyways, my post is not about resolutions. Its about a wishlist from this year. In no particular order ...

I wish

iPhone would become cheaper in India. Then i can pick up a 16GB one for 20k INR. Sweet. who cares if it does not have FM. That brings me to the next point.
FM channels which dish out only hindi songs should have the presenters speaking in Hindi. I just don't get it - they talk a lot in Marathi and then play a hindi song. Sounds out of sync. If you are talking in marathi please play Marathi songs. If you want to play Hindi songs, speak in Hindi. Its like you are listening to a Rock channel and the presenter starts talking in Hindi about Creed or something !
Chandni Chowk to China lives up to my expectations. I care shit about critics. Its easy to be a critic. You will get a full gamut of them in your office.
The police does something to combat terrorism and make the common man's life easy, instead of treating all common people like suspects.
Also I just don't get it. After each bomb scare the Traffic Police gets all pompous about PUC and NOC checks ! I wish they first learn to do their jobs and take traffic policing seriously, and be able to get better road sense into people.
People should become more helpful. Currently people just dont care. Yeah. someone will leave a comment that look at how helpful mumbaikars were after the blasts. My wish is different. I wish people were helpful without having blasts to wake them up.
I wish the MotoGP season rocks. I don't get turned on by the F1 cars, but the MotoGP is something I greatly like. Motorcycles in my blood you know. Which brings me to
the Indian motorcycle companies should launch some bikes in the 250cc segment. Currently we have low end bikes - think splendors, pulsars, or , very high end bikes - the R1, etc. I want something in the 2L bracket boasting a VTwin engine.
I wish the roads become better to run the above bikes on. :) . Also if the Traffic Police do their jobs, and get people to drive sanely, and not walk on the roads, it would be a pleasure to ride/drive your machine.
But people will walk on the roads. There are no footpaths . I wish that the municipal officers actually start thinking that unlike them in their govt cars, people do go about their day to day activities on foot or public transport. Heres a toast to footpaths and metro system in each city of India.
I wish we get a good leadership. Dr. M looks like a sweet man, but he is highly ineffectual. Does he ever talk ? Or is it Madamji doing all the talk ? I with for Rahul Gandhi to create his own party and getting younger and like minded people with him. Why are we ruled by people so old that if they were in a govt job they would be retired by now ?
I wish for politicians to get superannuated . Nobody above 60yrs should be allowed to run for a post.
I wish India become an economic superpower ! Ha ! If we are good in economy we don't have to worry about the world suffering economic crisis
I wish some great new game comes up which tears me away from World of Warcraft. Well, Diablo3 is slated to be out this year. Hoping for this one ;)
I wish BN becomes the best place for bikers in the world. But with the current website it has, not going to happen. Do you know anyone who can sponser my pay so i can sit and code ;)
I wish for some great movies from Bollywood which are hatke , like RockOn.
I wish for a mild summer. I don't want to get scorched. Anyone know if that would create problems with crops ?
I wish PMC does something about water problem. This region gets lots of rainfall, and yet we get water cuts and powercuts.
I wish people in India realize that being 1+ billion people is not an achievement to be proud of , but to be wary of. We have a limited set of resources.
I wish people stop living in the glory of the past, and start creating today's glory. Be a hero day should come into effect !

phew ! Ran out of breath. Whats your wish list ? :D

Happy New Year !

2008-12-31T12:47:00.002+05:30

Random thoughts on 2008

2008-12-30T18:45:00.000+05:30

Just a meangerie of thoughts on the year that was.

Bikes / Touring

My rides have gone down :( . Ridden only 2 overnight kind of rides this year. One to Guaghar and another to Dandeli with BN. BN now has grown to more than 800 people, and was featured on Yahoo group blog as well as bagging a most interesting group title at the Yahoo Moderators meet in Mumbai.

BN calendar for the year getting delayed :( . Since all activities are volunteer activities, it all depends on the amount of time people have. This year, we ran short of time.

Yamaha made a huge impact in the market with the launch of the R15 and the ZF16 bikes. Both have amazing build quality and look great too!

No new bikes in the highly anticipated 250cc sector. :'( . Bajaj was going to bring the Kawasaki Ninja 250, but with the worsening Economic scenario, those plans may never see the light of the day.

Gaming

On the gaming front , Crysis is probably the only FPS that i finished in less than a week. Amazing graphics ( well, my 8800GT helps ;) ), and a gripping storyline. Getting my cousin to leave the comp so i can play was the bottleneck ;)

My world of warcraft character reached level 80, taking only a month after the release of the WoTLK expansion. Levelling has become easy in WoW , and the new quest storylines are quite involved. For the indian players out there, you can either join Deathwing (FTH) or Frostmourne (FTA). At 80 usually one starts to raid - the most amazing experience of the game. But with work and home activities taking up most of my time, I doubt I will be raiding. Which may finally mean bye bye to WoW. I also created a google group wow-india , to find out if there are more nut-cases like me, and I was not disappointed.

Mass Effect looks to be like KoTOR saga. I have just played a bit - and it is nice. Not overly gripping.

The game which was the most different one i have ever played has to be Patapon on the psp. Just the concept is amazing. You need to take your army of 'eyes' and make them attack, defend etc based on drum beats. I don't know who was goofing off so much, but it sure was a good goof!

Politics

Obama became the first black president of the USA. It took them a lot of years to elect a black and they still haven't got a woman as president. Looks like the glass ceiling is still there. I don't mind , as long as the leadership is effective (which it wasnt in the last few years).

In indian pre-elections, people voted mostly for politicians who had been performing. Shela Dixit in Delhi for example - she got another term. People were complaing that people are still voting for the same party, but having seen the changes in Delhi in the last few years, I am with the verdict. Best roads in India, a good mass trasport system with the metro, to just name a few of the achievements under her rule.

Terror

The most graphic attack on India - at the Taj and Oberoi in Mumbai. It shook everyone up because , instead of being the usual bomb them and pick up the pieces, it was a long drawn out fight. It also showed that the police is quite ineffective , and the politicians will try to point the fingers anywhere. VilasRao was removed after public anger. Now the new minister is keen to keep out of sight.

War clouds gathered for a brief hours, but nothing has happened. Pak is good at political rhetoric.

Movies

Some good movies this year : Quantum of Solace, Rock On! , The Dark Knight

Some forgetable movies this year : transporter 3

Gadgets

Apple launched the iPhone in india. Costing 31k for the 8GB model, it is just outside the reach of most people. The device has amazing responsiveness - better than any other phone I have seen.

Google launched the first Android based phone. Waiting for this to become available in India.

Work

Not much to write about my work. Somehow another year goes by.

Economic situation crashed drastically. From the sensex being at 21k in Jan , down to 9k now. Major ripples due to the economic meltdown in the US. Hiring freezes almost everywhere. Which means that if you float your resume now, there is a slim chance of getting jobs, and the jobs that are tere , the big bosses squeeze you for the compensation given to you.

What else ? Do you have a vivid recollection of any event which I don't ?

Office ho to Aisa !

2008-12-30T10:24:00.002+05:30

Just going through my bloglist, and i see an update by Joel from FrogCreek, about their new office space. Man, I am simply blown away.

What kind of thinker are you ?

2008-12-28T23:32:00.001+05:30

Your Thinking is Concrete and Random

You are naturally inquisitive and curious.

You're excited by new ideas, and you are a true independent thinker.

You are interested in what is possible. You like the process of discovery.

You are often experimenting, challenging old ideas, and inventing new concepts.

Rules, restrictions, and limit don't really work for you.

You have to do things your own way, and you can't be bothered to explain yourself.

What Kind of Thinker Are You?

LvL 80 in world of warcraft

2008-12-22T19:10:00.002+05:30

My main character in world of warcraft reached lvl 80 today. This has so far been my fastest lvling. Probably it helped as I was already 70 and i was running with the wave ( though a bit behind due to office schedules) and also that the quests were very interesting.

Next on, to get to naxx raid.

check out the screenshots in my World of Warcraft blog.

Happy Holidays !

2008-12-19T15:09:00.000+05:30

This year, in office we have a year end break. Woowee ! unfortunately, it does not extend to the year end but only for the week of Christmas. Oh well. Whatever !

Happy Holidays !

A photo shoot

2008-12-15T11:06:00.002+05:30

Life changes as you go along. One moment you are the hothead creaming other bikers on the curves, the next moment you are labelled 'too slow' ! Hey ! Amazing how life changes. Gotta take that in your stride or else you start getting all broody about where you messed up , etc. etc. etc.

Work has been pretty hectic all through last year. Not much time for rides. A 3 day weekend window, i thought screw the work. I am going to relax. So the first call was for a meet for the BNers in Pune to just chit-chat over coffee.

That was where Nandu chipped in with an invite to take a few pics of 'Rash's Boys' over at lavasa on Sunday morning. Sure , I said, If I can get up :D

The plan was to meet at 8:30am at Chandni Chowk, which we did. Me, Nandu and Chinmay ended up there, and decided to push on before the RSA guys as I knew I was going to be slower than them. So, off we went.

Took the left turn just after Manas resort. The view was hazy. I thought to myself, how nice it would be if it was clear. Will make for some really nice pics, but the pollution was spoiling it.

Reached the base of Mutha Ghats and crested it - and presto ! Chinmay was no where in sight, and the air cleared up like magic. The Ghats act like a natural barrier to the pollution from Pune and surrounding areas. The Roads were great, but I went slow :)

Reached Lavasa, or rather stopped at the phatak. Nandu said we were to go back a bit for the photo shoot. So we turned back and met Chinmay. It seems he had stopped at the top of Mutha ghat... while we just swept on by.

As we were getting in positions and I was taking tips from Nandu, the RSA folks arrived.

Here's what nandu said to do for pan shots.

- keep aperture at f16. Uh ! my camera does not allow more than f8.

- keep shutter at 1/40 . ok. tried with that and f8. got a white screen . damn. a bit of trying on the locals going up and down and 1/100 was what worked out fine for me.

- keep pics in burst mode. Ok dokey. The first try got me nothing... the bikes were going off the screen ! So, switched to single photo mode.

and that what I tried all through out. The results as below :

Complete gallery on flickr.

I need moar muzik !

2008-12-09T13:11:00.004+05:30

I have a lot of junk songs. I am looking at getting some great songs. So, folks, what are your suggestions.

Things like aqua, madonna, micael jackson, eminem , I do not like

I like Linkin Park, Rammstein, Doors, Scorpions. As well as instrumentals ( think James Last and not Yanni), world music ( Enya, etc).

You get the general idea. Gimme your suggestions of the albums/songs you like.. i need to get some great music over the weekend :)

Thought for the Day

2008-12-05T11:42:00.001+05:30

Love your Job,
Not your Company

Pics from a peace march on 3rd Dec at Gateway of India

2008-12-04T18:29:00.007+05:30

Outrage against the politicians over the recent attack. I don't want to forward the emails I am getting, so I just uploaded it here.

At the end of it , I am not sure if all the demonstrations will help. Its just going to simmer down and die out.

Mumbai under attack

2008-11-27T12:23:00.002+05:30

Another terrorist attack.

But this time was different.

While the earlier ones were about bombs going off by a faceless association, this time it was like an assault - where you can see the people who were spreading the terror. While earlier it used to evoke images of people in your minds, this time you were seeing their faces for real.

My heart goes out to the people who died. They were from all walks of life - sucessful people to the waiters. People from all religions. My prayers for the departed.

What angers me more - at par at the anger for the terrorists , is the people from the media. I also label them as terrorists - as they are also spreading the terror by their non-sensical view of the situation - whether it be showing gory images or interviewing like a moron the people on the streets. Here's what was happening on Star News Hindi channel :

"Sir , what has happened here " - asks the reporter.

Are you stupid my mind screams. WhoTF made you a reporter. The building behind you is on fire. People have died. People are still hostages and you ask such a dumb question.

/disgust at the news channels.

Using spreadsheets for drawing.

2008-11-24T17:48:00.002+05:30

nice idea. use each cell as a pixel. Reminds me of the math copies we used to have in our childhood. I used some of them for pixelating a game i developed in my 10th class for the BBC micro. Similar stuff, but with 4 people collaborating.

Observation Powers

2008-11-21T15:36:00.001+05:30

This video is amazing. First seen on rearset.

Theological Interpretations

2008-11-21T11:30:00.001+05:30

Brahma : Systems Installation
Vishnu : Systems Administration & Support
Lakshmi : Finance and Accounts consultant
Saraswati : Training and Knowledge Management
Shiva : DBA (Crash Specialist)
Ganesh : Quality Assuarance & Documentation
Narada : Data transfer
Yama : Reorganization & Downsizing Consultant
Chitragupta : IDP & Personal Records
Apsaras : Downloadable Viruses
Devas : Mainframe Programmers
Surya : Solaris Administrator
Rakshasas : In house Hackers
Ravan : nternet Explorer WWWF
Kumbhakarnan : Zombie Process
Lakshman : Support Software and Backup
Hanuman : Linux/s390
Vaali : MS Windows
Sugreeva : DOS
Jatayu : Firewall
Dronacharya : System Programmer
Vishwamitra : Sr. Manager Projects
Shakuni : Annual appraisal & Promotion
Valmiki : Technical Writer (Ramayana Sign off document)
Krishna : SDLC ( Sudarshan Wheel Development Life Cycle )
Dharmaraj Yudhishthira : ISO Consultant (CMM level 5)
Arjun : Lead Programmer (all companies are vying for him)
Abhimanyu : Trainee Programmer
Draupadi : Motivation & Team building
Bhima : MAINFRAME LEGACY SYSTEM
Duryodhana : Microsoft product Written in VB
Karna : Contract programmer
Dhrutarashtra : Visual C++
Gandhari : Dreamweaver
100 Kauravas : Microsoft Service Packs and patches

Review : Dostana

2008-11-16T23:49:00.003+05:30

Watched Dostana yesterday.

Lots of bodies. Male bodies. Female Bodies.

Abhishek Bacchan learnt how to act. He is hillarious.

1st half is great. 2nd half dragggssss. . .

You can opt to see it or not see it. Wont make much difference either ways.

Chandrayaan I

2008-11-13T11:44:00.003+05:30

Amazingly, indian newpapers are not carrying this on their first pages. Where's the euphoria ? Is the scientist community so marketting starved ?

Take both TOI and HT main pages, can you see at a glance that Chandrayaan is now in moon orbit ?

This is a monumentous achievement for India. But instead of throwing the limelight on this, people are just not aware of it. Come on folks ! Cheer the mission !

And stop reading the stupid newpapers whose only concern is about what politics is going on or whats up in the Page3 space.

Weekend Frustrations

2008-11-10T09:44:00.002+05:30

Pune. What is happening to you ??

No electricity on the weekend. First sat - 1pm to 5:30pm. Then Sunday same time. Anyone following me on Twitter would have seen my inconsistent complaining about the lack of power on and off. I had thought that it would go away after the Youth Common-Wealth games , but the situation is not improving.

With no infrastructure projects for power generation in the future, the prospects look bleak here.

This has revised me on my ranking about the cities that I lived in . I now put Hyderabad above Pune in terms of ease for an outsider

Stressed for Time

2008-11-07T18:10:00.004+05:30

As people who know me know - I am crazy about 2 things in life ( apart from life and wifey :) ) - gaming and biking.

For biking I have the BikeNomads group. I am quite pleased about the group having grown so much. We had the 3rd annual meet this year in Dandeli. Check out the pics if you have not done so far. Then the assosication with Yahoo - being awarded as one of the most 'interesting' groups in the Moderators conference in Mumbai, and now the featured writeup on Y! Groups Blog. The next plans is to really work on the website and take the group to the next level - Making it easy for people to find groups to travel with.

The 2nd obsession is not that great going. If I had gone to USofA during/just after graduation, I know I would by now be a developer in a gaming company. That did not happen. So, I spend my time playing games . Here i have done 2 things.

- Started a google group for the players of World of Warcraft - but focusing on the Indian community. As of today 78 members.

- Started a game blog. Well, this blog was there for sometime, but it kind of felt limited. So, I have moved it from a specific character blog - to more to do with games in general. Please visit it and leave your comments there :) .

I really do not know how fast I will be updating the blogs - I am quite stressed for time ;-)

BN on Yahoo Groups Blog

2008-11-05T20:30:00.002+05:30

Woot !

Epic win ! :D

BN is now a featured group on the Yahoo Groups official blog for India.

More of the story at :

Presenting the BikeNomads

Please leave a comment on the writeup on Yahoo.