Monthly Archive for March, 2009

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Which Mobile Do I Buy Next ?

Published on March 13, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments
Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

As I already mentioned earlier I need a new mobile after graduating out of engineering. Currently I have a Nokia N 72. Its a good phone in that it has many features. But I want a smart phone next. I would like my phone to have a QWERTY keyboard, 3G connection, play multimedia, have a PIM, download feeds for me and pretty much everything. So I googled up smart phones.

Going through a lot of blogs and sites, I came to pick 4 good ones. They are the Nokia N96, Samsung Omnia, Sony Xperia X1 and Blackberry Gold. They match my requirements and look good too. I next visited a store to get a look at the phones. Though they did not show me an original piece, they showed me a dummy model.

Sony Xperia X1

Sony Xperia X1

Sa,sung Omnia

Samsung Omnia

Xperia scored the highest amongst these. Its 800 x 400 screen resolution is mind blowing. Also the black background with a clock and the colours dispersed is just awesome. The Xpanels are good to, allowing you to pick taks by a single touch instead of having to navigate through the options everytime. The talktime is an amazing 10 hous. Standby time is around 400 hours. The more I read about this phone, the more tempted I am to buy it.  This one’s a bit costly though. The last time I checked, it was priced at Rs. 43,000 in Hyderabad. But I am in no haste. I will look at all my options before settling for one.

Another phone worth looking at is the Samsung Omnia. It is a completely touch phone with no keypad. This one’s a lot cheaper at just Rs 30,000. The talktime though is just 5 hours compared to Xperias’ 10.

Both of these phones run the Windows Mobile 6. It would be a welcome change from the Symbian OS that I have in my Nokia N72.

The other phones that I have been looking at are Nokia N96 and Blackberryy Gold. The N96 looks just like my N72 and so am not much inclined towards it. The Blackberry has too small a screen compared to the Xperia to favour it. However the reputation of Blackberry is beyond doubt which makes it a good competitor to the Xperia.

And when I thought I had to choose one from only these two, Xperia and Blackberry, came another list of Nokia I had overlooked earlier. The E71 is a good business phone. A friend bought one recently. The metallic body looks great and the phone felt good and solid in my palms. Also there’s this E75 and N97 that have released. N97 is the latest phone from Nokia and I haven’t yet researched it. What makes Nokia a strong competitor is its proven reliability and durability.

As of now I am highly inclined towards the Xperia and tend to disregard/think-of-you-as-a-fool if you speak against it. An alternative phone will have to be very good, have many more features, look more stunning for me to change my mind. Otherwise, its going to be an Xperia in my hands in about 80 days. Let the countdown begin.

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Opening Up

Published on March 13, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Its amazing how monitored ragging can positively effect your personality. In a few days you find yourself transformed into someone you always wnated to be but were hesitant. Instead on relying on the others, you now start to believe in yourself.

Being an engineering student and staying in an hostel, it is no secret that I have had to undergo ragging, or rather the politically correct term being used ‘orientation period‘ or OP. Fortunately though, we have the OP in our second year as compared to the first years else where. The first years are more vulnerable. But when you are in the second year, having already spent an year in the campus gives you a lot of confidence to face anything thrown at youself. Also to quell your fears regarding OP, let me mention that the OP is conducted in a very controlled manner and within restrictions. The sole purpose of OP is to gel with batchmates and instill a sense of belonging to a particular hostel.

But then this post is not about OP. Its more about how a few days of OP can change you forever.

Earlier I was this shy, introverted guy. I hardly used to talk to anyone. I remember back in the school days, I was to be interviewed by a lady from Times of India. She introduced herself and started by asking me to tell her something about myself. I went blank. After staring helplessly at people around myself, I replied, “Could you please be more specific. What do you want to know about me?” When asked to introduce myself, I couldn’t come up with anything.

Well, ask me the same question now, and I’ll go on for quite some time about who I am and what I like, well,  depending on how interested I feel you are. Moreover, earlier I used to avoid any contact with strangers, would leave a conversation hanging dead, and got lost touch with almost everyone from school.

All this changed after my second year. I am now trying to get back in touch with everyone. I do not feel the need to make new friends ‘coz I have too many good ones, but talking to a stranger does not bother me now. Back at home, I now socialize. Earlier I made it a point to avoid any party or social gathering, but now I am like bring-it-on, lets meet people.

The change though was slow to come about in my case. I still have this tendency of reverting back to the old habit of isolation. But there is always a constant effort on my behalf to change myself, to make myself more presentable. It is for the same reason that I love the sitcom Dexter. Its all about how you want people to look at you, and I’ll get there some day, sooner than later.

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Prelude To The 2009 F1 Season

Published on March 11, 2009 in Sports. 0 Comments
Ferrari

Ferrari

Finally, amidst all the drama we have a new season of the Formula 1 motor racing about to begin in just a few days over a fortnight. What with recession threatening to throw the future of the event into jeopardy, Honda pulling the plug on its team, ING refusing to renew their sponsorship of Renault and teams threatening to quit, its somewhat fortunate that we will get a full calendar this year.

It was already predicted that if the budget be not controlled, a few teams might consider walking away from the sport, but that the effect would actually happen this year was not expected. It came as a surprise when out of blue Honda announced its decision to dismantle the team and quit F1. Spiralling costs were seen as a major reason behind the decision, with recession not helping. A huge save-honda-campaign was launched by Bernie who took it upon himself to find a buyer to buy out the team. Apparently Michael had been approached, but he refused to get involved in the sport in that capacity. Ross Brawn was interested to buy out the team, and even Bernie was ready to provide behind-the-curtains funding. There were also occasional rumours of a third party hostile buy out, and that of Virgin Grp’s interest in the team. It all came to naught when it was finally delcared that the management team of Honda led by Brawn had bought back the team. Thus we have this year the BrawnGP challenger instead of the Honda challenger.

Just as AIG had refused to renew their contract with the soccer icons Manchester United, ING announced similar treatment to Renault. Renault though have dismissed any concerns regarding the funding and instead insist are well off. I am not sure but I also read this rumour that similar problem has been faced by Williams team. This definitely calls for some drastic implementations of budget regulations unless we are prepared to lose out a few more teams.

But the proposed budget implementations do not bode well with all the teams, and certainly not the viewers. For instance, one of the rules to be implemented in near future is that of engine standardisation, whereby all the teams shall use the same engine provided by a neutral company, just as is the case with current tyres provider Bridgestone and the standardised Electronic Control Unit manufactured and provided by Mercedes. Obviously the teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Toyota who manufacture their own cars will not be pleased with this constraint, as using the same engine eliminates one of the main uniqueness of each formula 1 car on the grid. A lot of research goes into the design of the engine and using the same engine could kill the sport. However, it also reduces the overall money spent by the teams on the research of the engines.

In view of reducing the budget, one of the better rules to be implemented this season onwards is the prolomged usage of the same engine for 3 races as opposed to just 2 last season. This is one the most important regulations for the season to cut down the costs. Also there are restictions on the usage of wind tunnels and all, though I am not very much clear about it. Also a reduction in testing time is a welcome idea.

But what begs a question is that when everywhere the emphasis is on the reduction of the budget, why is the super license fee being increased. Infact a few of the drivers did protest, but these things never work out. Bernie has made it absolutely clear that unless the license is paid the driver will not be allowed to race.

Moving on from the much hyped and discussed topic of recession and budget control, this season the driver-team lineup has almost remained the same. Vettel is I suppose the only exception, replacing Coulthard.

I have been following the winter testing and Ferrari looks a competitive package this time. Last year they were struggling a bit during the testing season, while this time around they have been at the top setting the pace almost every time. The pace seems to be good, and Raikkonen for once looks motivated. Hamilton had put his car through the laps well, but Hekki seems to be struggling coming to terms with the new car. This does make me feel hopeful of a Kimi resurgence. I feel sad for Alonso though. Having shown sparks of brillance towards the end of the last season, I expected much more of him during the pre-season training. The results have been pretty ordinary by his standards. I would love to see him at the top chasing down the Ferraris and the McLarens. He is one man I despised during the Schumacher era, but came to appreciate his talents later on. Give him a BMW an I am sure he’ll make life a hell for Kimi, Massa and Hamilton. He’s a class apart.

Its an anxious wait, striking off the days to the Melbourne Grand Prix. May the best Ferrari win.

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Set Proxy For Picasa In Ubuntu

Published on March 10, 2009 in Tech. 0 Comments
Ubuntu logo

Ubuntu logo

I am behind a proxy server and needed to set the proxy for picasa to work on my Ubuntu Intrepid. The instructions have been recorded below :

  • First you need to start the registry editor of picasa
    • /opt/picasa/bin/wrapper regedit
    • The above should do. However my picasa wrapper was located at a different place, namely
      • /opt/google/picasa/3.0/bin/wrapper regedit
    • Check yours and run the command appropriately
  • Navigate to the following user key
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings
  • Now we need to add a few entries. They are
    • ProxyEnable
      • REG_BINARY
      • 01 00 00 00
    • ProxyOverride
      • String value
    • ProxyServer
      • String value
      • Server:Port
        • For example I had to set 144.16.192.247:8080
  • Thats it, done. The change should be immediate.
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I Wanna Run Away, Never Say Goodbye

Published on March 10, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Exactly what I feel at the moment. Another day crawls to an end. I lie here in my room tired of boredom. Joblessness is the worst punishment you can dole out to any body.

It’s not as if I have no work to do. There are a lot of things I have to do, and frankly speaking, I am running out of time. If I continue postoponing, I’ll have to work extra furiously towards the end to ensure that the deadline is never crossed. But recently I have been distracted and not able to concentrate on my work. Coding is impossible at the moment, and so is thinking about any proofs. This in essense rules out BTP work!

Also I was trying to learn PERL by myself. But then once again there is this lack of motivation because I do not have any immediate use of the language. I am pretty happy with C and dont feel the need to know yet another language. So that is on hold for a while.

By any standards, the TV series have become boring and the movies left for me to watch demand high levels of concentration on my part which is currently not possible. I am more in the mood of some light comedy, yet none of those nonsense-watch-me-and-forget-me movies. Pirates of Caribbean describes exactly the kind of movie that I would want to watch. The last good movie that I liked was Bedtime Stories.

I need to brush up my Java once again. I received a mail from Fair Isaac confirming that Kashyap is going to interact with me during these days before I join FI. Although Navin says that C is an acceptable coding language, I shall try to switch to Java because bulk of the work done at FI has been using Java, and also so that I get a platform to master the language. However, I still think I would have preferred C++ to Java.

Perhaps the best thing for me is to go to sleep now. That way I might feel fresh after a good nights sleep and might actually feel like working tomorrow onwards. But please do not read much into these ’cause I have been feeling the same for the past 3 days !!

There’s this soccer match between Chelsea and Juventus, and also the fourth ODI between India and New Zealand airs day after. Good, something to look forwards to. I am eagerly waiting for the Formula 1 season to start.

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The Doon Experience

Published on March 9, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments
Rafting

Rafting

The latest destination was the Dehradun. Our mid-semester exams had just ended and we were eager to get away from Kharagpur. The choice was between Gangtok, Goa and Dehradun. However there were quite a few constraints and we finally decided to go with a two night three day trip to Dehradun.

The time was limited and there was a lot to visit. Amidst a packed schedule were a list of places we wanted to visit. After consulting with an aunt of mine who lives there, we settled on spending the first day in Dehradun, the next in Mussorie and the final day river rafting in Rashikesh. I shall divide my tour in three separate posts, each one covering single day. This first post is about Dehradun.

The trip started off the wrong note with us chosing the Doon Express to take us to Dehradun. It was one of the worst trains I have ever had the misfortune of travelling in. Slow as it was, all the local passengers took it upon themselves to travel in this trian without any tickets. This only meant that a hot tuesday afternoon became worse, sweaty and with no pantry car, there was no quenching of the thirst. We toiled in the afternoon heat only to be relieved after the cool breaze started in the evening. Towards the later part of the night it became colder and we had to pull up our sheets to keep us warm during the night.

Next morning I woke up early in the morning to find the train halted at the Haridwar railway station. It was chilly and we were excited to finally have gotten to a colder place than Kharagpur. The cool breeze beat across our faces and made us shiver. The train started off for the last two hours to Dehradun. Hungry from the journey, we got down quickly and headed to aunty’s house. Refreshed and enervated, we were ready to plan out the next course of action – the fun was about to begin.

Since we had only half the day to visit all the places we wanted to, we had to decide quickly on our plan. We finally decided upon visiting Robbers’ cave first, followed by Sahastradhara, and then visit the city at night by the car. Yay, thought of a special kulfi had us looking forwards to the last part of the day.

We hired an auto rikshaw to Robbers cave. Not knowing what to expect, it was a pleasant surprise for what awaited us there. An entrance to a cave with water streaming out of it. And it was no ordinary cave. Huge rocky walls lined the sides of the cave, the top being canopied by trees. Water was flowing into the cave from above along the walls and also from the inside. It was a breath-taking view of such a beautiful place. We changed into shorts, put on rubber slippers and entered the ice cold waters.

At first the water was too low to only cover the ankles. The cold was something we needed getting used to. We ventured inside the cave wondering if it was a labyrinth or something else. Labyrinth it proved out not to be, but was good enough a place to visit. Towards the end though there was a pool of water whose depth was not visible to us. We dared not enter it lest we be submerged and unable to come up again by the force of the gushing stream. We were content watching it mesmerised from a distance. A few minutes later we were able to muster enough courage to go and put one leg inside the pool, but never dared to jump into it. Probably this is where the robber hid their treasure, inside the pool, and thus the name of Robbers cave.

We left the cave an hour later to visit the next spot – Sahastradhara, which is described as the combining of countless streams of water streams into one stream. What more, apparently its spring water, making it beneficial for body if you were to care to swim in it.

After half an hours ride in the local bus we were dropped at this parched place where not a drop of water was visible. We immediately realised that it was going to be a big let down. We walked a few distance to finally come to a rope-way. Hoping to find water streams above we bought tickets for ourselves and alighted the rope-way, only to be let down again. It lead tus to no where!! We were left at this elevated platform where there was a nescafe and a shelter to sit and rest tired aching feets while enjoying a breath-taking view of the valley, or so it was supposed to be, for neither were we tired nor was there enough water in the streams to make the view spectacular.

After enquiring about this apparently famous place we were told that in our way we must have passed a temple, behind which there is a pool where all the streams meet! That was the famed place. Dejected and disappointed we visited the said spot. But even in the month of March there was hardly any water. We decided against entering the water. A few clicks and smiles later  we returned to the bus to take us back home.

In the evening we visited this temple carved into a mountainous rock. Its a shivling upon which water drops from the roof of the cave throughout the year even though it does not rain outside. We went around the cave for a few minutes but left pretty early. Later on a trip to the city main market by car and a flavour of kulfi were the last things we did in the city. Tired by the afternoons expedition, we returned home once again for dinner. A happy meal and combiflam later we were fast asleep.

On the whole it was a pleasant place to visit. Robbers cave was the high point of the day, Sahastradhara being a big let down. It was also good to get away from the scorching heat of the Kharagpur’s afternoon sun. There’s one waterfall near Dehradun that we weren’t able to visit. Something to look forwards to in the next trip.

In later posts I shall write about our outings to the Queen of Hills, Mussorie and also my first river rafting experience in the glacier waters of the Ganges.

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Vagalume – Last.fm Radio On Ubuntu Intrepid

Published on March 2, 2009 in Miscel. 0 Comments
Last.fm

Last.fm

I love the last.fm radio. Recently I made a transition from the windows operating system to the ubuntu intrepid. I love amarok too, but sadly it wasn’t able to play the last.fm radio. Upon googling around, I found that apparently last.fm had decomissioned their old protocol on the 31st of January, 2009 and thus amarok 1.4 wasn’t able to stream music anymore. I was disheartened. I began searching for alternative appliations to play the radio.

Lastfm client was the obvious choice. I used it to play radio in the windows environment. However, I met with another problem. Installed, account entered, proxy set – but it wasn’t able to play too. I have no idea what the problem is. It skips through a lot of songs before giving a connection error. Again failed !

Next I came across this Vagalume last.fm client. It has support for gnome environment. It installed and was pretty easy to configure. It has all the features of the official last.fm client, namely play all the radio stations (neighbours, loved tracks and personal library included), ban/love a track, edit tags for a track and also scrobble. The last.fm page now shows

Listening now using Vagalume – Tuned to Megadeth Radio

Yeah, you can select a radio based on a global artist tag/genre tag and also select tracks from your own lobrary filtered by the tag. Additionally, Vagalume also changes pidgin status to reflect which song you are listening to at the moment – pretty much all that I was looking for.

Installing Vagalume is easy too. All you have to do is

sudo apt-get install vagalume

The application installs. You will find the aplication in your Applications->Sounds & Video. Configure the settings, namely your username, password and proxy if any and get tuned into your favourite station.

Happy listening. :)

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