Parking near IIMB Postoffice

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.

USB Write Protector

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.

NH7

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.

Belandur Railway Station

A very quiet deserted railway station.

• Single railway line
• Only 2 or 3 passenger trains stops here

Laptop battery life

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

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

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

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.

Airtel misuses Cell Info

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.

Airtel Customer Care

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)

Finally Airtel budges

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.

Feature Request in MS Outlook

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

Reliance Unlimited STD

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.

Scorpio VSeries with Cruise control

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 -

1. Do we get to see any sparsely populated roads in India?
2. 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?

How is public money spent in Karnataka

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

Dirty Politics

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?

Online Radio

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

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.

Googled

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

Really interested in feedback?

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?