Raja Kumar

Krishnagiri KRP Dam

2009-10-14T15:16:00.006+05:30

Trip time:
1 day

Commute:
Bangalore - Hosur - Krishnagiri (~100kms)

Links:
http://www.krishnagiri.tn.nic.in/tourism.htm
http://www.krishnagiridistrict.com/krp.html
http://www.krishnagiridistrict.com/krp2.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thezionview/2539674209/

Best time to visit:
Post monsoon (Sep)

Review:
Krishnagiri KRP dam is a very small dam. It is located off NH-7 near krishnagiri. Ideal to visit for relaxation when you are en route to some other destination. There is also a park adjoining to the dam.

Photos:

Sluice gates

View from the dam

Algae

Desktop shot

On the dam

Rocky terrain

River

Daisy

Road around the dam

Head on

Panoramic view

Parking near IIMB Postoffice

2009-10-14T14:53:00.002+05:30

If you wish to use IIMB post office, earlier you have leave your vehicle on the road and pray for luck. This public office does not have a parking space and IIMB does not allow outside vehicles for parking inside the campus. There is a Nirmala Public Restroom facility with no parking space on the same road. Bangalore Traffic Police had been very prompt in towing your vehicle for the No Parking offense in these areas.

For once my luck did not favor me and I had to pay fine (Rs100) along with towing charges (Rs200) to traffic police. Now, there is parking sign near the post office. Wondering who woke the bangalore traffic police.

TATA Nano

2009-10-14T14:49:00.002+05:30

Spotted this blue TATA Nano in my native town. It was a sure shot head turner. Everyone passing by had a good look at the car. I just peeked inside to find that the car can accommodate 4 adults.

Jog falls

2009-08-13T19:37:00.010+05:30

Trip time:
2N/1D

Commute:
Bangalore - Shimoga - Sagara - Jog falls (~375kms)
Used KSTDC Tour package

Stay:
Hotel Shant - accommodation to refresh yourself in the morning

Links:
KSTDC website
This web page has the itinerary

Best time to visit:
Post monsoon (August)

Review:
This is the first time I used the KSTDC services. It is one of the care-free ways to visit Jog falls. I have quiet a lot of review to write about them.

First on the reservation. They have a website and online booking. Unfortunately, Jog falls tour package is not listed for online booking. One can book this tour package through various authorized agents or visit central reservation office at Badami House. Reservation at badami house is hassle free.

The KSTDC bus looked new and clean. We started sharp on time and was punctual through out the trip. KSTDC ran the tour even when the bus was not full (min 10 bookings required to run the tour). The accommodation arranged by KSTDC in Sagara for the morning refresh was below standards. The room was dinghy and smelly. Usually, 4 people are accommodated in a room. We stopped for breakfast at Sagara itself and the restaurant was below average.

Then we were taken to keladi temple, Jog falls - British bungalow view, Linganmaki dam view point and Jog falls main view. Lunch was at KSTDC Mayura restaurant which was again below normal. We started back to bangalore at 5:30pm and stopped for nice dinner at shimoga.

Photos:

Bus

Stay @ Sagara

Tank @ Keladi

Tank @ Keladi

Temple @ Keladi

Temple @ Keladi

Vegetation due to incessant rains @ Keladi

Mushrooms

British bungalow view

Main falls starting

Deep down end point

Misty flow

Rainbow

Entire falls

Mahatma Gandhi hydel power station

Raja, Rani, Rocker, Roarer view

View from bottom of the falls

Sheets of water

Google Maps mashup idea

2009-06-30T17:54:00.003+05:30

We all knew that Google Maps is an ideal tool for finding places, directions, terrain, traffic and street view. I regularly use Google Maps to find directions to drive and see street view to get accustomed with the route.

With the fundamental infrastructure in place, I am thinking, could we line up the street view photos and take users on a virtual drive along on the driving directions. Such a mashup should give a virtual tour of the route. It will easy drive on the route direction and locate landmarks along the route.

Such a mashup will entail lot of bandwidth to get all the photos along the route and the load on the server serving the photos will be high.

USB Write Protector

2009-06-23T18:21:00.005+05:30

There was a false alarm of virus infection in my SanDisk Cruzer micro USB drive. This triggered me to think how good it will be to have write protection (hardware) in the USB drive.

There were lot of software solutions to this. But the utility needs to be installed in all the computers from which you will access the USB drive. This makes the utility cumbersome to use and also reduces the USP of USB drives.

Iomega Select Portable HDD

2009-06-12T16:52:00.006+05:30

As part of 10 yrs of Iomega in India promotion, we were offered Iomega products at
33% discount from the MRP. There were additional discounts on certain products as well.

Most of the sale were related to portable HDDs. I picked up Iomega Select Portable HDD - 250GB drive. The Select range of portable HDD has fiber cover which offers better look, grip and static proof compared to aluminum casings in other ranges.

The HDD came with a USB cable and quick user guide. Iomega offered us Retrospect software as backup solution with 3yrs of extended warranty.

The portable HDD is pre-formatted for Windows and runs like a charm. The USB2.0 is real fast in copying the contents. The Select model has ventilation gaps for heat dissipation.

Jira Firefox Extension

2009-06-10T15:56:00.006+05:30

My office uses Jira as bug tracking tool. Quick search option in Jira is really useful to peak into the bug details when you know the bug ID. In my perspective, the deterrent to this feature is, one has start the browser, navigate to the jira site and then do a quick search.

To simplify, I developed a small firefox extension through which you can enter the bug ID and it directly takes you to the bug page.

In the course of this, I got a few good links to firefox plugin development.

Firefox Extension Devlopment
XUL Controls - MDC

If you are interested in the extension, pls leave a comment.
Note: This extension is not generic enough to support all Jira deployments.

Onion Pakoda

2009-06-08T13:45:00.005+05:30

Something crispy, spicy and hot to munch on a chilly-drizzling monsoon evening always tickles the taste-buds. Tried onion pakoda on a such occasion this week.

Mix
(Onion, Coriander leaves, Bonda mix, salt to taste)

Fry

Ready to serve

Connecting multiple monitors to laptop

2009-06-05T18:03:00.004+05:30

It is widely acclaimed that having multiple monitors increases the productivity. One gets wider viewing area and having different applications opened in the monitors helps you to concentrate and work better. I had been toying with this idea for a while and seem to reap some benefits.

Hardware setup
Dell D630 laptop
Dell Docking station (model: PR01x)
Two 19' Dell monitors

Software setup
Win XP
Multimon

Connection
Use the usual VGI video cable to connect first monitor.
Use the DVI cable to connect the second monitor.
The docking station should have support for DVI port.

Configuration
Now, you need to configure your OS to use two monitors.

With Win XP, Go to Display Properties and attach the second monitor.
Identify and check both the monitors
One can swap the monitor position on the Display properties window to suit your monitor placement
Install MultiMon (freeware) to get the Taskbar on the second monitor

Other Resources

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307873
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/northrup_multimon.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-monitor

NH7

2009-06-04T17:31:00.006+05:30

NH7 (bangalore to salem) is completely four lane now. I have been able to consistently do bangalore - salem(200kms) in 3hrs 15mins.

Driving the Krishnagiri - Thoppur section is a bliss now. This road section is build and maintained by L&T. Rs 48/- is the toll charges for cars. They have user amenities like restrooms, emergency communication systems, patrols and ambulances available at the disposal.

Pink Pearch Fish Fry

2009-06-01T17:42:00.005+05:30

This happens when the culinary mood kicks in during the weekend.

Adopted recipe from here.

Apply masala on pink pearch.
(Grind soaked rice, soaked red dry chili, green chili, coriander leaves, mint leaves, clove, garlic, pepper, tomato and salt to taste)

Leave it to dry for a while

Fry it with little oil

Fry on both sides

Garnish to serve

Belandur Railway Station

2009-06-01T17:37:00.003+05:30

A very quiet deserted railway station.

Single railway line
Only 2 or 3 passenger trains stops here

Innovative Film City

2009-04-28T17:56:00.008+05:30

Trip Time:
1 Day (10am to 7pm)

Commute:
Bangalore - Bidadi (~50kms)
Take the Bangalore Mysore state highway. After Eagleton resort diversion, look for Bidadi Industrial estate diversion on the left. The route to the place is well marked.

Links:
www.innovativefilmcity.net

Attractions:

Funplex - has a 4D theater
Ripleys Believe It or Not
Mirror Maze
Bungy Jump (different kind)
Miniature City
Wave Pool
Go Karting
Wax Museum
Haunted Mansion (but haunted by nothing)
Fossil Museum
Dinosaur Kingdom (for kids)
Host of other kids games

Review:
I felt the tickets are pricey as either you have get a combo ticket or pay for each attraction as you visit. Individual attractions are priced on higher side and easily this will set you back by 1000Rs per head.

Photos:

Main Entrance

Entrance @ night

Market Street

Classics @ Ripley's

Mirror Maze

View of the film city

Light house @ Miniature city

Falls @ Miniature City

Go-Karting Track

Laptop battery life

2009-02-12T14:54:00.003+05:30

The new generation laptops use Li-ion batteries for the power. I have observed that these batteries go defunct within a short time (~1 to 2 years) based on the usage.

As per my usage characteristics, I was assuming that the laptop remains hooked to the docking station most of the time and the discharge cycle from the battery is very low. Very rarely the battery gets discharged completely. And thus this affects the battery life.

On reading a few articles, it seems that Li-ion batteries does not suffer from the "memory" effect. But rather the heat generated from the laptop is the one that reduces the life span of the battery. More over these kind of batteries has the aging effect.

If you use keep your laptop hooked to docking station most of the time and have a reliable UPS backup, then remove and store the battery in a cool place to get most out of it.

Googling glitch

2009-02-02T10:34:00.003+05:30

On Saturday night IST, when I was searching for something in Google, all the results churned out of google had a warning and the link did not pass through. I had very little suspicion on google. I overruled the warning in certain cases as I was trying to load pages from wikipedia.

Finally the news turned out to be a google glitch. This reminds me the horror stories of hi-fi science fiction movies, where the computer takes control of everything and restricts/controls access.

Blogger with word verification

2009-01-27T17:01:00.004+05:30

Google's Blogger use to have word verification for the posts. When you create / edit a post, the word verification has to be done before publishing the changes. Though it prevents the spamming of the system, some times it is cumbersome to understand the words shown for the verification.

Apart from the sheer lengthy words, the display use to be convoluted which increases the frustration. Off late, I see blogger has removed word verification and does auto save as draft. Way to go!

Finally, I figured out that word verification gets shown for a blog that gets classified in spam category (because of the high number of posts). However my blog turned out to be false positive. Over a period of time (and some tune up to the algorithm), gave a clean chit to my blog . Hence no more word verification.

Bye Bye Side Middle Berth

2009-01-27T12:53:00.004+05:30

Over last year, Indian railways came up with the ambitious plan to increase the number of berths in trains to increase the revenue. To cut costs, they came up with the innovative idea of having side middle berth (SMB) concept.

This concept was flawed in many ways.

Did not give due consideration for comfortable travel
Getting in and out is difficult
For day time travel, the person with SMB ticket has to share his place in the other side coup
The booking system could not be updated with SMB option

There were lot of complains about this SMB approach. Finally the railways gave up the idea this year for the benefit of the people.

Hampi Trip

2009-01-06T18:59:00.011+05:30

Trip time:
2N/3D

Commute:
Bangalore to Hospet - Hampi Express
Hospet to Hampi (14kms) - local autowala (haggle for ~100Rs)

Stay:
Ranjana Guest House, Hampi (~1000Rs for a day)

Links:
www.hampi.in

The best website to know all about hampi. Has extensive details on all aspects.

Best time to visit:
Winter season (rest of the year, it will be hot)

Itinerary:
Day 1:
Cover the sacred part of hampi
Virupaksha temple, Hemakutta hill, Vitalla temple, Kadalekalu Ganesha, Sasivekalu Ganesha, hampi bazaar and adjoining areas

One can do this section by walk. Otherwise could hire an auto or moped to do a tour.

Day 2:
Tungabadra dam (5 kms from Hospet) and Royal Enclosure section of hampi
Underground Shiva temple, King's palace, Noble men's quaters, Queen's palace, Queen’s bath, Lotus Mahal and Elephant Stable

Need an auto / moped to cover this part.

Day 3:
Krishna Temple, Lakshmi Narasimha and Virupapur Gadde (other side of TB river)

Can hire a bicycle or by walk.

Review:
Hampi is a historical site. Prepare yourself to face rocks, boulders, stones, carvings, dilapidated temples and ruined palaces. The scared section of hampi and bazaar are infected by local tourists and looks in bad shape. Rest of the places are less crowded (comparatively).

Prepare yourself for a basic stay and facilities. Hampi is still a village with lot of foreigners. Being a typical tourist place, arm yourself to fight against getting cheated at all the places.

Photos:

Virupaksha temple

Dilapidated mantap @ Hemakutta hill

Bazaar @ Virupaksha temple

On way to vittala temple

Vittala temple gopuram @ dusk

Vittala temple

Musical pillars @ vittala temple

TB river enroute to vittala temple

TB river enroute to vittala temple

Postcard shot of boulders

TB dam

From the gardens @ TB dam

Underground shiva temple

Ruined noble mens quaters

Near King's palace

Ruined mahal @ dusk

Stepped tank

Another monument

Lotus mahal

Elephant stable

Lakshmi Narasimha

Airtel misuses Cell Info

2009-01-05T17:52:00.004+05:30

Another bashing at Airtel.

Cell Info is provided to notify the users about the cell (tower) to which the phone is hooked at the moment. But most of times in Airtel, I see ads running in that.

Hope TRAI notices this and takes evasive action. This is kind of thrusting ads to your phone without your consent.

Digital fuel gauge

2009-01-05T17:45:00.003+05:30

How about having digital fuel gauge to neutralize the rampant fuel theft by pump operators?

The recent cars displays predictions on the odo, about the distance the car can go with current fuel quantity in the tank. Then why not have digital fuel gauge. Before refilling, note how much fuel is in your car's tank. If you add 10 lts of fuel, check whether it reflects in your odo.

This will prevent fuel theft by the pump operators.

Where am I? - mobile service to find location

2009-01-05T17:31:00.003+05:30

Wish to start the new year with an idea!

Last week when I was traveling in a train during night, wanted to find out where am I? The best tool I had was my mobile. Tried 'Cell Info', but found advertisements from the cell phone service provider or some location name which was difficult to identify (say like EB Bhavan, CHB colony).

How about having a "Where am I?" mobile based location service. Send a SMS request and you will get a short map with the cell location. For revenue purpose, the reply can include local hotels/restaurants (more like Google Map search).

This might not be as accurate as GPS enabled service. Since the location could be on the border of the cell or there could be overlap of the signals from different cells.

End of KPN monopoly?

2008-12-11T16:48:00.000+05:30

I have a couple of posts on the KPN monopoly practices and their callous attitude towards customer and their comfort.

Against KPN
KPN monopoly rant

There was a situation where there seems to be no end to this.

Finally, there is some competition in this area now.

ABT Travels
ARC Travels

Both these guys are conglomerates with long time service in handling parcels. They have started their tour operations recently.

A refreshing change to a normal whining travel. Their buses are brand new and all are air conditioned. Secondly their charges are very fair and way cheaper than KPN volvo charges. More importantly they have decent facilities at their depots and depart in time.

Time for KPN to change or perish.

Airtel Customer Care

2008-12-11T11:11:00.001+05:30

It is not worth saying that Airtel customer care (ACC) has still room to improve, rather they have a big warehouse to improve. Exactly, a lot more is desired from their pathetic customer care. For the same issue, every time I heard a different story.

Issue:
Wanted to change my tariff plan to corporate scheme

ACC Executive 1 says:
Need your corporate employee ID copy
Latest Pay slip
Introduction letter from HR

ACC executive 2 says:
Need your corporate employee ID copy
Latest Pay slip
Introduction letter from HR
Clear all your outstanding dues and unbilled amount through Airtel Relationship Centers (ARC)

ACC executive 3 says:
Nothing required. Corporate employee ID copy is sufficient but send a mail from your official mail ID.

With ACC executive 4 in ARC
With Corporate employee ID copy, I could change my plan (effective with in 48hrs)

Belur Halebidu Trip

2008-12-08T13:21:00.003+05:30

Trip time:
1 day (from 6am to 10pm)

Commute:
Qualis

Route:
Bangalore - Neelamangala - Hassan - Belur - Halebidu - Hassan - Sharavanabelagola - Neelamangala - Bangalore (Mangalore route NH 48)

Both Belur and Halebidu has ancient temples build in Hoysala architecture. The temples are famous for their intricate artwork using soap stones. The temples were latter destroyed during the invasion.

Sharavanabelagola hosts the monolithic stone statue of Gomateswara.

Links:
Previous visit post is here

Photos:

Chennakeshava temple @ Belur

Post @ belur temple

panaromic view of temple complex

Kalasam

Beautiful sculptures

Carved posts

Carvings @ temple entrance

Eg of intricate carvings

One more example

Closeup

perspective view

Hoysaleshvara temple @ Halebidu

Inside Hoysaleshvara temple

Carvings @ entrance

Example of intricate carvings

Roof carvings

Profile view

View from hill top @ Sharavanbelagola

Stupa on sunset

Gomateswara statue

Finally Airtel budges

2008-12-05T18:16:00.000+05:30

I have been whining about the lackluster response from Airtel on competitive mobile tariff plans. Finally Airtel has come up with a relatively competitive plan to Vodafone's corporate plan.

Monthly rental : 199Rs
CLIP - waived off

CUG - Local - Unlimited

Local
Airtel - Airtel - 0.20
Airtel - Ohters - 0.40
Airtel - landline - 0.60

STD
Airtel - Airtel - 0.50
Airtel - Ohters - 0.75
Airtel - landline - 1.00

Vodafone has similar tariff at lower rental of 175Rs.

Wayanad Trip

2008-11-26T14:49:00.005+05:30

Over last weekend we did a 3 day trip to Wayanad. In a nut-shell it was an awesome place to be at. For a travel buff, the place gives you all the varieties.

Stay:
Stream Valley Cottages

(This resort offers very comfortable and peaceful stay amidst a stream. This resort is not a very posh property but offers very good VFM. There is no restaurant in the resort but they have a kitchen to serve the guests. There are other restaurants in the vicinity if you would like to taste the local authentic food.)

Commute:
Swift

Route:
Bangalore - Mysore - Nanjangud - Gundalpet - Sultan bathery - Kalpetta - Vythiri
750kms (both to and fro with local roundup)

Places to see:
Must see sites...

Pookot lake
Valley view
Chembra peak trek
Soojipara falls
Edakkal caves

Photos:

Bandipur reserve forest route

Golden chariot

Cottage

Evening in pookot lake

Water Lily

Picturesque Pookot lake

Valley view point

Dawn in the valley

Chembra peak panaromic view

Misty mountains

Rustic view in chembra estate

Photos from the trek

Tea estate enroute to falls

Soojipara falls

Edakkal caves

Pre-historic carvings in Edakkal caves

Feature Request in MS Outlook

2008-11-11T14:18:00.000+05:30

I manage my official mails in MS Outlook. I have setup "Rules" to move the messages from my Inbox to designated folders. Apart from these rule based categorization of mails, I have certain manual categorization as well (done at the end of completion of tasks in those mails).

Request for feature:
When a new mail arrives with the earlier categorized mail subject, there should be an indication in the Inbox that earlier mails with this subject has been categorized in a particular folder. This way I could get

I could get related mails easily
I can perform manual categorization easily

Chidambaram Trip

2008-10-30T18:56:00.001+05:30

So after a long gap I did a trip to Chidambaram.

How to reach:
Rail: Mysore - Mayiladuthurai Express. Chidambaram is ~45kms from Mayiladuthurai

Places to visit:
1. Natarajar Temple
2. Pichavaram (Mangrove forest)

Photos:
Shot from train

Postcard shot

Temple entrance

Another entrance (four entrances all look alike)

Inside the mangrove forest

One more shot inside the forest(~3000 acres and 4000 odd canals)

One of the main canal connecting to sea

At dusk

Bird's view of the mangrove forest

KPN monopoly rant

2008-10-30T18:07:00.001+05:30

I really feel mundane to rant about the pathetic transport service run by KPN and their sheer monopoly. I happened to recently travel to Erode in their day service bus (as it was the only last resort left with me). The bus was scheduled to depart at 3:00 pm (as per the ticket) from Bommanahalli boarding point. (Read it in sarcastic tone) To much of my surprise the bus arrived promptly at 5:00 pm. The boarding point office lacks all the basic passenger ammenities which one gets in decent bus-stand.

The bus started around 5:15pm and snailed to Hosur around 6:30pm and then reached Salem around 10:30 pm. The bus did not stop anywhere for dinner. Shortly after departing Salem, the bus got a flat tyre. I had to abandon my plan of reaching Erode and had to alight at Sangakiri at 11:45 pm.

Travel time from Bangalore to Sankagiri: 11hrs 15 mins

How good bus service after paying a premium?

Highlight:

No restroom facility at Bommanahalli boarding office
No Dinner stop
No Restroom stop
Bus did not had a torch / search light. (I had to lend my mobile light to help the crew rectify the flat tyre)

Is there any other bus service to Erode / Salem apart from KPN that does have decent service?

Yelagiri Trip

2008-05-13T18:31:00.001+05:30

There is very good information on the web about this small hill station. It is a budding tourist place and yet to fully commercialized.

Website:
http://www.yelagirihills.com/how_to_get.htm

How is the ride?
One will enjoy the cruise along the highway NH7 till Krishnagiri and then the Chennai - Bangalore Highway till Vanniyampadi. From there the State Highways are good. The Ghat section road is much better will solid embankments on the side.

How is the stay?
There are quite few accomplished names here. But just do not go by their name.

The following accomodations are good, but they cost around Rs1500 + Taxes per night for a room

Sterling Resorts
Hotel Hills
Silent Water Retreat
O'Nila

There are other modest hotels like

Hotel Madhura
Hotel Nigress
Hotel Yelagiri

I feel there are no good restaurants around. I tried with Hotel Nigress and Hotel Hills restaurant, both are decent.

What to see?
Nothing big and fancy to see there. Enjoy the village atmosphere. Still the following are the some places that you can visit around.

Boating on the lake and Park (Go for a evening boat ride, gate closes by 6 PM.)
Swamimalai Trek (Start early in the morning around 7 AM. The trek should take aroung 3 to 4 hrs. Climb up the hill will be really tiresome)
Nilavur boating (a very small tank with boating amenity)
Telescope View point (Nothing great but fun to act like a child. You get good view of plains)

Important points:
Carry enough cash, No ATMs and No Credit Card acceptance anywhere
Fill up the fuel at the base, there is no petrol outlets on the top of the hill

Things to buy:
Honey and Jack fruit

Photos:

Yelagiri is an ideal place to get out hussle-bussle of the city life and enjoy some rustic village atmosphere. Do not excpet any good amenities there. Keep your expectations low on this place.

Logitech optical mouse

2008-05-12T19:47:00.000+05:30

For persons like me who spend day in and day out using computers, ergonomics is a MUST HAVE. If one does not pay enough attention to these issues, you will end up with RSI. Mouse, Keyboards and Monitors are primary tools that should adhere to ergonomics.

I have a DELL D620 at workplace and the DELL Mouse that comes with the laptop is quite huge and heavy to use. I always end the day with a slight niggling pain the hand.

On diagnosing that heavy mouse is the cause for the pain, I changed it to Logitech Optical Mouse. It costs around Rs 400/- in the market and it is pretty light to use.

Reliance Unlimited STD

2008-05-12T19:26:00.000+05:30

I have been off from posting for a while. Had been a heck-a-lot of busy these days. I have collected a host of topics to write.

Reliance Communications has once again proved to be pioneer in the tariff reductions for mobile. With the TRAI reducing the ADC (access deficit charge), the price war started off once more.

Reliance came pounding with Unlimited STD calls for 496/= per month plan within reliance network. Airtel is still miles behind. They have just announced Rs 1.50 per minute for a STD call. It is compelling for users like me who spend hefty on STD calls. It is very tempting to switch to Reliance given that the number portability is there.

Lookout - MS Outlook Search Plug-in

2008-03-13T15:03:00.000+05:30

For a long time, I was looking out for a simple search option for MS Outlook 2003. I could not convince myself to use some desktop search tool. I felt that most of the desktop search tools are CPU hungry and could slowdown your system at critical junctures. Finally had time and energy to find the search plug-in.

Lookout
“Lookout is a lightning-fast search for your email, files, and desktop works with Microsoft Outlook. Built on top of a powerful search engine, Lookout is the only personal search engine that can search all of your email from directly within Outlook - in seconds. You can use Lookout to search your: Email messages; Contacts, calendar, notes, tasks, etc.; Data from exchange, POP, IMAP, PST files, Public Folders; Files on your computer or other computers.”

History
Microsoft bought this company way back in 2004 and started un-supporting it. So today to get this plug-in you have rely on third-party web-archives.

Disclaimer
There is no support for this plug-in. So use your own discretion.

Download URL
http://web.archive.org/web/20060831223528/http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/download.html

References
http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2004/07/26/microsoft-lookout-for-outlook/
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/04/19.html

Canon Powershot A720IS dpreview

2008-01-10T12:00:00.000+05:30

After 6 months from its launch, Canon PS A720IS has got a dpreview. It has got a score of 8.0/10 which is not bad. Found the reason behind slow flash recycle, obviously it is because usage of only 2 AA batteries (instead of 4).

2008-01-04T17:12:00.000+05:30

Beginner's DSLR Buying Guide by David Sifry

My Favourite SE K550i themes

2008-01-02T18:08:00.000+05:30

With the possession of SE K550i phone, I had been using ESATO to get themes for it.

My Favorites: (Not in any order)
1. BMW
2. Sun Flower
3. Guitar
4. Seastar
5. Swimming Cow

2007 Blog stats

2008-01-02T18:02:00.000+05:30

It has been more than 2.5 years I had been blogging. In terms of blogging, Year 2007 seems to be a big achievement. This blog had three folds increase in page loads and unique visitors. Hope to continue the same trend in the upcoming year. Happy New Year to everyone!

Scorpio VSeries with Cruise control

2007-12-21T12:15:00.000+05:30

The famous Mahindra Scorpio had a new launch called VSeries with advanced engine and feature. Out of the packed hi-tech features , Cruise control is one.

If you read wikipedia pages, Cruise control system is used to automatically maintain constant speed. It is useful for long drives across sparsely populated roads.

A couple of question to the makers -

Do we get to see any sparsely populated roads in India?
Are there any highways in India where you can cruise uninterrupted?

Answer to the questions will be obviously a big NO. Then why this feature? Is this just to increase the price value?

Photography competition

2007-12-06T16:46:00.000+05:30

As a part of annual day celebrations at my work place, a Photographic competition was conducted. I was more than happy to participate and show some of my good photos.

Interesting facts that I observed are that there are lot of enthusiastic shutter bugs in-house. Most of them own and use a DSLR (either Canon or Nikon).

Withering Flower

Coffee Estate

Butterfly Solo

Dilapidated Fort

Kaup Beach

Light Rays

Misty River

Spider Web

Shades of Green

Flower

Honey Bee

Sloppy Billa music review on Rediff

2007-11-29T17:48:00.000+05:30

Rediff has published music review of "Billa (new)" by Pavithra Srinivasan.

Frankly, the review sucks big time. Personally I didn't like any of songs of Billa. The review has given a 4 star. The review seems pretty much exaggerated.

How is public money spent in Karnataka

2007-11-27T16:14:00.000+05:30

From the rediff article on how the public money gets wasted by the so-called elected politicians...

"A political crisis is viewed as disastrous in terms of development of the state. Investors are scared to invest, projects hang in balance thus giving the people an additional headache. However if there is someone who is happy is the old car dealer.

Thanks to unstable governments and new netas occupying the chair every now and then due to political instability, 125 official cars have been auctioned off.

The reason -- new ministers refuse to use the cars used by their predecessors for superstitious reasons."

"Each time the government changes, the state coughs up at least Rs 10 crore on new cars, sources said."

"The maintainence of the cars used by all the ministers comes up to a whooping Rs 3.5 crore a month."

Source: Rediff news

Aquaguard - Another bashing at their poor service

2007-11-20T16:44:00.000+05:30

When you are a proud owner of any of the aquaguard water purifiers, you ought to face the shoddy customer service. I have inova model and this is my experience.

1. On the first year of the product, you are deemed to get free service every 6 months. This won't happen automatically with aquaguard, you have to remember your service cycle and pester them repeatedly to get their attention.

2. The service guy has inadequate knowledge about the parts and has to get telephonic support

3. Better be vigilant while the service guy performs the service. In my case, we found that the filter is broken, the service guy notified that to us. Then he spoke to his manager and reverted back saying that the filter is normal. On pushing, we found that he has been asked by his manager to tell so. Secondly he promised us to replace the filter and later we found out that his intention was to replace using a used spare filter. On being adamant of getting a fresh filter, he promised one by pulling it out of a fresh product.

4. Service guy has no tools. He doesn't carry any plumbing tools.

Any reviews on how the Philips Water purifier is performing?

Only at bangalore

2007-11-13T16:44:00.000+05:30

You get to see this only in bangalore, when you travel to Residency Road via Double Road, there is a flyover and right on the middle of the flyover is a traffic signal.

Doesn't it sound beating basic purpose of having a flyover?

Coorg

2007-11-05T17:05:00.000+05:30

I wanted to visit Coorg (aka Scotland of India) for a long time. Finally I made it with a 3-day trip. For this trip I made self-arrangements for stay and commute (Guys, if you want to know the contacts, get in touch).

Stay:
Home stay @ Temple view estate
(The ideal choice will be a nice home stay in a reclusive coffee estate. But there are plenty in Coorg in various tariff ranges)
The host were very cordial and friendly. They served us a very sumptuous breakfast and dinner.

Commute:
Indica
(It is better to have a car at your disposal)

Route:
From Bangalore - Mercara is around 250kms.
Bangalore - Srirangapatna - Ranganthittu - Hunsur - Mercara
I stayed in Biramada (near Ammathi). So I took a diversion after Hunsur that takes me to Virajpet.
Places to see:
Coorg is a district and there are lot of places to see. Mercara is the capital.

Mercara:

Abby Falls
Raja Seat

KushalNagar:

Nisargadhama is place where cauvery forks and rejoins to create a small island with bamboo forest
Golden Temple - It is in Tibet settlement area. The temple has a 62ft Buddha statue covered with gold plates.
Harangi Dam - Huge dam with a span of ~2500m across cauvery. This has very nice view.

Dubare:
Dubare Elephant camp is place where the elephants are tammed and trained. You have to cross the wild cauvery river to reach the camp.

Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary:
En route you can spare some time to do bird watching

More info:
TravelCoorg
CoorgTourism

Photos: (Canon PS A720 IS)

Estate house @ Temple View Estate

Withering flower @ Temple View estate

Flora @ Temple View estate

Flora @ Temple View estate

Pepper Plant @ Temple View Estate

Rain drops @ Temple View Estate

Rain drops @ Temple View Estate

Dew drops @ Temple View Estate

Coffee estate @ Temple View Estate

Coffee Estate @ Temple View Estate

Estate @ Temple View Estate

Private road at the estate

Coffee beans @ Temple View Estate

Raja Seat

Sun Set @ Raja Seat

Panaromic view @ Raja Seat

Dry Tree @ Raja Seat

Abby Falls

Abby Falls

Abby Falls (increased Shutter lag)

Big spider @ Abby falls

Another one @ abby falls

bamboo forests @ Nisarghadhama

Hanging bridge @ Nisarghadhama

Cauvery @ Nisarghadhamma

Harangi dam gates (closed)

Harangi Dam from longshot

Golden temple tower

Golden temple entrance

Buddha @ Golden Temple

Cauvery @ Dubare

Cauvery @ Dubare

Dubare Elephant camp

Cauvery @ Dubare

Birds @ Ranganthittu

Birds @ Ranganthittu

Lily @ Ranganthittu

Birds @ Ranganthittu

Canon Powershot A570 IS

2007-10-24T16:51:00.000+05:30

Canon Powershot A570 IS has been reviewed by dpreview.com (after a long time, since this camera was released sometime during Feb 2007 time). The verdict is that this camera packs a lot of features for a very lower price.

Cauvery Fishing Camp

2007-10-23T16:46:00.000+05:30

Last Saturday, our work team did a outing to Cauvery Fishing Camp, a fishing resort run by jungle lodges and resorts. It is located at about 100kms from Bangalore near Muttatti village. The camp is very calm and serene with lush green vegetation all around. One could hear the river flow sound all the time.

Day trip:
Rs 850 per head (includes lunch and high tea and activities)

Activities:
1. Trek to a near by peak (amazing view from the top of the hill)
2. Coracle ride on the river

Photos: (Canon PS A720IS)

Butterfly Macro

Tree in the water (long exposure)

River flow (long exposure)

Cauvery Panaromic

From the coracle

Dragonfly Macro

Eastern ghats Panaromic

Way to the camp

Lush Green

Reflections

Trek path

View from the peak

View from the peak

View from the watch tower at the peak

View from the watch tower at the peak

View from the watch tower at the peak

View from the watch tower at the peak

View from the watch tower at the peak

Kolam

2007-10-19T19:17:00.000+05:30

Kolam is one of the ways to accord a traditional welcome in South India. I found one such being done in the office.

Tips to copy preserving dir structure

2007-10-18T18:54:00.000+05:30

I had this weird requirement. I had to copy a set of different files from different directories from a source folder to a target folder and preserve the directory structure. For instance

Source File: c:\temp\test\abc.txt
Target Folder: e:\test

Copy the Source File into the Target folder preserving the dir structure. I need to achieve the following after copying
e:\test\temp\test\abc.txt

The best solution is to create a jar/zip file and keep on appending it with the file entries. Then copy the jar/zip file to target folder and extract the files. This will keep the directories preserved.

On the return journey

2007-10-11T17:09:00.000+05:30

On the way back to home from SFO, I had Powershot A720IS at my disposal. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

At Residence Inn:

Welcome to Residence Inn

Hotel entrance

Profile view

View right out at the hotel entrance

View from the hotel

Macro

Lane to the hotel

Pedestrian lane

SFO Airport:

Hallway to the Gates

Emblem on the floor

Wall Painting

Hongkong Airport:

Roof

Hallway to Gates

Infinite gates

Waiting Lounge

Macro

At Singapore:

Cable car to Sentosa Island

View from the cable car

View down from the cable car

Vivo City

Dirty Politics

2007-10-09T16:09:00.000+05:30

Everyone knew about the political turmoil that was going on in Karnataka. JD(S) dishonored the pact with BJP that they entered about 20 months back to form the coalition government.

If JD(S) can cheat a major political party, think about what they will do to common man. I am not taking sides. But what will common man get from the government formed by such political parties. They change their stand so often that no one could rely on them. Still they are voted to the Legislative Assembly. Isn't that a shame for India and Politics practiced in the country?

Canon Powershot A650 IS service note

2007-10-09T10:46:00.000+05:30

Canon Powershot A650 IS is one of the recently launched powershot series camera. This camera came along with A720 IS (the one which I bought). There is a service note from Canon today on A650 IS.

Canon has identified a light leak affecting a limited number of its Powershot A650 IS cameras. The affected cameras have a zero as the fifth digit of their serial numbers and Canon have pledged to repair them at no charge via their local factory service centers.

More details over here.

Buying electronic goods from US

2007-09-28T11:35:00.000+05:30

Apparently electronic and computer related stuffs are relatively cheap in US. More over one gets the latest version in US before being available in other regions. Certainly there are differences in standards followed in US and in other parts of the world. This post tries to capture those differences and ways to bridge those standards.

1. Input Voltage

US standard: 120 v 60Hz
Indian standard: 240v 50Hz

Input voltage standard is completely different. In order to match this up, one need to use a step down transformer. The transformer should be capable of handling the wattage. If the transformer couldn't handle the wattage, then it starts warming up. Sometimes if the transformer is not of good quality, you could see output voltage fluctuations which apparently could harm your delicate electronic stuff, or cause other repercussions like poor performance.

Recommendation:
Try to have a transformer which has a wattage of 40 to 50% more than the required wattage. For instance, if your equipment requires 110v x 0.4A, then don't plug it using a 50W transformer, instead use 100W transformer.

2. Pin format

The Pin format between US and India are incompatible. However the alternate is to use the Pin converter. Try using Flat to Round model.

3. DVD Region

DVDs created/bought in US will be encoded to Region 1. Similarly the players bought in US will only support Region 1. If you have to use it in India, check if the player supports multi-region. Or else if there is anyway to change the default region.

4. Wireless standard

In India, the wireless standard that we have are IEEE 802.11b and still we do have standard IEEE 802.11g standard widely available. So see that your device supports both.

Durabrand DVD-1002 Player

2007-09-27T12:04:00.000+05:30

If you are looking for a small no-frills sub 30$ DVD player, then this is the one. I needed one as a stop gap solution. I heard that Durabrand is a Walmart product and you get better deals in Walmart compared to any other place. Though there are other brands (Magnavox, Coby) available, I settled for this one for two reasons

Build Quality is superior (on comparison to Magnavox)
It had all the basic features that I want.

Specs:

Progressive scan
Plays DVDs, audio CDs, MP3 CDs, CD-R, CD-RW, and picture CDs
Stereo audio/video outputs, coaxial digital, S-Video & progressive scan outputs
Built-in dolby digital decoder
Top loading DVD player

Input Voltage:
120v 15W (Need a voltage converter to use in other regions)

The form factor is very small and has all function remote. This player has a top open slot which I dislike a bit (if you want to put it in a small place, the tray loading will be better).

By default this player comes with Region 1 support. But you can do a simple hack to make it multi-region player. I tried with a badly scratched DVD R media and it played fairly well.

DLink WBR-2310 Router

2007-09-26T11:00:00.000+05:30

Broadband being no more fancy stuff, the next gadget to have at home is a WLAN Router. With a WLAN router, you can connect multiple PCs and Laptops to share the broadband connection. Secondly you are no more wired. You can roam freely within the router range and stay connected.

When I went for a WLAN router hunt, I ended up with DLink WBR2310 RangeBooster G Router.

Specs:

Supports both IEEE 802.11g and IEEE 802.11b standard
Supports 64/128-bit WEP and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK, WPA-EAP) for security of your network
+ rest all are standard features

Though in India we do not use 802.11g standard, the rangebooster should help (I guess). On the looks, the router is very sleek and aesthetic in design (in comparison to Linksys).

Setting up this router is like a breeze. First run the setup CD and follow the graphical illustrations. In my case I had a ADSL modem/router ahead of this router. So the default IP's didn't work. Had to find out which IP got assigned to this router. Rest all is like a cake-walk.

Canon Powershot A720 IS review

2007-09-25T11:56:00.000+05:30

I recently bought a Canon Powershot A720 IS camera. I am happy to grab this one when it just arrived in the stores. I had been waiting for its shipping right from when Canon announced this model in August. Earlier to this I almost zeroed on A570 IS. On comparison chart A720 IS faired a lot better compared to any other recent models in Canon Powershot series.

Specs:

8 MP
6x Optical Zoom
Digic III
ISO 1600
2.5" LCD screen
Face Detection
Image Stabilization
+ all the goodies of Powershot series (like Manual mode)

One feature which I like to have in this model, is the vari-angle LCD. But having a 2.5 LCD is worth a compromise for the smaller and bulkier vari-angle LCD panel.

Right at this moment this model gives you a better value for your money at USD249.

On Canon Website:
Powershot A720 IS

Sample Photos:
Flickr tag a720is

Accessories:
Along with camera it is good to buy the following accessories

SanDisk 2GB Ultra II SD card
Case Logic Medium camera case
Duracell NiMH Charger with 4 NiMH batteries

Previous to this camera I owned a Canon Powershot A70 camera. I had been using A70 for almost 4 years. I had some imaging issues with A70 and I got a free replacement of the CCD from Canon for the manufacturing defect.

As obviously A720IS is generations ahead to A70 in terms of image quality and responsiveness. Another peppy with A720IS is that it runs with 2 batteries compared to 4 required for A70.

P.S: I ate almost half (1 GB) the SD card within a day. Reckless snapping.

Canadian Choco

2007-09-15T04:32:00.000+05:30

Some Canadian Choco to munch...

Go Karting in US

2007-09-13T05:41:00.000+05:30

Went to Boomers Park in Livermore, did some Go Karting, Laser Tag and Kids play. Nice to act like a kid and play.

View from workplace

2007-09-12T05:52:00.000+05:30

Some more views that I daily enjoy from the workplace. Wondering when will I have something similar in India.

Time for mexican rice

2007-09-12T05:42:00.000+05:30

Lunched at Pronto Gourmet Burrito. Had Mexican rice with broccoli and mushroom.

Packed Mexican rice

Another shot.

House of Falafel - mediterranean cuisine

2007-09-11T12:25:00.000+05:30

Lunch at House of Falafel. It is a Mediterranean dish. From the Wikipedia, Falafel is usually served as a sandwich wrapped in pita bread, and outside the Middle East. See how it looks when served.

Livermore Balaji Temple

2007-09-10T10:57:00.000+05:30

Visited Livermore Balaji Temple. Quiet a good amount of US accent speaking Indian crowd. The route to Livermore is so picturesque with mountain ranges, dry grass and wind mills (sorry, no snaps). The community in Livermore is very peaceful. Obviously one would feel jealous of missing such a peaceful atmosphere.

You get a variety of prashadhams in the temple (apparently one could skip lunch/dinner by just having the prashadhams).

Temple Profile view

Entrance

Entrance

Another shot

Car park @ temple premise

Backyard

Prashadham tent

Backyard

Sunset from temple

Profile view

WalMart is made in China

2007-09-10T10:49:00.000+05:30

WalMart, the greatest retail chain, assures you "Always Low Prices!". They stand by this commitment. When I checked out their store in RosewoodDrive, Dublin, CA found that most of their electronics stuff is made in China. Apparels are from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and some middle-eastern and African countries.

SFO Trip 2007

2007-09-09T11:37:00.000+05:30

Happened to visit Market street, Bay Bridge and Fisherman's Warf in SFO over the weekend. Took Bart from Pleasanton to Civic Center and then took Muni to Bay Bridge. Used F lines to travel between Piers.

Downtown

Streets

Birds

Sea lions

Flower (macro)

Pier

Alcatrz

Skyscrapper lines

F Muni Lines

Streets

Fisherman's Warf

Alcatrz

Market street

Bay Bridge

Pier

Cruise liner with the bay bridge background

Bay Bridge

Bay Bridge

Bridge

Skyscrappers

Bridge

Port

Statue

Bay Bridge

Bay Bridge

SFO Skyscrapper

Views from office desk

2007-09-07T10:47:00.000+05:30

The scenic view of hill ranges from my office desk is really enchanting. Sometimes my thoughts wander around the quality of life one gets in US and the lifestyle in US. I try to weigh the Indian life and US life. Which is better? Where is the balance?

From my work desk

Desk view

Fountain

Building where I work

Lunch - American style

2007-09-07T10:31:00.000+05:30

When you stay in USA, be like an American. For lunch, had a Mexican veg burrito.

Veg Burrito & Diet Coke

Veg Burrito & Diet Coke

Way to Bernal plaza

Bernal Plaza Sign board

Some more eateries

There are two Mexican restaurants, two Chinese and one Persian restaurant in this plaza. It seems there was a Indian restaurant which eventually got closed a couple of weeks back.

Marriott Residence Inn Pleasanton

2007-09-06T09:06:00.000+05:30

I am having a pleasant stay in Marriott Residence Inn Pleasanton. You can get the hotel fact sheet from their website. You get complimentary breakfast and dinner in this hotel. Also you get a shuttle service which drops you at office within a 5 mile radius. You get the groceries delivered at your room.

The studio room has a furnished kitchen, along with the standard guest room amenities.

Some photos from the hotel.

Hotel entrance

At the hotel entrance

At the entrance

Living room

Bed

Kitchen

BBQ

Pool and Spa

Indian Infrastructure - a distant dream

2007-09-05T19:19:00.000+05:30

Beginning this week, I am on an official visit to US. The route is to fly via Singapore, Seoul and SFO. At all these places the airports are true in class, in terms of space, architecture, cleanliness and facilities for passengers. The photos speaks for themselves.

Planes parked in SQ Changi Airport

Runway view of SQ

Travelers Lounge in SQ

SQ ready to handle A380

Lounge

Gateway

Dustbins in SQ

Gateway

Escalator

Reception in SQ

Gateway in Seoul

Escalator in Seoul

Lounge in Seoul

Runway in Seoul

This is the bird taking me from SQ to SFO

Flight SQ16 parked

Incheon Airport

Lounge

Korean Air

Panaromic view of airport

Way to go

SFO Airport Front view

BART in SFO

Now compare these with Indian airports. Are we anyway near? Having these kind of infrastructures in India seems like a distant dream.

Online Radio

2007-08-31T17:58:00.000+05:30

After the recent boring stint with local songs (mp3s in my local machine), switched to online radio.

RadioTime lists all the Online India Radio Stations
http://radiotime.com/region/c_100355/India.aspx

Some of the good tamil radios
Suryan FM - kelunga kelunga
Radio Of India -Tamil
Shyam Radio - Online Tamil FM Radio Station

The reasons behind switching over
1. Variety in content (mix of old and new songs)
2. Surprise element in what comes next

Do not leave ethics at home

2007-08-29T11:04:00.000+05:30

While discussing with my dad about the aspects of this materialistic world, he mentioned a couple of adages that he read in an article published in "The Hindu". The following is the excerpt of the complete article.

In today’s world there are seven deadly sins that mankind is witnessing. They are:

•politics without principle

•wealth without work

•pleasure without conscience

•knowledge without character

•business without morality

•service without humanity

•worship without sacrifice

The adage “People leave ethics at home when they move with world” is very apt today. Many refuse to adapt human values and culture. But, it is a proven fact that people who live ethical and moral lives are much happier than those who live without it.

People chase wealth. They show concern in accumulating wealth in their prime. But, in the later stages they end up using the entire wealth to restore their health. We do not realise that the most important asset in the world are our children. They bring meaning to one’s life. Parents should show some concern in grooming children in moral and ethical values, and not only in making money.

It is this that will make them succeed in their professional and personal life. Lack of ethics and morality have been major factors behind the downfall of many firms and corporates, in spite of them having excellent vision and mission.

It is in the hands of parents and elders to bring about the needed change in children and youth to make future generations strong in character. As Einstein said, “Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to be a man of human values”, children should be made to realise that only human and moral values preserve the culture of a country.

DR. K. ANANDAN

Reader and Head,
Department of Physics, NGM College,
Pollachi.

Appealing Home Food in Potluck

2007-08-29T10:56:00.000+05:30

A few months back a new restaurant got opened in our vicinity, named "Potluck". Yesterday took a chance to try out the dishes. As per their caption, "Home is where the food is...", the food really tasted like home made food. Less oily, not much spicy. The look of the food wont appeal like a rich dish, but simple and great!

http://www.potluck.in/

They serve authentic north indian food. Do home delivery.

(Note: Heard that this is run by a IIT-K graduate)

Downloading videos from internet

2007-08-21T13:27:00.000+05:30

A novel plugin with Firefox enables you to download the online videos from the video portals like Google Video, MySpace, YouTube, etc. The step by step procedure can be found in the following post.

http://www.gilsmethod.com/htdownloadvideosfromtheinternet

Original post:
http://www.dvdhelp.us/php/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=120&t=3910

Excerpt from the post:

1. Download & install Firefox (You need firefox for the extension to work)

2. Download & install the Video Downloader extension for Firefox (The video downloader extension allows you to save videos from popular websites like Myspace, YouTube, Google, and others.)

3. Download & install Media Coder (This encoder converts the video you download into .avi files which allow you to view and store them at your won discretion)

4. Find the video you wish to save. Once you are on the page click the Video Downloader Button in the bottom right part of your Firefox Browser window.

5. A window will pop-up. Click the button that says Download Link

6. When prompted select Save to Disk and then click OK

>>>>>Please note that if the file you download does not have the extension .flv, then rename the file and end the name with .flv <<<<<

7. Start up MediaCoder

8. Click on the I agree radio button and on the Skip Setup Wizard button, then close the window that appears after that.

9. Drag and drop the .flv files you downloaded into the large white area in Media Coder

10. Click on the Video tab in the lower left-hand section on the window and select XviD in the Format drop-down menu.

11. Click the large Start buttonon the top toolbar window to start transcoding your video.

12. When completed a window will propmt you saying that transcoding is completed, go your file's original location and an .AVI file shoudl be there with the same file name. Now you can play it with Windows Media or your favorite media player.

Googled

2007-08-10T14:43:00.000+05:30

Just after a few hours of posting about the Shivanasamudra falls trip, I could see my blog post listed in Google search results.

Shivanasamudra falls and Talakad Trip

2007-08-10T12:13:00.000+05:30

Over the last weekend, as a mark of celebrating the friendship day, 8 friends hit the road to Shivanasamudra falls and Talakad. This trip which started as a pre-planned trip ended up in a real adventure due to bad roads.

Route:
Bangalore - Kanakapura - Malavalli - Shivanasamudra - Talakkad - Malavalli - Maddur - Bangalore.
Total distance: 300Kms
Food:
Breakfast - Kanakapura
Lunch - packed home food
Dinner - Maddur Tiffinys

Trivia:
For around 80 kms the road is in real bad condition. Completely dug up. We could barely manage an average of about 20 kms/hr.

Photos (Shot using SE K550i)

(Gaganachukki and Bharachukki falls)

(Gaganachukki and Bharachukki falls)

(Riverflow)

(Gaganachukki and Bharachukki falls)

(Gaganachukki and Bharachukki falls)

(Gaganachukki falls)

(Pit stop for lunch - in a school ground en route to Talakkad)

(View of Tree at dusk near Talakkad)

Really interested in feedback?

2007-07-24T18:51:00.000+05:30

A shot taken at A2B restaurant in Bangalore. There is a large poster advertising their new store in New Delhi, another medium sized poster for out-door catering and the small one asking for feedback/suggestions (difficult to read even when you sit in front of it in the restaurant).

Are they really interested in taking feedback/suggestions?

Adieu to Kalam

2007-07-24T16:34:00.000+05:30

Tomorrow our honorable president Dr Kalam will be stepping down as President of India. This will leave way for Pratibha Patil to take over. One could see high tributes being paid to Kalam for his stature and vision that he shared with every Indian.

To the best of my knowledge, Dr Kalam is the best president that our country had so far. It is mind blowing to see a president embrace technology to such an extent at his ripe age (never seen a president doing a powerpoint show sharing his vision for the country). I am on the belief that his passion for teaching and interacting with students kept him up to date with the technology and its usage.

I never had a chance to know about the incoming president. So commenting on whether she would fit into the role of a president is unfair. Apparently for any person, to fit into the large shoes left over by Kalam will be a daunting task.

FileZilla - review

2007-07-20T15:37:00.000+05:30

Have been using the FileZilla ftp client and server, the experience has been amazing. It is free and stands by these words.

"FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface."

Tatoo in Beckham's hand

2007-07-17T12:53:00.000+05:30

Happened to see it in rediff,

What does the tatoo in Beckham's hand read?

"Victoria" (in Hindi)

Blog stats

2007-07-11T16:44:00.000+05:30

Monthly stats:

Quarterly stats:

Yearly stats:

Outlook 2003 Search annoyance

2007-07-11T12:21:00.000+05:30

Have you performed a simple find in MS Outlook 2003 client? The search happens in the folder from older date to the recent one. Doesn't it sound strange?

Ideally I would be more interested in recent mail threads than the older one, since the recent ones will make more relevance. When the search results are shown, the older ones are displayed first and then the recent ones. So one has to wait till the search completes fully, before getting to see the most recent thread.

Are there any tweaks that can be done to Outlook to search in the reverse way? Anyhow the default configuration is really annoying.

Corporate communication and its significance

2007-07-10T15:38:00.000+05:30

Most of us are working for corporate houses and we understand the significance of communication (especially for geographically disperse locations) and email etiquettes. Over recent past, I observed that many of these communications across peers are done through IM's. There are pros and cons to the chat communication that is prevailing now.

Pros:
1. Quick turn around time
2. Grabs immediate attention of the receiver and sender is deemed to get a response/acknowledgment

Cons:
1. Becomes a lot more unofficial
2. No archiving - means you loose the proof
3. No means of intimating the people in higher ladder (Unable to CC).

So which way is better and which will prevail over the longer time frame?

Photos from Sony Ericsson K550i

2007-07-05T14:09:00.000+05:30

Happened to visit Eagleton Resort in Bangalore. Couple of shots taken using SE K550i.

Golf resort

Golf resort

View from seats

Swimming pool

Swimming Pool

Some more macro shots using SE K550i.

Red Rose Bouquet

Yellow Rose Bouquet

Yellow Rose (macro)

Sony Ericsson K550i themes

2007-07-02T19:02:00.000+05:30

I was looking for some alternative themes for SE K550i. The default themes that comes with the phone pre-installed is pretty basic. SE site wont allow you to download the themes into you computer and then transfer it to your phone (for free stuff).

The alternative is ESATO. You get nice themes over here.

Event Mailer

2007-06-29T10:45:00.000+05:30

The spark happened when there was a discussion in the college group, "how prompt people are in sending birthday wishes". Somehow I am never prompt in this one. I wish to make a mark every time a wish is sent. Another reason is to kill the time when I get locked in office (happens during most of evenings). Thirdly wanted to have a hands-on on a couple of Java technologies which I know only conceptually.

Technologies Used:
JDK 1.5
JAXB
XML and XSD
Java Mail
Java Servlet
Apache Commons HTTPClient

Flow chart:
There are two parts to this project.

Getting the event list
1. Got the recurring birthday list from the Group Calendar
2. Converted it into a CSV file format
3. Used JAXB to create a events xml file from the CSV file

Sending the mailer
1. Read the events xml
2. Check for any events scheduled for today
3. Send out a request to Event mailer servlet with subject, message and mailId.
4. The event mailer servlet sends a mail

The events xsd is made generic such that it can span more than birthday list. I had to use event mailer servlet (hosted in myjavaserver), since could not make SMTP connections (I am behind the firewall). Made a cron job (using windows scheduler), to run the mailer everyday.

Sony Ericsson K550i - Network icons

2007-06-26T17:12:00.000+05:30

Just pondering over the 'G' and 'E' icons displayed near the network tower indicator on the top left corner of the phone screen. Lately found that it represents the network capability of your mobile service provider.

For more information refer the network tutorial on the Learning Center in SE site.

Legend:

Sony Ericsson K550i review

2007-06-25T10:57:00.002+05:30

After a span four years with Motorolla C350i, I moved to Sony Ericsson K550i.

I guess I am the one to use Motorolla C350i to the max extent. This cell phone's battery started cranking out about 6 months back, I somehow managed extending its life (because of under usage).

Before starting to lookout for a new mobile, I just framed my must-have requirements.

1. Good call quality
2. Good battery life
3. Good camera (~2 MP)
4. MP3 player support
5. *No* 3G (no affordable 3G support in any near future, that is my prediction)
6. Price range Rs ~10K
7. Form factor - Candy Bar (easy single hand handling)
8. Connectivity - Bluetooth, IR, GRPS, Quadband

This restricted search resulted in a couple of options. I blatantly ignored LG, Samsung and Motorolla for their poor battery life and build quality.

So the options were
1. Sony Ericsson K550i
2. Nokia 6300

Nokia 6300 didn't pass the litmus test with its poor battery (before this phone I believed that Nokia had the reputation of good batteries, but in the reviews it has been stated that Nokia changed their battery to gain the slim factor). So the best choice I am left with is Sony Ericsson K500i. Before hitting the stores, I read through the reviews on CNet Asia and GSM Arena.

Somehow these reviews lacked that feel good factor. Eventually when I had the phone on my hand, I was impressed. The build quality is much superior than I expected. Based on a couple days of use, the phone is beating all my expectations.

Pros:
1. Good camera with better options
2. Comes with all standard connectivity options (read the specs)
3. Good battery (with full charge running for 2-3 days, avg use)
4. Mp3 player is awesome (generates easier navigation list)
5. Accessible keys
6. Speaker phone support
7. Neat look
8. Slim - 14mm
9. Value for money

Cons:
1. Smaller keys (do not bother much unless you message a lot)

What is in the pack:
1. K550i phone
2. Battery (Li-ion)
3. USB cable
4. Hands-free
5. Charger (universal)
6. Software CD and Docs

Verdict:
Recommended for those with aforesaid requirements.

To munch on a rainy day

2007-06-25T10:57:00.001+05:30

For the past week, Rain God is showing mercy and the authentic bangalore cloudy climate is back. With the chill weather around, it makes awesome if you have something crispy to munch.

Tried preparing baby-corn fry and it came out well.

(Photos: taken with SE K550i)

Home Loan tips and tricks

2007-06-21T12:37:00.000+05:30

While I was frantically searching for a home loan, I happen to see some tips and understand some tricks.

1. Banks are never under loss
Will ever the loan lending bank reel under loss if they finance a home and the borrower defaults? NO, for PSU banks, for private banks, they use some unparliamentary means to recover the money back.

Before approving a home loan the bank checks for sufficient credibility of the borrower. As per the general trend, the borrower would be paying the EMI for a few years. During those initial years the bank will recover most of their interest part of the loan. And since the home is mortgaged to the bank, they can recover the capital from the home.

2. When to prepay?
The best time to do prepayment is the initial years after taking the loan. Since the initial years are the period when the bank recovers a lot of interest. If you see the EMI calculation, during the initial years, most of the EMI goes towards interest.

3. On prepayment, what to reduce?
Some banks gives you the option of either recalculating the EMI or period of loan on prepayment. The best option is to reduce the period of loan. Because you pay less on reducing the period and keeping the EMI constant.

Things to consider while writing public APIs

2007-06-21T12:34:00.000+05:30

When you expose public class/APIs, there are certain things that you need to consider

1. Arguments/Parameters
Carefully consider the arguments that gets passed into the API.

2. Method Name
Choose an apt meaningful name for the public methods or classes. Avoid ambiguity.

3. Exceptions
Throw only non-runtime exceptions, so that clients can handle them. Do try to handle all the exceptions in the method. If you have logging framework, log the exceptions and rethrow them.

4. Backward Compatibility
Once the APIs get released and you need to support them for an extended period of time. So if you modifying existing public APIs take care of backward compatibility, such that you wont break client code.

5. Intented use
The public APIs should do only what it is intended to do

6. Java docs
Provide clear crisp java docs. The best example is the one that comes with JDKs.

7. Trace / Log / Debug
Provide support for tracing/logging. Both serves different purposes. Trace is used to find the control flow inside the public APIs. Logging is used to log any error messages and exceptions.

8. Error statements
In case of wrong parameters getting passed, log descriptive error messages. The error message should typically say what went wrong and what is the corrective action.

Find java class files in JAR

2007-06-18T19:37:00.000+05:30

Typically in a development environment of a big J2EE product, you often cross the step of including the right jars in your library path to get your product compile/run/debug. With lot of jars lying in you lib folder, you face the daunting task of including the needed few.

OR

In case if you want to find from which jar a particular class gets picked up, you face the same daunting task of opening the various jars and looking out for a particular class file packaged inside it.

To get rid of this one, I came up with a java program that takes a path and class name and spits out the jars which contains the class. The usage of FindClass is simple

java FindClass C:\j2ee\product\lib MyClass

FindClass iterates through the folder (and subsequent subfolders) to get the list of available jars and list out the jars, which contains the specified class.

I used JarFile and JarEntry to read a jar file. Rest is all simple File operations.
If you love to use this util class, drop a comment.

Aquaguard: Chase for invoice begins

2007-06-18T13:21:00.000+05:30

When I see my referring links on my blog stats, many of them are from google with search query "aquagaurd" (notice there is a mis-spell over there). So taking a suo-motto cognizance of the visit trend I have decided to document the horrible experiences a customer goes through after purchasing the noble water purifier (aha, see my frustration).

Disclaimer:
The honest intention of the aquaguard related posts on this blog is to educate the intelligent net-savy customers about the horrible services offered by the aquaguard people. Nothing more and nothing less.

So the first chase begins here.

When you buy a water purifier from the "well-informed" (read it sarcastic) sales rep from Aquaguard, little will be known to you about their invoice process. At the completion of the sale, the happy sales rep will handover a slip stating that you had paid on the delivery of the device. It is not an invoice or a bill stating that you had bought the product. The sales rep will promptly inform you that you will get an invoice within 15 days by mail.

That 15 day deadline will never happen. I have bought the product about 4 months back and still haven't received any invoice.

One more thing that you will not know is that the sales rep from whom you have bought the device, would have done either of one these in the following few weeks

1. Changed his mobile number, so that you cannot reach him
2. Changed his job
3. Changed his department with in aquaguard

In my case, it was option 3. I am chasing them through their customer care and every time they tell me the same crappy story. They ask me my mailing address and receipt number, stating that the invoice will be delivered in 2 days. Again nothing happens.

This is not an one off case. My friend has ended up calling them more than 100 times to get the invoice. Many more are in the process. Some are blissful enough with out caring that they require a legitimate invoice some time later when their device starts mall-functioning.

MyJavaServer - Signup Challenge

2007-06-05T19:34:00.000+05:30

When I tried to sign-up for MyJavaServer service, I was quiet amused by their sign-up challenge. The challenge is to write a small Java program (just to make sure that you are conversant with Java). The site then compiles your program and runs a couple of tests to validate the program. Quiet a novel way to authenticate the users.

Signup Challenge
Master a simple Java programming challenge (STATUS: NOT PASSED)

As the principal engineer of an HTTP web server, you are responsible for implementing the request processing subsystem of the server.
An incoming request for a specific resource, identified by an URI, must be dispatched to the appropriate handler according to the server configuration which maps URIs to request handlers. 'HandlerFactory.getHandler' must be implemented:

public class HandlerFactory
{
public String getHandler(String[] config, String requestUri)
{
}
}

The string array 'config' contains URI patterns and handler names. Two consecutive values form a key-value pair comprised of URI pattern and handler. 'requestUri' represents an incoming request, the URI to match against the configured handlers. 'getHandler' must return the correct handler for a given URI as a string value.

An URI pattern never contains wildcards and represents the start of an URI string, a prefix. Matching must be implemented accordingly. The handler with the longest matching URI pattern wins if more than one pattern matches. If no handler can be found, "XqAoLy" must be returned.

MyJavaServer

2007-06-05T19:27:00.000+05:30

Found that MyJavaServer is a free online java application server that one could use to host their web applications for free. They offer the following services on their site for developers.

Java
Java SE 6.0 based application server
Servlet 2.3
Java Server Pages (JSP) 1.2
Pre-installed third-party libraries

RDBMS services
Embedded: HSQLDB, InstantDB

Miscellaneous
SMTP service
Unfiltered HTTP responses (no ad placement)
WAP/WML, Java WebStart MIME extensions

Storage
5 MB initial filesystem quota
Full native filesystem read/write access
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) file management

Quite cool. They use Tomcat application server to provide the service. So if you just want to host any simple web app for free, MyJavaServer is the place to go!

Sting operations by Private News channels

2007-06-05T19:16:00.000+05:30

One good fallout of the private news TV channels. Recently NDTV exposed through a sting operation the nexus between defense and prosecution in the BMW hit and run case. Such clandestine deals could prevent people from getting a fair justice.

Google turns down my request suspecting a virus

2007-05-25T19:08:00.000+05:30

See the snapshot

Btw had a hard time guessing the word verification. The image is so crumbled.

Will this spell the end of aquaguard monpoly

2007-05-23T11:58:00.000+05:30

I had been cribbing about the monopolistic practices by Aquagaurd Water purifiers. It seems that Philips had listened to it. Philips India is entering the water purifier market. I hope two things will make Philips a big hit

1. The price range of their water purifiers are in the same range of Aquagaurd.
2. They sell their product through retail outlets. (So customers win here. They get cheaper maintenance)
3. Battery backup

Google's Bot is amazingly fast

2007-05-22T15:02:00.000+05:30

Google's web crawler bot is amazingly fast. My yesterday's post on Nimishambha Temple trip has been already added to google's search index and ranks first.

Nimishambha Temple and Sangam Trip (13-May-2007)

2007-05-21T12:49:00.000+05:30

After a long while, the remnant guys in Bangalore (myself, Nag, Gops and VK) (that's how I guess we should call ourselves after the brain-drain in our gang) thought of a get-together. I came up with the idea of lunching together, but as per the de-facto standard, Nag came with the dynamic plan of a one day picnic. The choice of place, transport, itinerary were all decided on the previous day night.

So we all stared an hour late on Sunday due to the mess-up my car created. Vk's new Indica Xeta came to our rescue. We stopped at Kamat on Mysore Road for breakfast (We made use of the buffet really well).

(Remnant Gang with the Guest of Honor Nag Jr.)

(Gops, VK with Guest of Honor Nag Jr.)

(Simian Acrobatics for the Guest of honor)

(Simian Acrobatics for the Guest of honor)

Reached our picnic spot of Nimishambha temple around noon-time. This place is near SriRangapatna en-route to Mysore. The Mysore highway SH-17 had unusual high traffic on the weekend.

(Cauvery River bank)

(Gops on way to cool off his heels)

(Nag and VK taking a dip)

(Nag and Vk discussing a shot)

(Vk and Nag fishy)

Ate lot of junk stuff (such that we can skip lunch). Unusually there was lot of crowd over the place.

Then on the way back went to Sangam.

(Confluence of three rivers)

(Winding flow)

(Another shot)

(Rocky terrain on the banks)

(Grand view of Sangam)

(Another shot)

(Nag Jr. on a pensive mood... on how to get a mallu girl)

Evening tiffin again at Kamat. Back in bangalore on time.

(End of Trip)

Game shows: People attitude

2007-05-21T11:52:00.000+05:30

These days private TV channels are flooded with umpty number of game shows covering people in all age categories right from kids to couples. Out of these some are quite interesting like BBC's MasterMind and Star Sports Quiz. Even DD's BSNL Sports quiz is worth watching. Sun TVs "Thiruvalar Thirumathi" is for married couples and is one whole crap game show.

I am alarmed at the outwardness of the people participating in such game shows. They reveal lot of their personal things to the whole world for the take-aways they get in the shows. I hope not those holiday packages comes with no-strings attached. We the viewers never get any clue whether the people who were given the holiday packages really went for such ones.

How to connect cellphone using IrDA port

2007-05-11T10:56:00.000+05:30

This post is based on the experience of transferring content between your cellphone and laptop using IrDA port.

Is this the latest standard?
Using IrDA port to transfer content between your cellphone and laptop is really old way. The latest way to communicate is to use bluetooth.

Then why?
But at some juncture IrDA comes in really handy. Say when your laptop doesn't have a built-in bluetooth adapter and you doesn't have an external one too. And more you are lazy to use the wired approach of connecting using USB cable.

How to?
Laptop: Dell Latitude D600
OS: Win XP
Cellphone: Sony Ericsson K700i

Firstly the Dell D600 had built-in IrDA adapter. One needs to enable them.

Go to BIOS setup. (Press F2 when the laptop boots up to enter the BIOS setup)
Press Alt+P to go the various pages in the setup program
Find the IrDA section in the Commuincation Ports page (I guess so)
If it is disabled, then enable and set to a particular COM port. I used COM2 as COM1 is used in my laptop.
Save and Exit the setup and boot the laptop.

Enable IrDA in your phone and place in the line-of-sight with IrDA port

Win XP had default drivers and it was able to recognize the device. From then on, it is a single click to transfer data from laptop to the cellphone and vice versa.