For Riders like me and you !

This blog post dedicated to all the riders in Bangalore and across India. Most common reason of accident at driving :

The pre-requisite is you are not drinking and driving.

Priority wise(5th is most imp.. though) :

1. Pedestrian + Bus + Bike -> Actually this makes an awesome combination of accident. Bus is moving at a speed of 20-25, Pedestrian do his own calculation and try to cross the road before the bus. He was right, but but .. a Bike of speed 50 is overtaking the bus and in a place like Bangalore you can't really see a bike behind the bus. So, Pedestrian cross the bus but he come right in front of bike. So, rest you can figure out.

2. 80 percent of Janta don't care while overtaking. Overtaking a vehicle from left side is wrong and while doing it (best don't do it).. take extra care. Last month, I met an accident, because I was doing this wrong and suddenly someone jump from a bus on me :). If you over take from left side, you will be on bus door side and hero's of India keep on jumping.

3. Slow down at turning and crossing : Bangalore in 1 km, you have to do 10 turnings and at least 10 place you will see road approaching from all side. So, take care at those position.

4. When you stop at a red light, make like distance from your left and right vehicles. What actually happen, if you are a slow mover and say on the right hand side of your bike there is a car, car guy will start moving and ultimately the car will do on your leg fingers.

5. MOST IMPORTANT : Most accident happens on the road which you know and because you are taking that road as granted. If you are 4 days out of the city and then you start riding again, you can surely and suddenly met a hole on your most known road. Which generally we are not expecting, so don't race if you know the track.

6. Overtake only if things are visible ahead : It will stop point 1 and let me explain with real life example. I was overtaking a bus, knowing that this is a familiar road and suddently a cow ahead my bike. I hit the cow, but you know cows are strong :).

There are some more cases. But Slow Speed is only one solution of all the problem.

- Don't carry your project tension and drive. Concentration is required at the places like Bangalore.
- Helmet is must, don't think you are going to just buy vegetables. Wear it, good things are for our good !
- Drive more slowly if you are two ppl on bike, actually its a matter of two life.

Happy Biking ! Its one of the most awesome thing to do :) Feel free to add your points!

Ultimate Joker

Dark Knight is the biggest hit of year 2008. This movie got released on 18 July 2008 (India) and 3-4 days ahead in US. I don't know how many of us are animated hero fans like Superman, Batman but I am. I used to see Batman when i was 15. Indeed The dark knight is great.

Nothing to disagree, Joker is the best part of this movie. Actually some people live for a particular reason and so he was, yes he was Heath Ledger, The Ultimate Joker. He died on 22nd Jan 2008, means a time before the release and when movie was about to finish. Died at an age of 29, due to overdose of medicine. He has been nominated for Oscar before, but never got one. The Dark Knight is the best deal for Oscar, but he is no more to take it. Nevertheless this great actor will be known for his acting always.

It sucks !

A month back we had launched our site: http://donateyourpc.in, which was doing awesome. More than 12 volunteers and more than 10 donation in 15 days. And suddenly the site was done. It is still down because of the hosting company called manashosting. Initially we thought its a good place to host the site. Then after we got lot many problem with these guys, now site is down from last 10 days. And no action taken after 16 phone calls and from past 10 days. Bloody Money eaters !

Now, this is one of the big sucking time for me. Fighting with someone on phone for 30 minutes continuously and then abusing them(which I generally don't do, but I can't stop this), make any mind sick. And most of the time, we flood this utter frustration on someone else, someone we met on coffee table or in chatting window.

This is one of the cases. Service is poor and more poorer day by day. If today, someone want a service from Airtel, Vodafone or Reliance, I can bet you,they will frustrate you like anything. Month back, I saw an old guy(in 70's) shouting on a Reliance shop(JayaNagar, 4th Block) and service providers, the guys and the gals, literally no expression on face. I guess, these pigs are used to it.

Bajaj showroom(Popular Bajaj), bajaj is really a brand in India. Last year, I went to buy my bike. Everyone was going cool, till the point I made the payment. After payment each action takes at least 30 min and after showing a face and word that you lost your patience. Is it not really sucking ??

Dental Clinic near my home(Smile Clinic, J P Nagar), he gave me the time of 7.15 PM and operated me at 8.45. 1 hr and 30 min is important for them because they are making their business and not for me.

And the bad part is all these assh**es are used to it.

Consumer court is one way to put them on line, its little tedious but I heard its quite good now. What other way ?

Be Votebank. Be Heard.

Guys guys .. here it is !

We have started a new online campaign: Be Votebank. Be Heard.

Any banner you believe in ! Please spread the word, please vote !

You can download the images from :

http://iabhishek.googlepages.com/bvbh1.jpg

http://iabhishek.googlepages.com/bvbh2.jpg

http://iabhishek.googlepages.com/bvbh3.jpg

http://iabhishek.googlepages.com/bvbh_banner.jpg

http://iabhishek.googlepages.com/bvbh_small1.gif

http://iabhishek.googlepages.com/bvbh_small2.png

Or you can use flickr :

http://flickr.com/photos/vaibhavkumar/?saved=1.

Thanks to Abhishek to making these posters and banners. Hopefully we all take action.

---

A wordless blog at a speechless time. War is still not over ! We can give real tribute to the soldiers only if we strike back with power and pride.

For a Cause - DonateYourPC.in

Finally it got a start. We, 4 friends of our college friends(Abhishek, Ami, Ankur and me) started a online service for you to be a cause of something good. I personally feel that India uses more computers than any other country in the world and so we released that most computers after 3-4 years get old, configuration retired and a new design comes to the market. What do we all do with these old computers .. still in your home - taking space, planning to give away to your Neighbor's son. If you can think beyond the personal barrier and in the social arena then we request you to donate the PC through our new site, DonateYourPC.in. This site runs on our money and we are not getting anything except the pleasure of helping someone. I guess that is what we all look throughout in our life.. isn't it.

Please check the new(still in beta) site: http://donateyourpc.in and give yourself a cause. I will thank those thousand people who motivated us for this work.

Asin and Aamir's Next - Ghajini

Not able to stop myself from posting it. Saw the trailer of Ghajini. Simple awesome !

Changes - which looks slow

Human tendency and so mine, when they go into a city in which he used to live, he see the changes. Last month I have visited Delhi, where I live here almost 6-7 years .Last to last month I visited Hyderabad where I live almost an year. These are so called the fast growing city of India but somehow I am not impressed with the changes in last 2 year or so.

Talking about Delhi, the capital state, Roads always used to be good, so Government started some new kind of Buses which are very low and comfortable, some people call it big bus. Still newspaper is full of Blue-line bus accidents and cab accidents. Something happened wrong in terms of IT development in Delhi. As people saying, Delhi is one of the hub of IT sectors, but I felt it lacking in IT sector and more growing in BPO sectors. There may be some reason why Google, Yahoo or any of such big company are not opening there office(Development office) in Delhi. Since, BPO sector has grown wisely, cab accident, rape cases, murder cases increased(wisely). Rest of the things are gradually improving which is a demand on time, so we can't consider a development.

Hyderabad, 2-3 yrs back, one of the best growing cities still grow with a high pace. Big building are coming on the way and company preferences are no. 1 for opening a new branch/sector/building. Transport is still in panic mode, still there are no metro lines, traffic can kill your time in busy places, roads are as it is(good but not great). I have more hopes with Hyderabad in coming years.

Now, let me talk of Patna(I have not been there for 2-3 years) but I have seen the improvement in photos. As all of us know the disaster happened 2 months back, effect of that lot of people moved to Patna(capital of Bihar) side, causing more robbery activities because these are people who left they place flooded and came here without any job. Young Blood, without job for long can be a cruel mind. They don't think of eating 2 Roti in place of 4 but can think of putting a knife on your neck and force you to give 500 Rs. I have seen/read lot of robbery in Patna for an amount of 200 or 500 Rs, because situation force them to do that. On the other hand, roads are improving, bridges are coming. IIT got started last year. Some companies are ready to invest and overall infrastructure is coming from -2 to -1. See one new bridge and one new railway station:

Met expert at Petrol Pump !

Petrol drives a big part of economy. And this is how it is done in Bangalore :

Incident 1: Location: JayaNagar, 9th block, Petrol Pump:

Me: Give me 100 Rs Petrol.

(He has given me 30 Rs petrol.)

Me: 100 Rs Sir.

He made that 30 unit to 70 and start arguing, I have added 70 more. So, its 100 now. Fighting for 2-3 more min, he added 30 Rs petrol more.

Incident 2: Location: JayaNagar, 9th block, Petrol Pump:

My friend: 100 Rs Petrol.

They set the meter at 50 and made it 100. After talking to Manager, he was able to get rest of his petrol.

Incident 3: Location: JayaNagar, 1st block, Petrol Pump:

Me: 100 Rs petrol:

He start filling it. And he asked me, when you have taken this bike. I just saw him and replied 8 months back and it was done. I got my 100 Rs petrol. I got to know there is some locha here. But I want to see the actual problem.

Next day, I went to the same place and start watching others.

One guy: 200 Rs petrol.

He starting filling it. Petrol filler asked some question. He turned up. There is one more guy standing near the petrol tanker and he is the one - The expert, the genius. He reset the button and type 200 there.

Sir, your 200 done. (Actual, he reset it at 130 Rs)

Then I have seen one car. 500 Rs petrol. The reset has been done at Rs 410.

Sad part is neither bike nor car can tell the exact amount of petrol.

Here, I told you the story of 2 petrol pump but this holds good for 90 percent of the petrol pump in Bangalore. Be aware !

More updates -- Bihar relief !

More updates on Bihar Relief:

Help for Bihar Victim from Bangalore. Use following Links:

Online –Transfer your donations to ICICI bank
Name: Ashok Kumar Sharma,
A/C Number: 005301022273,
Branch: Jayanagar/Bangalore
Please mention flood relief and your name in remarks section while transferring funds
Also mention your name in the comments (will help us track).
After transfer send an email with the transfer details to ashok.1857@gmail.com
We will send you a confirmation for the same.

NGO Prayaas
Institutional Donor and as well as individual can donate via our Sister NGO PRAYAAS
Account in on the name of: M/S Prayaas,
Current Account No. : 10447347087
Bank Address : State Bank of India, Indiranagar,
Bangalore,Bank Code : 3301
Routing Number (Swift No.) : SBI NIN BB 147A,MICR number : 560002021

For more read the following blogs:

http://http://removing.blogspot.com/2008/08/bihar-floods-how-to-help.html
http://biharflood.wordpress.com/

We are collecting money, please contact Abhishek(09966010096 or iabhishek(at)gmail(dot)com) or Me(09886796985 or vaibhav.kumar@gmail.com).

Feel free to ask any question !

Flood Relief Link !

Please come forward and help the flood victim :

http://biharfloodrelief2008.blogspot.com/2008/08/bihar-flood-relief-your-contribution.html

We are reactive, not proactive !

It hits again. Here we have a major problem. I don't know why this problem, I see all the way in our country - We are reactive, we are not proactive.

30 Lakhs people, 38 district and money(who cares) this is the quantity we are talking off. I don't know for many of us it looks fancy but 95 percent of us have seen our village. Can you think of a picture in your mind - existance of your village is no more, it get flooded. Thinking itself is panic.

We are talking of Bihar, which is one of the poorest state in country. For central government it's just a place from where they can get some good amount of party seats. Kosi is all time called a face of disaster. But that's all a blame game. Relief is going when ? When, the affected people count will increase from 20 lakhs to 30 lakhs. Its just because they are poor, they don't have rights to live. Well, that's true. Its happen this time in a different way, so not a big deal. I have spent years of my life is Bihar and it always happen. Story of Kosi is not a new sensation for me. We all maintain a personel boat in home, so that we can go and buy some eatables.

I just wish God give them power to fight with the fate and hope to see a brighter day. Wish I can go back and see my place again.

It doesn't matter...

Years back someone has told me to blog on Service Oriented Company(SOC) and Product Oriented Company(POC) but then I decided to write my experience from TCS to Sun. TCS is one of the India's best Service Oriented Company and Sun though lacks in little business but one of the makers of Cutting Edge technologies. Though my experience of TCS was horrible but again bad luck is the entry point of Good Luck. Out of my 11 months of TCS job, I have done around one and half month of training in Orrisa. Point to be noted : SOC focus a lot on training, companies like Infy and Satyam also provides a regress training. After 2 months of training, I was on bench for 6-7 months :-). No, I have not done any crime in Training, I was a good student in the mass. My wrong decision(every wrong decision gives you the capability to think right) was to select Hyderabad center. Point to Note: Most of the SOC gives you offer to select the place because they have office across India. As a career beginner, I had accepted my bench, whereas I heard some good news about my friends working in Mumbai and Bangalore office. After 6 month, I got an offer(offer means order in SOC) to join Mumbai office. In one night, they have shifted some 70-80 bench Engineers to Mumbai(SOC keep on doing such stupid move). Mumbai, ahh, I like the place,people. I finally got an over crowded office. I had Project in my hand but oops, I didn't have computer. Finally I start working and decided to quit when I got an offer(I already described this word) to do night shift. Finally my TCS job ends up with 2 month of work and a overall experience of 1 yr.

Then I joined Sun at Bangalore, there is no option, because it has only 1 office located in India. Open culture, where people play cricket inside office(till they break the glasses). Most of the engineers working from home. Pressure is less. But off-course you are always surrounded with talent minds and they can put you in inferiority complex and push your heart somewhere to do better than what you are. Food/Canteen was not as good as TCS and it was justifiable because for 200-300 people you can't expect an awesome caterer. Seats are pre-allocated before I joined the office. Work is cool and calm, you just have to reply yourself.

My point is, nothing is good or bad. Everything gives us a new experience in life. Be handy, take the challenge as simple as it can be. Best part I learn in TCS is, never keep on singing your problem, everyone has its own bundle.Listen others, they will be happy and you forgot yours. Best in Sun, I learn is to be independent as much as possible, at least in your work. Just one line of Einstein thought "I am not smarter than you to solve this problem, I just stay with problem longer than you".

Blog, Knowledge, Share, Money and many more

One year back, Blog word didn't exists in dictionary. Now it is ! Even though I have searched a lot but I got some vague results. It defines:

It's a short form of web-log. Web pages that work as a journal that are normally updated daily.

I guess this is not what blog means. It's a platform to share knowledge, writing thoughts, reading thoughts, kicking your ideas and provide a virtual existence of the same what you are in real. I regret to say for some this definition is : to copy thoughts, to make money, to do time pass, for fashion.

I have seen people writing such a sober, free minded blog that you just read and you feel relaxed. But, I don't know what happened with us. Actually some companies made it a marketing place where they can sell their product with your thoughts and ideas. Now it all depends what type of blogger you want to be : a free mind writer or a money making writer. For first one, you don't need anything, just set the mind free and write whatever attracts you, remember Shakespeare resides within us. For second one, you need to be technically strong, learn how Google page ranking works, see how feeds work, see how you can increase the number of hits, see how you can fool others, see how you can grab some good ideas of others.

Lot of people disagree my ideas. Why I should not gain, if I am writing something good ? Good point: I remember the dialogue of Joker in the Movie "The Dark Knight" - "If you are good in something, don't do it for free" and yes why not, if you think "words can be sold", sell it ! Why only writing, even sell what you speak. Tomorrow when you sit with your friend, tell him after the end of 1 hr talk, you need to pay me 100 $$.

My simple judgment: Do it(make money),if this is your profession, but don't do if this is your hobby. And remember, there is only one profession, do that with Power and Pride.

CD format in Vista !

Ah awesome Problem. Yesterday I came to Hyderabad to meet my friends here. In some free time, we tried to install Ubuntu on Abhishek's machine. Machine already got Vista so doubt was very high from my side for installation. And again, machine is AMD64. Anyway, first I tried to install from from Hard Disk. We are looking for Ubuntu 8.04 installation which you can do inside windows and the installation is awesome. Uninstallation is like do in Add/Remove Program in Windows, you will get a application with name Ubuntu, click Uninstall and that's it.

Anyway, installation directly was unsuccessful. Then we tried to make the ISO file and then tried to installation. But here goes something funny. CD size was 702 MB and the ISO file is 698 MB, so not a big deal. Before opening the CD, Vista do formatting of CD and after formatting it makes it 692 MB. OMG !!! what is this. And I for testing purpose ran the formatting again and size of CD went to 683 MB ! What the heck. Our final conclusion if we keep on formatting a CD on vista, size can go to zero :-). Still we have not installed Ubuntu on Vista, will keep on updating the problems.

Breaking news !

Though these things lowered down my blog standard. But this is how our media works. And these are the breaking news of our best news channel "Aaj Tak". I guess most of you have seen these news which I got in some forward.








Enjoy the party... !

World - 2025

I have thought of world after 18-20 years from now. Please add if you have any serious or funny concern to add here:

1. Water is going to be the major concern. Very possible, we need to manage it per person rather than paying the bill at the end of month. Water tapes are like phone booths where you put a coin or 5 and water will come out for limited time. Maybe in office, you have to swipe your card for getting water.

2. Bicycle is one of the items in demand. Petrol cost will either go too low because of some revolution or it will go very high and may not be accessible to everyone. Not only cost, pollution coming out from these stuff will also need a check. May be, government will not allow you to drive your car more than 20 Kms per day.

3. Electronic items will be too cheaper and maybe one of the most giftable(I don't know this word exist in dictionary) items. There will be lot of company which just do the recycling of electronic goods.

4. Most of the systems will be governed by Software and there is a good chance(I don't want) that some big incident happen due to hack or misleading software mechanism.

5. Terrorist will hit the target more than what they miss. Crime will go in a more organized fashion.

6. Global Warming hmm .. "we should not", "we have to" should be the action.

7. Blogging is one of the major channel to communicate. Social network have power to do things.


There are some more .... I am not inspired by any English movie. I have perfect believe that Robot is not going to walk with us in next 20 years, neither we will see any superman flying in the air.

7 reasons why Autowala in Bangalore will refuse to take you !

Its Peak time, you are on Bangalore road and you are looking for an auto, don't lose hopes.

Here are some predictable conversations:

Occurrence: 50 percent
You: MG Road ?
Autowala: (He will take the head up, think like he is thinking some rocket projectile equation)... he will go without speaking a word.

Occurrence: 30 percent
You: Forum ?
Autowala: 20 Rs. extra Saar.
You: Why ?
Autowala: (if its weekend)traffic saar..(if its weekday) no return passenger saar.

Occurrence: 80 percent

You(in night at 7.30 or 8): JayaNagar ?
Autowala: 1 and half saar. (1 and half rate goes after 9)
You: 7.30 boss
Autowala: No saar

So, here are 7 reasons:

1. No reason, its his wish
2. Location is not good
3. You are not looking good
4.You haven't asked him in a respectful manner
5. Peak time - in peak time, they don't carry any passenger
6. Traffic on your way
7. CNG is not working

Initially it was all frustrating for me, but now it all looks funny.

Chasing dreams and being practical

Some news to keep the motivation up. I have directly copied the news because its all from Horse's mouth:

Suri: As they sat behind the railway booking counters, few would have spared them a second glance. Crouched over the desk, furiously counting money and issuing tickets to impatient passengers - that’s what ‘office’ was for the two of them. Surely one of the most monotonous jobs possible, you’d think. But now the names of Ravikant Singh and Keshavendra Kumar are on one of the most elite merit lists in the country. Both have cleared the civil service examination this year: Keshavendra bagged rank 45 and Ravikant 77.

Till the two friends join the IAS academy in Dehradun, Kumar will serve as the railway booking clerk at Suri station in Birbhum. Singh works at the same post at Ukhra station in the neighboring district of Burdwan.
Their theme for a dream can be traced back to their first meeting in Barrackpore. Both of them had seen struggle in childhood, and could relate to each other. As they were both employed with the railways, they vowed to pursue better careers together.
The going was far from easy. Though Singh and Kumar had graduated from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), they did not have the family support to study further. Singh, who hails from the Akhilitolla village in Bihar’s Ara district, lost his mother in childhood. He and his five siblings were brought up by their father, a milkman.
“We were extremely poor and looked down on in our village. I wanted to prove myself and the only way to do that was to work hard. I knew that my father was in no position to send me to a good school or pay for private tuitions. What I needed was a job - any job to support my family,” Singh said.
After completing schooling from Ara, Singh joined a Barrackpore college. He cleared the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) examination and joined Eastern Railway as a commercial clerk in 2002. “I could not dream of becoming and engineer or a doctor. But I knew that becoming an IAS officer was within reach as I would not require much money to prepare for the exam,” Singh added.

It hurts !

Generally I write fun loving things on my blog. But sometimes news and happening force you to think and ... to rethink. I love my country and I guess everyone of us love it. But we can't hide the ruthless face of this country. There is a high degree of crime and there are some states which have not been progressed even a bit from last 30 years.

List is very big, if we start counting the person died because they have tried to do something good. And same happened with Lalit Mehta. Jharkhand based this guy was killed on May14, simply because he want to do something good, fight for right.

More details are covered here and one of the my friends Abhishek has written and even fight for justice. Nothing has been done from last 1 month by Police/CBI and I am not even expecting. From here, I can simply aware people to have a look, where we are going !

Sometimes I feel helpless and getting an internal feeling what we are doing is all crap. We are here to see news and laugh on it. If we are good, then we can be a part of news like Lalit.

Photo of the Day !

Photo of the day on National Geo:

Here

So cool,calm,composed place. I want to be here for some day, for sometime in my life. Its my personnel feeling that beauty of nature fills beauty in us as well. Any angry person can come down if he see beauty like this.

Help required !

Hello Friends,

For all the reader of this blog (I know very few :D) please fill this survey:
http://fewsurveys.donate.sgizmo.com/

Based on this there are some further steps need to be taken. I will update that soon in the blog. Thanks for your time.

Where is Web 2.0, I am hearing Web 3.0

I tried to find the meaning of Web 3.0 on wiki. And wiki ... : "future of WWW". Not even 2 years back, I heard the same for Web 2.0. Web 2.0 defined by O'Reilly in this fashion:

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

DoubleClick --> Google AdSense
Ofoto --> Flickr
Akamai --> BitTorrent
mp3.com --> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation --> search engine optimization
page views --> cost per click
screen scraping --> web services
publishing --> participation
content management systems --> wikis
directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness --> syndication

Sounds quite fine. We almost moved on Web 2.0. How about Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 talks of Data(Content) which is THE important, managing data in a RIA(Rich Internet Application) format and many more which is not clear in my mind.

Scenario:

One of my friend, Ankur passed this link : http://www.verveearth.com/landing/. Is this web 3.0 ? Sounds like.


This link will show you all blogspot blog on Google earth. Data moved from Database into representation format, offcourse RICH. And this is what written about application "VerveEarth is mapping the internet's content onto a global map. Discover the voices of your world. Get started by exploring the map or registering to add your blog." And Yes,this is RIA(according to me). Internet content is enormous, scattered in a useless format. Gathering those information, giving a useful shape and presenting it on a RICH view is what I thing Web 3.0 is.

Comments are welcome, corrections are most welcome !

Google tools - :-( I am sad !

Google is going great, but still some of the web tools of Google sucks. Two of them are blogspot(which I am used from long time and can't leave now) and picasa. As technology and programming languages growing rapidly, smartness of the software depends on how many pages I need to traverse before my work is done, how many clicks I need to do, how many hyperlinks I need to traverse. And I am surprised company which is one of the greatest promoter of AJAX, where things are done so smartly, itself use some useless stuff.

Condition: I need to upload 5 photos in my blogspot from its photo uploading option. It will give you to upload one photo at a time(what the heck is this), not only that after uploading that photo you need to close that option and have to start from beginning - pathetic.

1 photo -> Click on option -> See a new page -> Click on browse button -> Select the photo -> Wait for uploading -> Click on done button.
2 photo -> Click on option -> See a new page -> Click on browse button -> Select the photo -> Wait for uploading -> Click on done button.
...
...
...

Justified ? At least not for me. On the other hand, no doubts there are some cool feature like editing blog page, themes and many more. But there are still some more options which frustrate you.


Now, coming on Picasa, this is the real one.

- Click on next photo, photo will come in a blur mode and then it will be like that for next 20-30 second(mind it, my net speed is not slow). (which is great in flickr)
- Last week, my friend Ankur mention the great threat of using unlisted option in Picasa, which public generally thinks as private and safe options. (which is great in flickr)
- There is no code generation and no way you can give a static link of your picasa photos, so that user can only view photo not picasa UI(which is great in flickr)
- Photo uploading from offline Picasa tool to online picasa is a good option but if someone want to upload from online Picasa site, get ready to cry :)
- There are many more .. which keep on coming in my mind when I use this site.

I hope Google guys are taking action on these tools and will provide a better option soon.

Butterfly ...

Some more photos, taken by my bro :-). By the way, I am little concern of the name butterfly. Butter means something delicious to eat.. how come butterfly.

People and Relationship

I bet it happens with everyone "First impression is wrong impression" . Generally what I have seen is what I am writing.

Most of the time, in initial talks you see some people less talkative and not so user friendly but I am damn sure in long run they are going to be your good friend. Just give one minute break to your mind and think of your good friends, good friends of same sex. If its a matter of different sex, equation is complete different and I don't want to go further on that.

Some guys/gals you find in the initial meet very talkative but after 5 or 6 month, you feel him complete different from your initial experience. I have a valid reason to define my point. Silent person believes first on time then on knowledge. His mindset says: Let me take sometime then I will show you what I know. Whereas more talkative person which people generally feels more smart and dashing believes on knowledge and then time. His mindset says: Let me impress this guy first, afterward I will manage.

Both approach is correct. This is my personnel option. So no crimes. May be some crap !

Photo - Kodaikanal

Back from trip of Kodiakanal. So time for some more photos :D

Special Google filter for Firefox

I have almost left with posting technical stuff on this blog. But yesterday I got one great plug-in in Firefox customized for Google, they called it Customized Google - . It has lots and lots of features but the most existing one is to put filter on Google search. Great to see they have made the complete regular expression algo in Filtering.

So, if searching book you don't want to see the face of the sites who sell books like Amazon. Go into the filter option add: http://amazon.com/*.
In the docs search if you are only looking for pdf docs not ppt docs, put a filter http://*.ppt(I am just assuming, I am writing it correct).
You can also block virus containing sites if you know the name or even guess the string of it. For any sub-page block, write like http://sitename.com/*.

I mean, you know how much one can play with regular expression. So, go ahead and block the crappy things for you. Great news is there is no effect on response time of search. Great going guys !

Earth's Day

Welcome to the celebration of Earth's day. These are intended to inspire awareness of Earth's environment. Its now mandatory rather than optional to think of problems we are surrounded with. We have reached on the peak level of destruction of our own planet and I guess now even good effort(s) were not stopping disasters happening with Global Warming. Days are not far when we need to break our offices/buildings and re-create them in a eco-friendly fashion. AC will not work in office for longer time and in the meantime it will be tough for us to live without AC. I have passed some of the suggestion to the concern person in my office that what we can do:

Why not Light Saving day: Bangalore, India(where I am working) is a cool place and most
of the time Bangalore temperature varies from 20-30 (used to be ). Can we make, better
to say celebrate, Light Saving Day per month where we will do the minimum use of Electricity that day ( a day can make a difference). We can have less AC operation, we can switch off the alternative cubical lights, we can switch off the gallery lights and many more. It definitely need
Employee's cooperation.

How mass transport works: How mass people move is always a big question, and very unfortunate to say people here use bikes and cars. We should have a great mass transportation bus service.

Dust-bin usages: Why not to have two separate dust-bin, dividing bio-degradable and non bio-degradable wastes. This will definitely help in saving lot of man-power, time and machinery which divides it in later stage.

Most important, changing human mind: Lot many ways to do that: putting posters, showing movie like an inconvenient truth, making some official discussions. Keep on reminding everyday till it will not fix in the mind that WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING.

Some More photos :)

Some more taken from wild-life :). Don't know my blog is going to be photo blog :D

Dress like a Geek !

It's all funny. I was looking at a link sent by my friend Prashant that deals with some of the Podcasts related to Computer Science by Harvard Extension School. Finally I reached to Vol 15 and I got this section -> "Learn How Dress Like a Geek"
, a very nice video on Geek Chic. In the video one guy has explained what type of T-Shirts geeks like the one in which some binary numbers are running and some on which some cartoons are made. He has given some cool links from where you can guy(of course, you can see) some of the Geek T-Shirts :-)

I have seen one,written:


roses are #FF0000

violets are #0000FF

all my base

are belong to you

You can buy this T-Shirt here :D. Another Nice one, I got here

Photo From Flight !

These are some of the photos taken by my brother. Camera: SLR Canon. I have just reduced the photo size :)

Kavita is still alive !

Heard to this guy. He is Dr. Kumar Vishwas. Simple Awesome !

कोई दीवाना कहता है कोई पागल समझता है
मगर धरती की बेचैनी को बस बादल समझता है,
मैं तुझसे दूर कैसा हुँ तू मुझसे दूर कैसी है
ये मेरा दिल समझता है या तेरा दिल समझता है !!!

Zoom Photos :)

Ah posting some more photos. Here are some I have taken on high zoom. You may feel photos at the evening or night time, but they are taken at 1.00 PM afternoon:). Please view it in large mode on clicking the photo.

Goa Beach !

Some of the photos taken at Goa Beach:








I know what eyes can capture, camera can't.

Things that irritates me !

Can you make a guess, where the company spends most of it's money for it's own employee ? Yes, you are right, its the employee salary. What's next, where is the second highest ? Any guesses ! You may or mayn't be surprise to know it's your phone bill. Normally, in a decent company, work culture demands to have one phone per person and you are free to call Local/STD. Sometimes even ISD's are allowed if you have lot to interact with your onsite customer. We misuse it, we misuse it badly. I have seen the people who use the phone for more than half of his working time(I am not working in a call center). Sometime it upset me and most of the time it irritates me. It can irritate anyone who is not using this facility and who is in near vicinity of someone who uses it.

You can't believe, I asked some people bluntly why you are using office phone so much and replies were funny:

- Boss, it is included in our CTC.

- Yaar, you are not married. You can't understand.

- Little phone work today... there today never ends.

More funny, some people have list, which all number I need to call today offcourse from office.

If you are those who use this facility must have closed this blog :) but if you are on other side, I will request you to make a check on those people. How ? Kill them :), abuse them, keep on laughing every time they call, start doing some mimicry, pass there resume to call center :). Do whatever you want to do.

Is it proud or Shame !

Weeks back, Forbes Magazine announces globe wealthiest billionaires. Nothing surprising to know that out of 10, 4 are Indians. For some it sounds like a matter of pride, but ... ? Where India stand as income per person ? I guess no where in the top 100 list. I don't know the current list but 6-7 years back, it was 1000 Rs per person per month(I guess right now it is something around 2500 per month) and in the state like Bihar it was 200 Rs per person per month(which is now, I guess 500 Rs). What to say ? Lots of questions ! Why such a big difference exist in our country only ? Rich people are growing day and night and poor people are not growing even in decades. Is it not right to question the system ? Is it not right to question ourself ? What we are doing in surrounding to remove this so called natural imbalance ? Every question has one common solution and that is education. We need to spread education as much as possible. Fortune of educated people are they can't live without money.

Offline Blogging - ScribeFire

Last week, I have attended IndiBlogger meeting in Hyderabad. Meeting was quite good though the strength was some 50-60 people. It was in Microsoft campus. MS guys also gave a presentation on Windows Live Writer in which you can do offline blogging. Like all the time, it runs only on Windows box.

Exactly the same, offline blogging idea came into my mind some 10 days back and I have posted one question
in my official blog talk. Engineers told me there are some tools that are doing exactly the same job :-|. I have start using one of it which is awesome "ScribeFire". Best part its a add-on with FireFox. So, no additional process kicking off. Browser based, platform independent - where Mozilla can run this can run. HTML support, Tagging support, Pinging support and many more. I was just looking for some export option as well, but not able to find.

Here are the Indiblogger pics: http://www.flickr.com/groups/indiblogger/pool/

IndiBlogger's Meeting

Today I have attended the IndiBlogger meeting at Hyderabad. It was nice and fun oriented. Nice to see blog-oriented people. Hope to see some pictures on site soon.

Jackie Chan - Man with guts !

In last one month, I have seen almost 70 percent of Jackie Chan's movie. This guy had started his career against Bruce Lee in movie Fist of Fury. Surprising to know that his all movies with Bruce Lee was a flop, just because both use different flavor of Martial Art. Last month I have watched his major breakthrough movies "Legend of drunken Master" and "Snakes in the Eagle's Shadow". Legend of Drunker Master would I say the best action movie I have ever watched.

Jackie do most of his stunt by his own. A near to death stunt in movie Armor of God in which he got a permanent hole in his head. He went through appox. 100 major injuries. Simply a perfect man who donated half of his asset to charity upon his death. By the way, there is no insurance company that funded Jackie Chan Stunt Team.

Most of us don't watch Chinese movie because most of the time they have same thyme but I would suggest all the action lovers to watch the Chan Movies like Drunker Master (All parts), Operation Condor and many more.

Blog by environmentalist

Week back, I reached on the blog of Vinod Khosla. I remember him because he was one of the co-founders of Sun MicroSystems but more to that he is an environmentalist. He is one of the writers who write about global warming. The practical solutions of it. This blog, speaks about what are the problems with Wind Energy over Solar Energy. Talks lot about PV Technology, Carbon Emissions and many more. If you worry about our earth, read it and more ...do on it.

Call for Action...

Last week I have visited Lucknow via Delhi and so again I got a chance to visit my college. Though nothing left for me but still some temptation. I have taken so many wrong decision at my college time, don't want the new comers to repeat the same but ... I am still find myself unreachable to them. They are doing exactly the same what we did, I guess even more panic than that. Lets see ... many night still I think God give me a chance to go back in college, give me a chance to rectify my mistakes.

Anyway, an interesting discussion... our HOD asked one guy how's projects going on. He replied, nothing great, there is no CALL FOR ACTION. And everyone started laughing... good one "Call For Action". I guess, this is the way we made ourself. From college to corporate we do everything on "call for action". If there is no "call for action", give me a break, new movie in Shipra Mall. Nothing wrong in it, if we are capable enough to do things on "Call for Action", its good. But sometime, we lose quality in taking action on final call.

Tribute to the best !

After Saun Pollock, its Adam Gilchrist who decided to leave World Cricket. A man known to walk when he considered himself out, even before Umpire's decision. A outstanding cricket, a outstanding man. Many of us don't know but he is the ambassador for the charity World Vision, India.

I do play cricket and bat most of the time with left hand and for me its always be a special occasion to watch a man like Gilly. He surprise, surprise because he has the excellent capability to pick ball and that is very obvious by his pull and hook shots. See this guy against World faster bowlers like Shoaib(1999 WorldCup), he picks the ball so easily that you (at least I) can't believe. Most of the time, it surprises me how this 37 yrs old guy generated power.

Wicket-keeping record is just awesome. Wicketkeeper responsibilities are always harder one,when almost 50 percent of the bowl were stopped by wicketkeeper... when its a edge, its a throw, a left delivery, anything .. finally it comes to wicketkeepers hand.

And unlike other Australians, always calm, out of controversies. My tribute to a man who wrote the success story of Australia.

Jai Hind !

Live like a tiger, live like an Indian ! Azad Hind !

Right Feedback !

I don't how many times in our life, we are giving right feedback to people. Very likely case, we are listening to a presentation from last one hour, literally not getting any thing. Not only this, you know no one is understanding it but we all are just listening it. Listening it,because ..... we are like that. Whats wrong if I leave the hall, whats wrong if I say the presenter that stop your pathetic presentation. But we never did ! And giving a wrong impression to the presenter that you are giving some thing very fantastic.

I don't know its a Indian mentality or something else to give respect to person even if he doesn't deserve it. Some kind of fear, some kind of mentality ... but we follow this, and we follow it religiously. Give me a break man !

Filling some stupid form with lots of radio button is not the only way to give feedback, rather this is the most inefficient way to give feedback. Maybe I am little blunt in this case but say the guy, your presentation is pathetic and you too. I don't mind at all if someone will tell the same to me. Come on you are grown up, if you can't make a good presentation, if you can't make audiences lively, you don't have any right to speak near hundreds and thousands of audience.

Its going vital !

Days back I was updating my resume, not for any job, just like that :D. And I feel like how important blog is.Say,You have written an article and you want to put the detail in resume, just give a blog link :) and its all done. Ankit one of my friends studying in IMD Gurgoan asked me the use of blog and forum. I have given him some crap points :D but I guess blog is taking vital role in our life. Its like living in a virtual world where most of the people interact with you who don't know you, never seen you. But there is something common between you and him(blog reader) and that is the content written in blog. He is reading your blog(s) because he is keen to know what you have written.

Considering all these facts I guess writing good informative blogs are important,making it as readable as possible. Person like me, who has a very weak English grammar and always has those "key words" in common speak, need to take more precaution while writing. I have seen more than 100 sites which just do analysis of blog, nothing else.

Though blogging is in its pre-matured age, I can feel its dependency in my life. Love to see people blogging, love to see techies blogging. Just feel, we are making a virtual world, containing its own social values also. Welcoming you again in the world of blog space.

3 Years Done !

I have completed 3 years of my blogging :) Yahoooo !

A small favour can help us !

Some day back I have written a blog " We have to make a Justice !" talking about Global warming and some of the environmental problem we are facing day-by-day. I was talking this issue with one of my friends and I have urged him to do a favour for me as he is doing his MBA and he is a hosteler.

We had a small talk about how to save electricity, of course the wrong consumption of electricity. And first thing that hits my mind was my college hostel. As a hosteler, it's our right to leave the hostel room's fan,light open for 24 hours. I know, not all but 30 percent of student thinks like this and 50 percent don't think at all. If the idea strikes in the mind "oh, fan is running... lets close it", then OK, else also OK. Rest 20 percent, ya they do close. And I am thankful for their parents who have given them a good social education.

Now coming back about the favour. I asked him "Have you ever seen the special lock people put in hotel ? ". Lets see the picture.




Its a small but very very effective innovation. At the time of exit from the room, when you take the keys out from this special switch, light of the room went down. And hence never been a problem to remember " I have closed the lights or not ... ". See such a small businessman idea, because hotel is never charging you for electricity, most of the time they charge something like 1000 rupees per day. And see how this small idea saves their at least 20 percent of the electricity consumption. Now, my question why not the same stuff applied to college hostel ? At least, its not in my college hostel and what I know at least not in most of the college in India. And with this question I urged my friend to talk with college management and tell them their business benefits. As like hotels, hostel fee is also charged on year or semester basis. About the expense, I guess 300 Rs per room, that's it ! Ya, I know there are some other problem "where to dry my underwear" ! Ah, come on, give me a break.

From my blog, I am requesting all my hostel friends to think about this idea. We are ready to talk of pros and cons off course. But please do think !

Basic Education System - We are losing lots of TARE

Basic Education System in our country(I don't know about other countries) is always a debatable issue. To say basic, it is more than Vth or Xth Standard. Yes, I am talking from class I to BTech, MTech. From the early age itself, children are force to memorize things. Start seeing the world from the eyes of teachers, parents. I remember those funny days in my BTech, when we used to memorize all the things in Electronics course and my friend used to ask " Hey Vaibhav, on which question I have to write this stuff "

After sometime we start adapting this world around us. Somehow the life in making assignment, memorizing whole stuff for minor exam, major exam, minor project, major project ... went so busy that we start losing our innovative mind. Innovation is not about sitting idle, it's about sitting free, free with mind, watching things around us.

I thought of our education system hundred times. We need to respect little mind, else what is the difference left between us and machine. Re-thought after watching movie Tare Zamin Per ... excellent movie with lot to say for society, Hats off Aamir.

We have to make a Justice !

Morning of a new Year. Yesterday night I was watching the movie "An Inconvenient Truth". A documentary movie by former United States Vice President Al Gore. Amazing movie, with lot of facts, in fact lot of fearing facts. The most unfortunate fact is we know the threat but due to our busy life we never bother to think about facts like Global Warming. Yes, this is what shown in the movie Old habit + Old Technology = Predictable risk but Old habit + New Technology = Unpredictable risk.

Movie starts with very funny way "I used to be the next president of US" - Al Gore.

Global warming is one of the most important concerns in last 2-3 years. 2005 onwards, nature is playing ruthlessly with us. Hurricane Katrina, Wildfires, Coral reef Depletion and many more are the outcome. We are losing most of the species, mosquitoes are going high on the altitude. After all these, we are not reacting because nothing happening with us .. us in personnel life. Is it ? Thousands of people died at the south coastal, thousands of people died in summers due to dramatic rise in temperature. We never think all these in traveling our AC car. Though Science is doing it's duty. Technologies are changing rapidly, trying to make itself eco-friendly. But how about us ? Consumption of MWatts of Electricity in a IT Hall, just to make a Road Show, is it justified ?

How to go, what to do, how to make a difference ? Lot of questions, I was thinking whole night. We have to make a Justice, justice with self.


Happy New Year and Have a Eco Friendly 2008. Nature is most beautiful if we let it to be.