Addicted to the Technology

Today [Tuesday - May 26, 2009] was not my day. I had lot of tasks to be completed by end of the day and *bang*, my laptop had a different plan.
1. I could not connect to the domain [my work folder was in the file share]
2. I could not open windows explorer [it was hanging frequently] and switch between any application and my desktop

I raised a helpdesk and waited for the service engineer to attend the problem

As the Murphy's law goes, the engineer suspected a serious failure that could be
1. OS failure
2. Hard disk failure
3. Mother board failure

After few hours of investigation, he took my laptop for deeper diagnosis.

When i was without my laptop, i was restless as i had all lot of information on it and i am entirely [at least 80%] dependent on the laptop for day to day activities.

The only thing that i kept insisting him was not to lose the data and he repeatedly promised to restore my hard disk.

I reminded myself
1. Be prepared for the worst
2. Have regular backups
3. Do not depend too much on the electronic devices
4. The traditional method of storing information [as my father always advises me] is the best method [at least for non-work related critical details]

Are we addicted too much to the technology? What do you think?
-bright

PS: This blog was typed using a text editor, saved in my laptop, published using Windows Live Writer in my blog stored in a unknown server. Did I say that I was slaved to the technology?

Mother Tongue – Does it degrade your status?

I know someone, who is “well to do” economically. However, based on his attitude towards fellow human beings, relationships, his own mother tongue etc., does not make him a good person. Though i have complaints about him, i cannot get rid of this person due to some obvious reasons – there are few things in life that even money cannot get rid off ;(

One day, i called him to wish on his wedding anniversary. I told him “thirumana naal vazhthukkal”. He said “thank you very much” and commented to a common friend that, “what is he thinking of me – an illiterate? why is he wishing me in tamil”. I heard this and made a decision – not to greet him any more.

In one more incident, in a party, there were few friends with their kids. Some of the kids were calling their parents as “appa and amma” in “azhagu tamil”. Immediately this guy commented, “what is this? there is no sophistication? the kids are calling the parents in Tamil and not as Daddy / Mummy. Did he [the kid’s father] really go to US or went only till Aminjikarai [a locality in Chennai]?”

I was just wondering since when, speaking in English was considered as a mark of social status and speaking in one’s own mother tongue [in this case, Tamil] is considered to be an indecent act.

-bright

IPL Season 2 – Deccan Chargers, the new champs

After a month and half duration of extravaganza, the IPL season 2 had finally come to an end. Yesterday, we had the grand finale between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Deccan Chargers, the latter emerged as the ultimate champions.

From the start of this season, i was not very much interested to follow the games as *this* set a negative reference for the Australian Davis cup [tennis] team to avoid visiting India, in particular, Chennai.

However, as the matches progressed, the color of a true leader came into the light. It differentiated the thin line between the “Star team” and the “Team of Stars”. What is the real worth of the  “heavily paid” players of this season and what they could or could not do to their franchise owner?

Ultimately, one team with all its dedication, “never say die” attitude, “steel nerves” and an “able” leader emerged as the Champion team. What MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virendra Sehwag or Saurav Ganguly could not achieve, was “demonstrated with pride” by a retired Australian player.

The irony is, while the Indian heavy weight champions believed their luck mostly depends on the established players, it was an Australian who understood the local talent, honed their skills, focused their talents and made them part of a star team. It was proved in 2008 and once again emphasized in 2009 that Cricket is a game played by a team and not just by the strength and weakness of an individual player.

Congratulations, Gilly and DC. Kudos to your big achievement.

Note: There is one more reason why I was happy that the Chargers won IPL 2009! Deep down in my heart, there is a evil part, that did not want the Royal Challengers – who defeated the Chennai Super Kings – to have their final victory lap ;)

So long,

bright

Parliament Election in Tamilnadu - 2009

13 May 2009, Wednesday – Election in Tamilnadu in single phase.

One more day, one more time it is election in Tamilnadu. This time the astrologers are predicting that due to the wrong positioning of the planets [!?*@] the government formed after May 16 will not last for more than 18 months. Probably, we could have had our elections after 18 months – or at least we should have had a top astrologer as the Chief Election Commissioner.

Jokes apart, election is a very important part of democracy and "To Vote" is my birth right.

After a very tight schedule of poll campaigning from coast to coast during a very short period of time, the leaders of various parties must be resting now.

This time, there were lot of eye opener campaigns to lead people to the polling booth to cast their vote. The prediction is if all the "well educated - middle class" people get up from the couch for one day, walk up to their polling booth, and exercise their right, for one time in five years, we can bring in lot of changes!

These set of "well educated - middle class" people are the one who take the maximum hit of the wrong politics and wrong politicians and that is the reason why they do not come forward to make a decision.

There is a Tamil song which goes like

"raaman aandalum, raavanan aandalum, enakkoru kavalai illa" [i am not worried if it is ram or ravan who is ruling].

The general feeling is "what change will it bring if i vote or don't vote? so, why should i even bother to vote?”

Yes, we don't have options. But, we can at least try to choose the best among the worst, isn't it? If i don't vote, then someone “WILL” on my behalf ;) Everyone knows this and no one can control this. At the maximum, they can only limit it to a lower percentage. So, at least, i will vote to someone who i feel to be the best fit among the lot.

The great role model of Indian Youths, Bharath Rathna Dr. Abdul Kalam came up with five pointers to measure the performance of a MP before making a decision.

1.       Assess the present  per capita income of the  constituency with an aim to increase the per capita income three times in five years.

2.       The present literacy percentage of the constituency has to be increased at least by 20% in five years.

3.       Take the statistics of number of water bodies in the constituency and their status. Work for the de-silting and interconnection of all the water bodies within the five years.

4.       Create programmes which will provide value added employment for every member of the constituency,  consistent with her or his qualification.

5.       Infant mortality rate of the constituency has to come down to less than 10 per thousand in five years.

I do not believe if any of the MP candidates would have even read and understood these points, but, at least I feel proud that there is someone with us who can give us such guidance.

If not now, at least sometime in future, this will be the defacto standards [and not the horoscope !] for choosing the person to represent our constituency.

I stood in the queue for about an hour, exercised my rights and expressed my faith to the greatest democratic country in the world. Did you?

- bright

Mother’s Day 2009

Warm greetings and wishes to all the Mothers on this day

[Mother’s Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May]

At work, during a coffee break chat with my colleague, as usual, we discussed about the “All work and no personal life” part of our career.

I mentioned about my situation of leaving home when my kid is still sleeping and reaching home at odd hours when he is already asleep or about to sleep. I told her that the only time we meet each other will be during the weekends. My friends used to call me as my kid’s “weekend uncle” because as per his perception, I will be someone who visits the home only during the weekends and play with him :(

While this situation was pathetic, as a father, my colleague has much more difficult situation. Her work profile demands frequent travel and she was expected to get onboard a flight in a very short notice without leaving any option left to her. She has a one year old baby and has to entirely depend on the elder’s support to take care of the baby and the family.

While I agree that her situation [spending quality time with family and children] is much worse compared to mine, i felt that it is all about her decision to go to work and at any point of time, as a mother, she can always stay back at home and leave the financial responsibility with her husband. But to a father, is there any such an option available? at least not in our current social setup. I even feel that nobody even look at this as an issue.

Any comments?

…bright

Meeting the Friends – Bengalooru

Train Ticket for the trip to Bangalore - Rs. 1,500
Travel on Sunday - one weekend
Travel by early morning train - one weekend's sleep 
Meeting friends after 10+ years - "Priceless"

After a successful get together in Chennai, the 94BEs in Bangalore [now bengalooru] planned for a similar get together. 

The meeting moments eventfully started when the watchmen at the cubbon park entrance stopped me and my friend from entering the park, as we did not have any kids accompanying us. First it was funny to hear such a rule, but then i realized that it is common to have such strange rules “particularly” in that place [read it as the "city" or the "state", as you like it, as against the very friendly Singara Chennai !!!].

I was a lucky part of that glorious event. It was very different from the Chennai meet and also a very exciting one because I am meeting most of the them for the first time after 10+ years [after the day we bid "good bye" in PSG Tech hostels, Coimbatore RS]

Yours Lovingly,

bright

Web Tools – Part I

It had been a very long time since i went out of touch with my blogosphere. I was adding more and more items in my "To Blog" folders and they went obsolete at present. Anyway, to keep in touch, let me re-iterate few of the developments that interested me in widely used web tools.

1. Google Key board interface - Google Lab
2. Google News - New timeline feature
3. MSN retiring its online encyclopaedia "Encarta"
4. Ubuntu release 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope"

In addition, i also came across some nice tools from the web [thanks to the lifehacker feeds to my reader]
1. A new "slackware" based security specific linux distro Backtrack. It has lot of tools integrated to conduct ethical hacking. I am yet to explore 100% of them.
2. WriteMonkey - a new text editor using which this blog was composed. It is as good as a standard windows "notepad". However, it has a dark background and works in a full screen mode [i mean, there will not be any other icon, menu on the screen when it is used in the full screen mode. It will be only you and your text in a dark background - its interesting and also it goes well with your eyes]
3. Process Explorer - A windows power user interface. Gives lot more information than the usual windows "task manager"
4. Source Edit - Another multi purpose text editor, like the "Edit Plus", but, without any license fee. Yes, this tool is free as of now. I have not used most of its features, but, very useful to work with SQL queries. It also has an ftp interface to work directly on the host files.

I found all of the above to be very interesting. This is not a complete list and it will be growing as i continue to explore new features.

Regards,
bright

Top 10 cities in the world [2009]

Top 10 cities in the world
Source: The Economic Times, 29 April 2009
Management consultancy Mercer's had listed the ranking for the cities with the best infrastructure based on electricity supply, water availability, telephone, mail services, public transport, traffic congestion and the range of international flights from local airports.

1. Singapore, Singapore
2. Munich, Germany
3. Copenhagen, Denmark
4. Tsukuba, Japan
5. Yokohama, Japan
6. Dusseldorf, Germany
7. Vancouver, Canada
8. Frankfurt, Germany
9. Hong Kong, Hong Kong
10.London, United Kingdom

Surprisingly, none of the US cities were listed in the top 10.

I can only dream when one of the Indian cities can make it to the list [Wow! one more post to justify the blog heading ;)]

…bright

Cricket - In future

I am not a great follower of Cricket, other than for the sake of time pass. I don't keep track of the records or maintain statistics of this game.

Based on the various developments during the recent days, i just thought of recording my imagination in this blog.

Test matches were played for five days. Too long and a shorted version was introduced.

ODI were played for one whole day [Person Day as we call in this part of IT world]. Too much effort loss and hence a much shorter version will be suitable.

T20 - the most recent form of the game for the "filthy rich" owners.

Even in T20, if the game was stopped due to natural calamity, then DL method will be applied and a minimum of five overs per side is what is required to have a result. So, there is a opportunity to have a F5 [Five 5] tournament in future.

During the recent KKR and RR match, the result was arrived based on the Super Over. So, ultimately, one over decided the winner of the match. Therefore, there is equal probability for a O1 [One 1] tournament.

But, when it comes to O1, then it requires lot of power strikes for both batsman and bowler.

Therefore, in future, each O1 team will start building an ultimate batting and bowling machines. The war among the machines will decide the winner based how these two machines outsmart each other.

Ofcourse, the legends of cricket, will still be "auctioned" by the franchise owners and they will act as the consultants to calibrate the bowling and batting machines.

The teenage girls from the western universities will also be outsourced as "cheerleaders" to dance and entertain the audience whenever their respective machine out performs the opponent's.

Any comments?

Regards,
bright

IPL - Season II

I am not a critic and i don't know what "good" the season 2 of this short form of the cricket had done to India and Indians, but, it had created a negative publicity for the Indian cities.

Australian Tennis Federation had pulled out of the Davis Cup tie with India in Chennai. They took this decision due to security concerns.

Ironically, one of the star Australian player [Todd Woodbridge] had commented that when the local people [IPL folks] are flying out of the country for security issues, how can they [the Australians] play in India?

Very much a valid statement. But, who will take the responsibility to address such a question?

a "disappointed" chennaivasi ... bright