Titan Gold Plus - Erode

A mention about the Titan Gold Plus store in Erode. The store had a made a brisk business last year to earn a revenue of Rs 25 crore.

Crowd Pattern

While watching the "Closures for Java" presentation, I observed the following crowd pattern...

At the time when the presentation began...



At the time when the presentation ended...

Closures in Java

Watch the talk given by Neal Gafter from Google

How to download video from Google Video

By now, most of us would have watched videos online using Google Video sharing site. Google doesn't allow you to download the video file. And when you download, it gets you the gvp (google video player) file. In order to get the video file, you need to do a small hack. Edit the gvp file and you will see the URL. Use this URL to download the avi file.

Beware that google had encoded the video file in such a way that only its player will be able to play the avi file.

This titbit will be of great use when you want to watch the videos off-line.

Pace of development

Gops made a post on the pace of infrastructure development happening in coimbatore which follows the similar bangalore phenomenon. Another example of bangalore phenomenon.

BESCOM decided to upgrade the electrical lines near my place. The plan is switch from overhead lines to underground. They started working on this project about 3 months back. Until now, they have partially dug the road and left it open. No signs of work. Heard from the daytime security that they work only once in a month on this project :-(

Planetarium and Musical Fountain

Out of the few places to visit in bangalore, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium is one. As per their website, you got to see some replicas, science park, exhibition and a tele-show in the dome screen.

On the first look, the whole campus is dilapidated. There is no entry free for the science park. There are some simple experiments demonstrating the basics physics facts and only a few of them work. The experiment showing sound waves traveling in a parabolic path is simply amazing.

For the tele-show the entry fee is Rs25 and it runs full house during weekends. The night sky shown in the dome screen is breath-taking.

Musical Fountain is located just opposite to the planetarium and the show starts in the evening by 7:00 pm. In order to club these two together, take the 4:30 show in planetarium and get to the musical fountain show at 7:00 pm.

Aquaguard == monopoly

Another incident of sheer monopoly.

Aquaguard is an undisputed leader in the world of water purifiers in India. They practice unethical marketing strategies to sell their products to the households. They sell their products in door-door marketing fashion. So their marketing agents just tell all possible lies on earth to convince you to buy their product. On the day, when your first annual maintenance contract ends, you have to face the brutal facts about their product.


I bought a Aquaguard Reviva (Reverse Osmosis) based purifier about a year back. At that time I was told that the membrane has to be changed only when it wears out and its average life-time is about 8000-12000 lts of water. I did a simple math and for two persons the potable water consumption per day is about 10 lts and the membrane should last for about 2.5 years.

When the first year was over, the service engineer came and told us that we had to change the membrane and it wont last more than a year. The cost of the membrane is about 2500Rs and with the maintenance expense comes to about Rs3600 per year (which works out to be more expensive than if you buy mineral water from some vendor).

You are left in lurch as you wont get any spares outside in the market and you had to be dependent on their service for the life. Secondly they are free to charge any amount for the service and mostly will not heed to complaints (one could see lot of people complaining about their shoddy service network in the net) .



The height is that I have bought one more purifier from them as I am left with none in the market that could satisfy the requirements. They win and we loose the case always!

Track BMTC VOLVO Buses using SMS

One of few things that have improved in bangalore over the past year is BMTC. BMTC started deploying VOLVO buses in its city service fleet and it was an instant hit. No more you need to haggle with autowala's. You get a plush ride in clean A/C VOLVO buses with minimal cost (compared to autos). The buses are of state-of-the-art kind equipped with entertainment system, GPS enabled and information system.




Lately, BMTC introduced SMS tracking of these buses. The service is called "Yelli Iddira". You can track the position of a particular bus by sending an SMS. It is really a boon as we need not wait endlessly in bus stops for the bus to arrive. With ever mounting traffic, you can track the buses real time.

Photo courtesy: BMTC site.

Picture Collage

A couple of collages that I created with the macro shots that I took. Turns out nice! Used Picasa to create the collages.

International Women's Day

This is what I wrote about women's day in 2005. All that I have written applies the same with some additions. In addition to my mom, now I have one more women, my wife, to stand by me in all my endeavors and consistently push me over the extremes and endure confidence in me in all those hard times.

This post is a petty dedication for the two souls for their insurmountable effort and contribution towards betterment.

The chronology behind the women's day.

Doubly Zipped

When you compress a folder/files, doubly zipping reduces the size further compared to the single zip. Why is it so? Why can't single zip does the same compression? If we keep-on zipping, will the size keep on reducing further?

Yet to find answers for all these? Any pointers?

Blog stats

I have been running statcounter on this blog from mid-2005. The following are the stats



Impressive hits for personal blog?

Search Ranking

This blogs ranks 4th in the google page rank.



With yahoo and MSN, I do not see it in the search results.

SUN TV Network Monopoly

On the news today, once more incident of monopolistic attitude displayed by SUN TV Network. They are not sharing their feed with the rival Tata-Sky DTH.

Earlier incidents
Google blog search results page from SambharMafia

Home Loan : Calculating the Balance Sheet yourself

Off late I have been involved in home loans a lot. Just I wanted to understand the mystery behind the calculation of EMI, the prepayment and the balance computation. Since my home loan is with the Corporation Bank, and it being a PSU, I cannot expect the account statement to be shown online. By the way do any of you see such a facility with any private banks?

I took home loan of type fixed interest rate and monthly resting option. The following steps should help you calculate the monthly balance of your home loan

Step 1: Calculate EMI. I used the formula given by Ranjit.
Step 2: For the first month the balance can be calculated as
Balance Principal = Principal + (ROI * Principal) - EMI
Step 3: The balance principal becomes the principal for the next month. Repeat Step 2

Note: If you have done prepayment on a particular month, deduct the amount from the balance principal to get the actual balance.

I wrote a small java program to do the calculation for me. This can be extended for daily resting option and also for the floating rate of interest.

P.S: Apart from such minor nuances, I felt the relationship with the bank much better. There has been no hidden charges and the default options in the home loans are better tweaked to benefit the customers. I felt that with private banks unless the customer is alert, they ought shell out more.

Quote of the Day

"If you pay peanuts, you only get monkeys."

courtesy: A rediff.com reader
This reminds me of the TimesJob ad.

Photo Post

Some of the best photos covering the activities of over last 3 months

Munnar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajakumar/tags/munnar/

Cherai: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajakumar/tags/cherai/

Cochin: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajakumar/tags/cochin/

Bannerghatta National Park: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajakumar/tags/bannerghattanationalpark/

Back in action

It looks like that my blog has been dormant for more than a month. It is brand New year and time to wake up and take a plunge into action. There are a couple of posts that are waiting in my mind. Yet to spend time to get it posted. I was caught into thick of actions and as always actions lead to experiences and experiences fetches you the learnings.

It is ubiquitous that TOI is most sought out news daily in Bangalore. Perhaps the crave for gossips hasn't died down yet. If I take a morning walk down my apartment, I see TOI at all the door step except a very few different one. And out of those few I am one.

Bogus message on HDFC online

Once more I had to take a dig at HDFC Online. Today when I logged in, the personalized message at the top of the window, captured my attention.

"Dear RAJA KUMAR T, We have a special message for you. Please Click here for details."

Though I ignored it in the beginning, somehow the curiosity took over me. See for yourself what message did HDFC came up with on clicking the link. Big Bogus!

Non-standards in adapters

With the advent of good non-dry batteries almost all the electronic gadgets come with in-built batteries that need to be charged and used. It is much common these days to see three to four different adapters hanging out of the electical sockets in any house.

Why can't there be any standards enforced on the adapters? Most of the gadgets requires 9v/12v DC input. And at any point of time, no one is going to use more than two. If one single type of adapter could be used for multiple gadgets, it really eases the pain a lot.