Ramkumar speaks

SMEs, time to protect your online identity

2009-10-11T03:31:00.001-07:00

One of my relative is a book publisher and seller, he is running this business for decades and most of the sales is through the traditional medium. Like any other Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), he registered a .com domain name for his busines years ago. He consulted a local web design and development company to do the domain registration and hosting. The web design company registered the domain name for him, but they were the registrant and administrative contact for the domain.

An year passed, either the web design company didn't exist or they failed to inform him about the domain renewal or that he didn't give much attention, the domain name expired and went into the hands of some domain name Realtor. They kept the domain for sale for a high price, which was unreachable for my relative and his enterprise, he had to seek another domain name / domain name extension for his business.

Similar was the case with another friend of mine, who registered a valuable .com domain through a web design agency and lost it.

Well, they are not exceptional cases you might see when you look around.

The domain name and web development industry has changed, if you had a domain name exactly conveying the name of your business and you lost it like what is mentioned above, you may not be getting it back or you may have to pay a large sum to get it back.

Following are some tips for SMEs to avoid situations like above.

Be serious about your online identity such as a domain name or website. They are no more items made just to be shown on your business cards, they can bring business to you.
As much as possible, try to maintain a reminder about domain renewal if you have paid for the domain for just one year.
10 years is the maximum duration a domain name can be registered for, for now. You may go for the maximum duration for your firm's branded domain name, considering your firms operation for years to come.
My advise is that you learn to register domain name yourself and to manage it. Domain name is an asset, gone are those days where it was nothing for SMEs.
If you cannot do register and maintain domain name yourself, seek help of a trust able web design company and keep an agreement that they register the domain name mentioning you as the registrant and technical/administrative contact so that the notification about domain renewal reach you through the email id mentioned as part of these contacts.

Set up your own photo blog and post snaps live from mobile!

2009-09-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone got a mobile phone with a decent cam, and often or not, use it to take snaps. do you really share with others? May not be..

How about an idea of setting up your photo blog and publish the snaps you capture from mobile onto a photo blog instantly?

If you liked the above idea, then read on..
You need

A blog
A mobile phone which can connect to internet / at least can send out an email with attachments.

I started my photo blog on blogger, and later pointed the blogger blog to my custom domain name.

Method 1: Post photos directly to Blogger.

Creating a blog on blogger is free, and if you can you can buy a domain name and create a blog on it. I got into the passion of Mobile Photo Blogging recently and my Photo Blog has some snaps (some are crap, I do agree :)).
Blogger and wordpress support emailing a post and publishing it online, that's the feature ideal for mobile blogging as it's quick, doesn't eat up much of your time. If you are on blogger, under Settings > Email and Mobile, you can assign an email id to which you can send your posts and get it published.
This setup shouldn't take up much of your time.

Now on your phone, after you capture a snap, just email it, adding a subject and body text to the same email address mentioned above, you are done! Your snap goes online within no time!!

If you are on blogger, your images will be saved in picasa, which has a limited storage of 1GB. I suggest Flickr instead of the above method.

Method 2: Post snps to picasa and then post to blog, all with single email

Flickr gives 100MB of storage every month on free accounts.

Image quality is better on flickr than the ones stored by blogger/picasa and the one which gets embedded automatically when you send an email post.

So the method is slightly modified if you want to use Flickr as storage.
Flickr has option where you can email a new snap in, also they have an option to post to your blog from flickr. So here we will not be using the email id of blogger, instead we will be using email id to post to flickr and blog automatically.

Head towards Flickr, go to your account settings, under email tab, you can find the email id to send to Flickr. Additionally, you have to setup Flickr to access to your blog and post snaps automatically.
So you will be sending your snaps to Flickr email, which gets saved in Flickr and your blog is updated with a new photo post..

Interesting?

Airtel 3G Data Card now available - but limited speed!

2009-09-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

3G is yet to be introduced in our country, but at least the hopes are alive that it should be available in at least 6-10 months from now.
BSNL, Reliance and Tata Indicom are already selling wireless data cards which can deliver speeds in the range of max 2-3.1 Mbps based on CDMA technology, Airtel was nowhere in this picture till now.

There is good news for Airtel fans, Airtel has started selling 3G data cards for a price of 4,250 Rs, but current limitation is that you will be getting max speed of only 256kbps as currently there is no 3G and it relies on Airtel's GPRS/EDGE network.

I visited Airtel's relationship center nearby to enquire about this, since there is no ads any where, it was only rumours. Obviously Airtel isn't advertising since this isn't working on 3G network yet and giving a smaller speed. The airtel relationship manager was happy to explain it to me. The max speed of 256kbps again depends on the network in any particular area, but since its Airtel I feel even 256kbps will not let you down.

Tariffs: He mentioned to me about two plans - 999Rs for unlimited usage and 599 Rs with a download limite (Sorry, i didnt hear this limit part properly as I was more keen towards unlimited packs).

To confirm, I asked whether this tariffs are going to change after introduction of 3G - the answer was 'probably it could'. I do not have any complaints on this answer as 3G pricing is yet to be announced, there could be a number of factors to be considered before the final customer pricing is decided.

At the moment Reliance charges 1500 odd Rs per month for an unlimited plan with National roaming for their 3.1Mbps data card. I assume Airtel price might settle somewhere in the same range once 3G is in place.

Am I going for this card now? : Well, I might not, I have a broadband connection at home and have a spare Airtel SIM card to be used while roaming on their Mobile Office plan. I can go for a data card only when the speed and network reliability is good so that I can abandon my wired broadband connection at home. At the moment I cannot afford paying for both, I cannot discard my wired broadband connection at the moment since I work from home after returning from office and I am too much dependant on the availability of Internet. I can bet, other providers cannot give me such a reliability score than Airtel.

Hope Airtel launches 3G with a right price for customers like me, again not leaving the reliabilty factor so that wireless 3G becomes the one and only internet connection used than multiple connections .

Tariffs:

The reason why I hate Mozilla Firefox

2009-07-22T03:45:00.001-07:00

The good point about firefox is the number of useful addons which are available.
But see the memory usage and the resource usage (not reflecting on the snapshot though)

This is one area Firefox need to improve. And this is the only reason I never open Firefox on my Netbook (Asus EeePC 1000HE - it will die! though I have 2GB RAM).

What you people think about Firefox?

Service Quality of Airtel in Bangalore

2009-07-14T05:52:00.001-07:00

Those who have used it, know it..
Well, I am a customer of Airtel for Mobile, Home phone and Broadband, what left is the DTH which I will be owning soon. By the way the reason for this post is to express the service quality of Airtel and comparing it with other operators I have been a customer in the past.

My Airtel Broadband wasn't working today, I noticed frequent disconnection - the modem was negotiating connections too frequently which was quite unusual on Airtel Broadband. First I suspected my UPS, on which I had connected my modem and router, it was an old UPS, which I use only for modem and router in order to get broadband even during powercuts! Well this works with Airtel and other providers who offer broadband on telephone line (say BSNL).
After wasting some time, I thought there could be some problem with the Airtel telephone line itself. I picked up my phone receiver only to hear noise and not dial tone. So conclusion - the line had some sort of issue. I called up Airtel customer care in Bangalore on the number 080 - 4444 4121 to report the issue. I made the complaint registration at 1:15 pm, kept the receiver, got ready to start to office. 1:40 pm I have the Engineer from Airtel checking the junction box in front of my home!!

Just 25 minutes, can you expect any other responding to your complaints faster than this? I am over 100% sure, they are yet to be born. I am still a customer of BSNL landline, for such complaints if I am lucky I can see a technician checking it next day, and probably will be rectified soon after some bribing. I was a customer of Tata Indicom VSNL's broadband and have see worst service a provider can give to customer, its a fact that Airtel has kept high standards in resolving complaints from customers.

There are some complaints from few that Airtel charges heavy for their services, but buddy you cannot get high quality for a cheaper price always. Hathway provides internet very cheap - damn cheap, but if power goes, your internet is down. Hathway's internet is through cable, which transmits TV channels too, so one booster burns on the way or not powered, internet is down.

I use Airtel internet to make use of the option of working from home, because its a connection I can trust when there is some emergency task is being handled away from office.
My point is, if you are serious about your broadband connection, use Airtel - else use any other provider but only expect it to work at their will, not based on your requirement.

I am not an employee of Airtel, Airtel doesn't need someone to make fake statements about their service, if you have used it yourself, you will be in line with my comments above.
Hope others try to learn from Airtel !

Aircel Pocket Internet settings for configuring PC / Laptop

2009-07-13T03:53:00.001-07:00

This post explains you on how to use the Aircel Pocket Internet on your PC / Laptop.

For using Aircel Pocket Internet on PC / Laptop , you need a mobile phone which has USB or bluetooth to connect to the PC / laptop. I'll explain this using the options I have on my previous mobile phone - Sony Ericsson K750i. I have a Nokia 5800 too which I have successfully connected to PC and browsed using Aircel Pocket internet.

Get Aircel Pocket Internet active on your mobile. Once you subscribe, you will receive settings to use it which need to be saved on the mobile phone. On SE K750i, you can see these profiles under Settings > Connectivity > Internet Settings , you may see a number of profiles listed along with "pocket internet" itself. "Pocket Internet" is the profile used to connect to internet and browse on PC / Laptop. Find at what position, "Pocket Internet" profile is listed on the above said section, if its at serial number 1, it is 1. This position is used in the dial up number configured on the PC / laptop.

Connect your mobile phone to PC / Laptop. As said earlier, use USB cable or use bluetooth and make sure it is connected.

Create a new dial up connection (Go to control panel, network and internet connection > Network connections and choose create a new connection). Name it as "Aircel" or something (name isn't very much dependant).
Choose to set up the connection manually and choose dial up modem. For the dial up modem, keep username and password as blank and the number to dial is *99***1# (if pocket internet is your first profile - see explanation above), or *99***2# if pocket internet is listed as the second profile and so on. Create connection and dial the connection, you should see a status bar indicating that connection is established on successful connection.

Now open your web browser (say IE), go to Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN settings and enter the proxy details as 192.168.35.201 and port 8081 , use this proxy for other protocols too.

Now open any page say http://www.google.com/ the page should load if you have followed the instructions as stated above.

The procedure will be almost similar on other mobile phones too, one need to identify the internet profiles listed on the phone, identify the position of the "pocket Internet" settings, create the dial up number accordingly, use the proxy on the browser. It should work on any mobile phone which allows connection to PC / laptop.

Post your queries !

Aircel pocket Internet Speed Test – Take 2

2009-07-10T12:43:00.001-07:00

Well, you might have read about the test I conducted earlier and reviewed Aircel’s Pocket Internet Plan .

Today I did give another try to test the speed of Aircel Pocket Internet, surprisingly it gave speeds ranging from 47 kbps to 100kbps !!

http://speedtest.net didn’t open as I mentioned earlier, but I was able to check the speed with http://2wire.com .

So, the conclusion is for 98 Rs, Aircel Pocket Internet isn’t a bad option to be used as a backup internet or for light weight browsing / checking mails etc.

I connected my SE K750i to PC over bluetooth, dialled *99***3# (since Airtel Pocket Internet is the third profile on phone) , used a proxy address - 192.168.35.201 with port 8081 , I browsed few web pages to see the performance.

I have used Tata Indicom’s 64 kbps internet connection (worth over 400 Rs per month) , compared to that 98 Rs is a very much better option.

I can recommend this connection to students, job seekers etc who can browse unlimited but not for downloading any huge files. I tried downloading a 10 MB file, which took close to 25 minutes, isn’t very bad either.

Share your experiences as comments.

(This blog post is written using the Pocket Internet Connection from Aircel !)

My SE K750i gets a new housing

2009-07-05T01:38:00.001-07:00

My Sony Ericsson K750i is about 2 and half year old, and have fallen down many times that it had many damages to the casing. I decided to get it a new look by changing the casing. I enquired at few shops in Bangalore for an estimate only to find that it would cost anywhere between 1500 to 2500, well, I can buy a dual SIM mobile from ebay for that!

I searched Ebay.com for a good deal for SE K750i housing and bought one for about 8.95 USD from Hong Kong .

Next, no shop was ready to replace the housing with the one provided by me, because they weren’t getting the marging like what was quoted by them, so I decided to it my selves. This wasn’t so tough, thanks to a couple of YouTube videos!

I followed those videos and changed the housing myself! The operation was successful and the patient still alive. Following are some snaps from the entire process!

Aircel Pocket Internet Review

2009-07-05T01:07:00.001-07:00

If you are looking for information on setting up Aircel Pocket Internet on PC / Laptop, then read my post explaining it by following the link.

This was my first trial on Aircel Pocket Internet. Read my speed review part 2 here.

I was using Airtel Online / NOP for quite a while until recently Airtel pulled these back. I know the reason behind Airtel’s move to withdraw Airtel Online / NOP – there has been a number of hacks and tricks around through which one can use Airtel Online / NOP on pc, even though they aren’t for pc and to be used only on mobile and comes with a nominal charge of 99 Rs for unlimited mobile browsing for a month on the postpaid plan.

Quite dejected, I decided to test the Aircel’s Pocket Internet. Power cuts for two hours – one each in morning and evening, I decided to spend my time walking during power cut.

I walked to Thippasandra market in Bangalore, which is quite near to my home, and went into at least 4 mobile recharge stores for Aircel’s Pocket Internet. All had the poster mentioning about Aircel’s Pocket Internet cards worth Rs 14 and 98, but when I asked “Aircel Pocket Internet card iddaya?” (Do you have Aircel’s Pocket Internet card, all of them told “NO”! Well, everyone had the poster of this ad posted on the Wall !! Its quite a shame that Aircel people aren’t educating these people about new offers, schemes and something like this when they provide such ads to be pasted on their shops!

I ended up in front of a small shop where they sell the DTH services and they looked to be selling the mobile phone SIMs and recharge coupons too. Seeing the same sticker again, I repeated the same question to get the same answer ! But this time my question was noticed by a man standing in front of the shop – he must be the actual owner of the shop and I asked my question to the boy standing inside the shop. This person asked me what I am looking for.. I pointed at the same ad which was on the wall – I am looking for this. He asked the boy, do you know what is this – The boy said ‘NO’. He shouted at the boy, we are the distributor and you don't know what is this, how others will know then? I told I have visited 4 shops prior to this.. The person made a quick phone call to some Aircel office and confirmed that we can do an easy recharge to get the plans activated. I was happy, at last I can get Aircel to test the Pocket Internet!

I took the SIM, got a life time recharge done for 49 Rs and activated Pocket Internet with another recharge of 98 Rs.

Now the real review of Pocket Internet

On my Sony Ericsson K750i, I could open the mobile friendly pages without any issue, but the GMail for Mobile didn't fetch my emails. So I would say, on mobile phone this connection works fairly okay for light web browsing. I tried downloading mini fring of 575 KB, this is where I felt the connection lacks ! It took at least 20 minutes for me for the 575KB download with many network errors and resuming download.

I connected mobile to my PC to test the speed and run a speed test using http://speedtest.net . For the dial up settings for Aircel Pocket Internet on PC/Laptop, one may use *99***1# if Pocket Internet is the first internet profile in the phone, with user name and password empty. iGoogle took close to 90 seconds to load, I tried opening up GMail.com which opened up in about 30 seconds, but subsequently it showed ‘Internet Connection Lost’ message on top of the GMail page.

SpeedTest.net page didn’t load completely for continous attempts for an hour! Finally I decided to load the SpeedTest.net page components using my broadband and then do a refresh to test using Pocket Internet. The initial latency check on SpeedTest.net showed something close to 5800 ms and gave an error after wards, I couldn’t continue the Speed test at all.

Whichever is cheap isn’t always the best – This holds true in this case as well. For 98 Rs one can browse at home, cheap, but mind what you can do in 5 minutes on Broadband, needs an hour or more on Pocket Internet. Are you ready for it? By the way if you are too much dependant on a cyber cafe which uses age old machines and have many viruses in it, safeguarding your email credentials can be achieved with use of Pocket Internet connected to your own PC / Laptop – I am not seeing any reliability score for this connection.

Airtel, why did you stop the 99 Rs Airtel Online? It was much better than this so called ‘Pocket Internet’ !

Grey Market Chinese Mobile Phones - Is it the end in India?

2009-04-03T04:58:00.001-07:00

The content is moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/grey-market-chinese-mobile-phones-is-it-the-end-in-india/

Nokia 5800 earpiece problem

2009-03-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

Post moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/nokia-5800-earpiece-problem/

Reliance EVDO with 3.1Mbps speed

2009-03-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

Reliance came out with EVDO netconnect wireless broadband.
Along with the launch, a free scheme is bundled. If you buy the data
card before March 2009 end, you will get two months of free unlimited
data usage ! Hurry if you are planning to buy.
On the other side, reliance currently supports EVDO in 35 cities only
Please check their network service map -
http://offers.connectindia.in/images/reliance/evideo/Network%20Coverage%20maps.pdf
Tarrifs are a bit higher compared to next rival - BSNL

Reliance Netconnect EVDO tarriffs start at 299, you get sero data credit
and you will be charged 2 rupee for each MB of usage. There is a topup
of 199 to make this free for night usage. If you need unlimited data
usage limit and need national wide roaming facility (again, within the
available locations), you need to shell out 1750 every month !

Fedora 10 on MS Virtual PC - Installation problems (issues) and solutions

2009-01-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

This topic moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/fedora-10-on-ms-virtual-pc-installation-problems-issues-and-solutions/

public/private key authentication with PuTTY on fedora 10

2008-12-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

Post moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/publicprivate-key-authentication-with-putty-on-fedora-10/

Virtualization tools

2008-12-23T02:10:00.000-08:00

Find this post at http://www.webreviewer.info/virtualization-tools/

Partition Magic 8 Error 510 - The version of the file system is not supported

2008-12-17T03:09:00.000-08:00

This post about partition magic error 510 is moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/partition-magic-8-error-510-the-version-of-the-file-system-is-not-supported/

IRCTC sharing user data to third parties??

2008-11-24T23:48:00.002-08:00

This is one of the mails I got today, it was another spammy mail from IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation). If you are registered with IRCTC and using their online ticket booking facility, probably you too would have received this mail.

If you look in detail, the link (promo) points to another site - IndiaTodayBookClub.com which obviously look like a third party site.

NOW My Question is, who the hell is IRCTC to share my email ID to third party email advertisers, without my consent and knowledge?

Checked out IRCTC again, there is NO privacy policy document and nothing which explains me what they do with my private data such as name, email id, contact address etc !!!

Should IRCTC do such things with the user data? DISGUSTING !!
Is there anyone from IRCTC to explain what the sHiT is this??

Whats happening to GOOG (Google's stock at NAZDAQ) ?

2008-11-21T00:39:00.000-08:00

I remember the days when me and Rajesh (My colleague at Natural Search), used to track the price of GOOG (Google share at NAZDAQ). It was in the end of Aug, there was a major algorithm update at google and the stock price went from around 280 USD to over 400 USD in a week's time. It was at the end of Aug 2005 and in the beginning of Sept 2005.

We were just wondering how much we would have earned if we had bough google shares at that time :)

Thats history, but I was watching google prices by adding a stock portfolio gadget onto my iGoogle and today's price really brought back those days when we were closely watching this stock. It was really shocking to see a price around 259 USD !! I couldn't really digest the fact that the price has gone down even below that Aug 2005 figure !!
Whats going around? I know as a company, Google is still doing really well, but Google too relies on the money which is spent by advertisers through Google's sponsored search results. There must be really a major drop in the advertising spend in recent times due to the economic slowdown.

Any views in this regard, do not forget to click and add a comment below .

Wireless Networking to share my BSNL EVDO dialup internet

2008-11-12T02:52:00.000-08:00

This topic is moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/wireless-networking-to-share-my-bsnl-evdo-dialup-internet/

A journey on BMTC AC Volvo

2008-11-12T02:30:00.000-08:00

It was 25th of October (A day to remember for me for another reason), I got a chance to travel in an AC Volvo ran by BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation). In Bangalore I rarely travel in a bus majorly because I am addicted to bike riding and never get a chance to get into a bus, unless my bike is at service center. It was one such occasion. My Hero Honda Super Slendor was being serviced at Max Motors Rajaji Nagar when I got into this AC Volvo.

Since it was my first experience on a BMTC AC Volvo, I would like to explain what I found here.. First thing a big applause to BMTC, for running these services at an affordable rate (adding to the services they added recently to the Bangalore International Airport).

First good one is for business people and IT workaholics.. There are electricity plug points where you can charge your laptop / mobile phone. !! Check the following image.

Well equiped with an emergency exit at rear.

Another important thing is the ample amount of free space inside the bus. You will never need to anxiously wait for you to get out of the heavily crowded bus. See the foldable seats in the middle part of the bus.

Last thing, BMTC is making some money through the ads on these buses. From outside I used to wonder how people can see through the ads on the side glasses. But when I got in, I realized that its a one sided ad through which you can have a look outside as if an ad is not present. You can make out a shadow of ads on the glasses. Thats Orange Electronics ad on the glasses !!

BSNL EVDO touching 1MBPs for the first time

2008-10-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

I am posting this one from train, on my way to native.. Just curious, I was testing speed of BSNL EVDO once I left cantt station.. Here are the results..

New Look of chennai on my recent visit

2008-08-15T09:00:00.001-07:00

I was in Chennai in last weekend and till Monday (11th Aug) due to some official work. The place I had to visit was Thiruvanmiyur.

I was in Chennai when I was about to start my earnings, and the impression I had about Chennai from then, had to be slightly modified seeing the current infrastructure..

This picture shows the station for the metro train which runs on rails above the ground.

I got into the station and what you can see is the huge space under the station. This snap is me taking snap exactly beneath the station.

This is a view from inside the railway station..

A tree with a lot of honeycombs

2008-07-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Me and my cousins were on a casual walk inside GKVK from the Vidyaranyapura side and my cousin explained something interesting about this tree...

As per him, this tree holds the record for maximum number of honeycombs in it.. !! Interesting? Have a look at the snaps.. I didn't have my Sony DSC H2 with me, so I had to be happy with the images taken using my Sony Ericsson K750i mobile.

Previous versions of wordpress - Download it here

2008-06-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for one of the previous versions of wordpress (wordpress.org ), here is the link, each and every release for you to download !!

http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/

Enjoy !!

Google search advanced query operators

2008-06-20T02:43:00.000-07:00

topic moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/google-search-advanced-query-operators/

Google analytics and Ajax

2008-06-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

Moved to http://www.webreviewer.info/google-analytics-and-ajax/

back on mobile blogging session ;-)

2008-06-13T19:32:00.001-07:00

i am on tumkur road, on the way to chikamangalur. so thought of
scribbling down something. me and my friends - narayan, kiran, sathish (in hyundai getz) and nagaraj, jagdish and two more are in ford ikon and we are in two cars.
one of my aim is to take some good snaps for ipo ;-). will keep you
updated on the same soon :-(

Weekend trip to somewhere........ All set to start

2008-06-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. Yes.. Its after a long time I am getting ready for a weekend trip. I hope you would have seen the snaps of my trip in October 2007 .

So here is the plan.

Target Chikmagalur

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Departure:
June 14th 2008 Saturday. Exactly at 5.00 AM from my home. Journey could take around 8 hours incuding breakfast, lunch, cigs etc etc.

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Cars
Ford Icon and Getz

Car Owners are requested to fiil up the petrol/diesel by friday night. On saturday we dont waste time and can directly drive away.

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Members

Bangalore Kalakar, Challakeri Thrill, Tipturu Mani, Mangalore Shetty, Karwar Satish, Mysore Yatish, Palakkad Ram, Hubli Officer, Raju, Kiran

I will keep you updated with some nice snaps !!

Were there ads on orkut user profiles ?

2008-06-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have seen ads on community pages but I am noticing ads on user profiles in Orkut.. Have you people seen it before of is it a recent change ?

thats how i watched ipl final

2008-06-09T04:31:00.001-07:00

Kuzhalmannam Agraharam - Where my home is !!

2008-06-05T01:36:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

The tata indicom broadband joke

2008-06-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Yup..Check the image. In the marked area, I should be seeing my public
IP upon successful connection. The modem shows I have successfully
connected to the server.. But this is what I got as my IP ........

Funny isn't it?

Traffic Comparison - BigAdda,MingleBox,Yaari,Gazzag

2008-06-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Malayalam Wikipedia !!

2008-06-04T01:35:00.000-07:00

Funny eh ?

Digital Point Forums Down due to database related issue

2008-06-02T04:30:00.001-07:00

Digital Point Forums is one of the best webmaster forums where in you can get answers for your queries very quickly. Besides this , it has become a market place for the virtual real estate and related stuff.

The number of users of this forum grows almost exponentially , which is good and bad in many way.. Bad? Yes.. check http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ ..... Its down !! OMG..

what you would have done if you were a webmaster of this site at this time and what further failsafe measures you would have taken ?

BSNL EVDO set to make a revolution in wireless broadband

2008-06-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

I was really fed up of my Tata Indicom (VSNL) Broadband as it failed for the
nth time from yesterday. I had another 10 minute call to customer care to
explain the issue and hear and do the same old 'BULL SHIT' trouble-shooting
steps.

Internet connection has become one of a lifeline for me as it makes me upset
seeing the connection getting down.

I browsed Airtel site for their new plans as I have seen them as the primary
alternative and then BSNL. Searching about BSNL's new plans, the new thing
struck me for a while - BSNL EVDO USB Modem.

BSNL EVDO service is not new, but its not given the much needed hype as BSNL
is still working on its infrastructure.. Remember how BSNL came out with the
mobile network after getting all the necessary infrastructure ready and
functional?

So here is the only official information I could get about BSNL EVDO, though
there are a quite number of blogs and forums already about BSNL EVDO.

http://www.bsnl.co.in/newsdetailed.php?news_id=370

My first impression about BSNL EVDO is really good. It uses a tiny USB
device just like Reliance netconnect and tata indicom USB device. Currently
the device is priced at 3500 Rupees, which you can buy or take the device on
rental at 200/pm.

For the unlimited package with upto 2.4MBps the charge is 550/pm+ taxes. If
you tae the modem on rental, total charges per month will be
550+200(rental)+service taxes . Cool eh ?

BSNL has not launched it officially, hence I don't have much info where to
get things going, but as far as what information gathered by me in internet,
in Bangalore, BSNL has installed Base Transceiver Stations (BSTs). Each BST
is capable of covering a radius of 5-8 km.

Sandhya Lodge, Near Majestic.
Sona Towers, Near Indian Express.
City Exchange, Near Market.
Malleshwaram Exchange.
Kormangala Exchange.
BTM Layout Exchange.
RT Nagar Exchange.
Kengeri.
K.R Puram Exchange.
Electronic City.
Padmanabanagar.
Yelahanka.
SanjayNagar Exchange.
Peenya Exchange, Jalahalli Cross.
HSR Layout Exchange.
Mysore Road Exchange.
Vijaynagar Exchange.
Yeshwanthpur Exchange.

You can check bsnlevdoclub.com for more updates on BSNL EVDO.

A casual visit to BIA - Bangalore International Airport Devanahalli

2008-05-31T21:04:00.000-07:00

Today I had a plan already in mind, have a long bike ride to BIA
Devenahalli (Bangalore International Airport). The airport started fully
operational just a few days ago.
My plan was slightly affected by rain as I had to seek a shelter for
about 45 minutes. While coming back I was fully drenched !!

Enjoy the snaps..

By the way it was 6:30 pm and I had not taken my Sony DSC H2 along.
These snaps are taken using my Sony Ericsson K750i with night mode. So
comment on this :)

It was about to rain, I got into this tea stall to have a tea ..

It started raining heavily

It rained for nearly 45 minutes then I started again

This is the fly over on Highway towards the airport

Distant view of the runway

I was wondering where all these Renault Logans are heading towards from city.. Here they are.. Quite a number of them.

The car parking area..

Statcounter having issues with Paypal !!

2008-05-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

Following is a mail I got from statcounter about paypal

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We at StatCounter are having ongoing, critical problems with Paypal.

In view of the complete lack of assistance from Paypal in this regard and the gravity of the problems, we have decided that we have no option but to inform you, our members, about the facts of the situation. This will allow you to make an informed decision about whether to use (or whether to continue to use) Paypal.

Please note that these problems have been ongoing since 15 May and arise not only in relation to payments made to StatCounter but in relation to ANY Paypal payments that you make. We hope that our communications will equip you with the information necessary to make sure that YOU do not become another victim of this ongoing Paypal saga.

The two major issues affecting StatCounter Paypal subscribers are:

- Delayed issuing of invoices

- Instances of double billing

At StatCounter we have tried phoning, emailing, posting on the Paypal forums... Many of our contacts are ignored, but even when we do get an answer all we are told is that "Upon review of your account, unfortunately we do not have a time frame for a resolution to your issue we are currently actively investigating your issue with subscriptions."

Folks - we sincerely regret any problems you are experiencing and assure you that we are doing our best to get all of these issues resolved for you.

We strive to offer a high level of customer service and pride ourselves on being responsive to the needs and suggestions of our members. To have our hands "tied" in this way as a result of Paypals inaction is frustrating to say the least.

We would be very grateful for your patience at this time as we wait for Paypal to resolve these issues.

We would also ask you to be patient with any of our fellow internet merchants experiencing difficulties with Paypal at this time.

For further information or to post a question or a comment, please visit our blog.

http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88

**********************************************************************

*********************************************************************

My problems with tata indicom vsnl broadband continues :(

2008-05-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

I am using the services of tata indicom vsnl's wireline broadband
connection for almost 2 and half years now (sadly).

Apart from the broadband charges I had to spend a guge amount of my
mobile bill for my enquiries to the customer care a number of times
every month regarding the interruption of service.

Things had improved a lot in current year, but when I really think of
the same, this is the second time in 10 days my connection is going down :(.

The problem description is like this. Usually there will be a wire being
cut or joined improperly, in that case you will have to wait weeks to
check your mail again. The problem now is still peculiar.. The line is
clear, The user authentication is fine, the modem lights are showing
stability, but I cant browse :(. If I check the modem page, what I can
see is that an IP is not assigned to my system and I cannot ping to the
DNS servers too :(.

So I have gone back to the slow internet again, browsing on my mobile,
through mobile office plan by Airtel. !!

For the first time my bike is troubling me

2008-05-22T03:08:00.000-07:00

If you have not seen my bikes picture near mettur dam, here it is.

I took my bike home earlier this month, it is an 850km trip overall after
which I noticed that the battery of my bike is a bit down. The indicators
were not blinking very normally and the horn was making a rough noise.
I couldn't give the bike for service till today because of election holiday
and another trip to home. I couldn't take the bike to service center.

Yesterday it was raining and my bike was in rain, me and Leslie started from
office premises, but vehicle was not picking up power and it stopped at
least 3 times within a km, one was a close call in a junction where the
policeman was whistling seeing the stopped vehicle !!

Finally we brought the vehicle back to office and pulled out the battery,
thinking that this could be the problem. Upon further inspection, we found
that some sparks are leaking near the spark plug?

I donno whats gone wrong with my bike...... I had to travel by auto back
home yesterday and morning trip to office. Battery is given to a local store
to get it charged. Let me see whether I will be able to take the bike to
some local technicians at least........

Bebo, Orkut, Myspace, Facebook traffic analysis - Just for a time pass !!

2008-05-20T05:28:00.000-07:00

While browsing through news results from google, one caught my attention “AOL Completes Acquisition Of Social Network Bebo”. Bebo was one of the social marketing site which is we tried to compare when we were working on a social networking portal.

Just out of curiosity (A natural marketing person’s mentality J ) I wanted to check the target audience for the top social networking sites. Alexa.com gave me following information, point to be noted here is that Bebo’s most traffic comes from UK and India is one of the country from which Orkut.com gets 38.8% traffic !!

Bebo.com users come from these countries:

United Kingdom - 44.0%

United States - 15.1%

Ireland - 10.2%

Australia - 7.7%

New Zealand - 4.2%

Orkut.com users come from these countries:

Brazil - 43.6%

India - 38.8%

United States - 4.5%

Pakistan - 2.9%

Japan - 2.2%

Myspace.com users come from these countries

United States - 66.8%

United Kingdom - 4.1%

Germany - 3.5%

Mexico - 2.4%

Italy - 2.4%

Facebook.com users come from these countries:

United States - 40.2%

United Kingdom - 9.5%

Canada - 6.9%

Turkey - 3.3%

South Africa - 2.9%

These statistics are just indicatory as Alexa’s stats cannot be treated as 100% accurate, but certainly these figures give some help for comparison.

Congratulations From Google National Lottery - Another scam !!

2008-05-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

This is latest in online lottery scam where the scammers are using the name of Google !!

From: Google National Lotter. <batilmore_claims@live.com>

Subject: Congratulations From Google National Lottery

To: *****@yahoo.com

Date: Sunday, 18 May, 2008, 4:40 PM

FROM: GOOGLE ONLINE CYaBER

LOTTERY 3B OLYMPIC WAY, SEXTONS BUSINESS PARK,

AINTREE, LIVERPOOL, L30 1RD.

RESULTS FOR CATEGORY "A" DRAWS

Congratulations to you as we bring to your notice, the results of the First Category draws of GOOGLE LOTTERY INT. We are happy to inform you that you have emerged a winner under the First Category, which is part of our promotional draws. The draws were held on 1st of April 2008 and results are being officially announced today 6th of may 2008. Participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 2,500,000 email addresses of individuals and companies from Africa, America, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, and Oceania as part of our International Promotions Program. Your e-mail address, attached to ticket number 50941465206-529, with serial number 5772-54 drew the lucky numbers 3-4-17-28-35-44 and consequently won in the First Category.

This is the only online service that enables you to actively and immediately participate in the biggest lottery games from around the world, providing you the opportunity to win millions of dollars! Lottery agent (TM) provides a wide variety of unique benefits: Global Service: and notify you of your winnings, which are directly transferred to the payment option of your choice. Credibility, GOOGLE ONLINE CYBER LOTTERY is providing the unique service for over 10 years, supervised by one of the top international firms, and world-renown for its accurate and user-friendly service. Special Services: save your lucky numbers to make the purchasing process much easier and faster. Includes all Leading Lotteries: Lottery agent (TM) is the leading lottery service online, combining all the advantages and comfort of the internet with the exciting worldwide lottery opportunities. You have therefore been awarded a lump sum pay out of 500,000.00 euros (Five hundred thousand euros only), which is the winning payout for Category A winners. This is from the total prize money from 2,000,000 euros shared among the 2 winners in this category

In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, You are been requested to fill the Winners Application Form for payment below and send to your regional claims agent together with your winning information:-

1. Name: .......................... ..................................

Surname Other Names

2. Address:......................................................

3. Phone....................................................................

4. Occupation.............................................................

5. Country (Nationality):..............................................

6. Age.......................................................................

Delays will compel us to disperse your funds, in other words, we shall divert your funds as stated above. Kindly remember to quote your reference number in all correspondence.

To file for your claim, please contact the fiduciary agent.

***********************************************

Mr. Mark Baltimore

Proof Trust Agency

Email: batilmore_claims@live.com

Phone: +447031858912

GOOGLE ONLINE CYBER LOTTERY

3B OLYMPIC WAY, SEXTONS BUSINESS PARK,

AINTREE, LIVERPOOL, L30 1RD

***********************************************

You are advised to contact the agents by email. NOTE: For easy reference and identification, find below your reference and Batch numbers. Remember to quote these numbers in every one of your correspondence with your claims agent.

REFERENCE NUMBER: LSLUK/2031/8161/04

BATCH NUMBER: 14/011/IPD

Congratulations once again from all our staff and thank you for being part of our promotions programs.

Sincerely Yours,

Mr. Reginald Mark

INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT

Copyright © 1994-2008 The Google National Lottery Inc

Another day in office

2008-05-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

Finally I am back in office from yesterday after a gap of 4 days. I was not completely away from my responsibilities, but I needed to be giving some mobile assistance too when I was in my native.

Not different this time, I was invited by a full mailbox, but lot of error notifications. There was a small malfunction in one of the project which was in test run when I was away. So my initial 2 hours were spent to fix this one. Luckily I had enough failsafe methods, and there was no need for me to start over again.

From afternoon I began to feel some kind of a headache, it usually happen to me when I take food in wrong time or when I don’t drink enough water. So I had to leave my office early. It was my birthday on 17th so when the HR was looking for me for the usual birthday wish, I wasn’t there..

have to go back to work tomorrow :-(

2008-05-18T09:43:00.001-07:00

4 days passed in a flash and i am at palakkad railway station waiting
for the kannur ypr train.

I am feeling a bit relaxed in this trip as i had a nice time attending
a marriage, a visit to punnayur kotta to see elephants, nice sleep and
food :-).

I enjoyed mobile blogging too though my sony ericsson k750i's editor
didnt allow me to post more descriptive posts. thanks to airtel for
their network and internet plan !!

--
Ramkumar K R

Another birthday without a bash

2008-05-17T00:16:00.001-07:00

I was not keeping well from yesterday due to a mild fever and throat
infection, i didnt have a proper sleep too.

There has been few mails and smses wishing me happy birthday, i
realized its my birthday today :-). two of my friends called me up
too.

Well just like previous birthdays, this too will be without a bash. i
am here in my native to attend my cousins marriage, and its a post
marriage reception at his place.

elephant herd at Guruvayur !!

2008-05-16T00:57:00.001-07:00

There are close to 100 elephants owned by Guruvayur devaswam. So one
of my plan here in Guruvayur is to visit the place where i can see a
herd of elephants (not wild ones).

this is also a place where other elephants are treated when they show
the wildness.

i got two of my cousins to accompany me to see the elephants and rest,
you can see the snaps.

i took some 75 snaps and just elephants some are really angry !!

--
Ramkumar K R

heading towards Guruvayur !

2008-05-15T06:14:00.001-07:00

i am about to reach guruvayur to attend my cousin's marriage.

its about 90km travel in a jeep and i am accompanied by my parents and
few relatives.

i wanted to drive but the driver of this rented jeep is not known to me :-(

fighting hot summer in kerala

2008-05-15T00:36:00.001-07:00

Self explanatory !! But i will explain ;-) this is the latest development in my home which i was unaware of.

its a brand new carrier ac

image post from mobile

2008-05-14T23:51:00.001-07:00

this is just a test post.

--
Ramkumar K R

My first post from mobile

2008-05-14T22:48:00.001-07:00

Well i am currently at native, on a short trip to attend a cousin's marriage.

I wanted to try mobile blogging this time as i will be finding some
time in such trips.

My interest got backfired initially as my gmail for mobile stopped
functioning as i could have used blogers email posting.

At last i am bloging using my phones default browser. I wanted to post
some snaps but, not this time.

I tried so many java mobile blogging applications but 0 success, let
me try to find a way to blog with images.

--
Ramkumar K R

Welcome to my blog !!

2008-04-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Its karnataka new year day so its a good start for this blog. Welcome to all to my
blog.