Praneel’s Blog

“Why? ”

Imagine every Politician/Leader constantly confronted with this question.

Why should we let you treat us like fools.

Why should we suffer your arrogance and your unimaginable greed.

Why should we keep suffering at the whims of your Family and Entourage.

Why should we let you drag us into inhumane battles of race, region and religion at the cost of our own lives.

Why should we unite behind you, when you constantly try to divide us.

Why should we call you our Leader, when you only Leave us.

Why should we fight for you, when you don’t even feel for us.

Why should we vote for you, when you don’t vouch for us.

Why should we love you, when you don’t even like us.

Why are we like this, Why are  you not like us.

Now imagine, all the citizens asking themselves, the same.

I strongly believe that-

In the matters of Life, Love and Liberty, all the Right Answers are Right There in the Right Questions.

Start Asking.

Windows 7 Screen Shot

I’ve skipped trying out Vista all along due to the scary stories of people being eaten alive by the bugs in the code. But Windows 7 seems to be a germ free(?!) delight even in the Beta stage. The pleasant Aero interface of vista added with the less nagging security checks is one of the biggest selling points of Windows 7. The Pre-Beta releases are stable enough to lift my hopes. I can say that, Windows 7 is the Second Coming of Windows 95 (like revolution).

Just for the record - I think Open but my Source is Not.

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2009

Google Chrome is The Browser I’ve been waiting for. It’s so clean to install, got a cool color scheme and running so smooth, even on my old 1.6 Ghz centrino Tablet PC. Besides the obvious fact that it is from Google, the story behind it’s development is equally exciting to know.This is what I like about Google. Unlike other browsers, they started from scratch and built this browser with one thing in mind- Function. They are totally honest about the whole thing. They are saying
| it’s not totally safe, it’s not perfect and it’s not proprietary. Take what ever you want and develop your own version, don’t even ask for our permission. It’s our contribution to the world |
The best thing about this browser is it’s simplicity. Once you go Chrome, there is no turning back.
Things I like about Google Chrome:
1. Clean and Robust build even in beta phase.
2. Run processes in a Sandbox - avoids malware from installing.
3. Separation of tabs visually and process wise- whole browser never crashes, just the bad tab.
4. Constant updates of phishing and malware sites and alerts.
5. Integrated Google Gears to speed up sites with supported apps.
6. Quick import of settings and passwords from Firefox and IE.
7. V8 JS engine and Webkit rendering engine.
8. Incognito tab - totally private and no history is left.

I want Google Chrome to improve in these departments:
1. There is no warning when closing multiple tabs. There is an option to restore opened tabs on startup. But the warning should be there for those of us spoiled by Firefox.
2. There should be a master password to show all passwords. An option to print the password and user names along with websites.
3. An option to change the saved User names and passwords as you like, even the site URL.
4. Better import of passwords from Firefox. They miss exact path in some cases.
5. Scrolling is very difficult using a laptop’s touch pad. It scrolls too much and is irritating. My bad
6. There is no STOP button. Why ?
7. No Google Toolbar and No way to Organize Favorites. Man this needs a lot of work.
8. No Flashget integration.
9. No way to convert an incognito tab into a normal one. You have click on the Chrome icon in Programfiles to get a fresh normal tab.

More suggestions on the way.

10 Features of Google Chrome -Video:

| Download Google Chrome |

It kept getting forwarded to other sites when my site is clicked in Google results. The 2 most forwarded sites were “windows-antispyware-2008.com” and “zhaba.biz” and Avira anti virus always popped a warning that said-

there is a Virus or unwanted program ‘HTML/Crypted.Gen [virus]‘

I read about this and took steps to recover my blog. The old theme is the culprit. I got rid of it and am upgrading to the latest version of Wordpress now.

The recent accident in Gautami express where so many people lost their lives to fire and many more injured is a very gruesome event even to read. Most of them were not aware of the fire and many suffocated and became unconscious, leaving them in the path of the fire. The fire in a moving train spreads extremely fast and produces very high temperatures. It’s like a blow furnace with people inside. Though there is a plan to create Coaches with Fire Retardant materials, that doesn’t prevent the passenger luggage to act as fuel. So in addition to that, what can be done to prevent such a tragedy and limit the damage is to implement available technology in all coaches. It costs just a fraction of the profits the Indian Railways is making in a single day.

1) Let all coaches be fitted with Heat Sensors, Smoke Detectors, Fire Alarms (all are located in 3 to 4 places in every coach) and an Emergency Alert system that stops all electricity to that coach, Turns the emergency lights to switch on (better still, depending on the direction of the fire, these lights can direct the passengers towards a safe exit), warns the Engine Driver and sends the location of the train to the nearest station (GPS location or Rail Track way points what ever works).
2) The fire spreads very fast when the train is moving. So the driver can stop the train in with in a few seconds after the warning or else the system will stop it automatically.
3) Infrared cameras fitted on a periscope in the engine to visually confirm the fire.

More time consuming technologies like sprinklers and fire retardant foam sprays , metal wings deployed at the ends of the coaches to prevent spreading of fire and better door locks should be implemented without delay.

We must use the technology we are so proudly exporting at least for our safety.

Problem
This is a simple solution for Fiat Palio 1.9D starting problem where the Pump Indicator fails to go off after 10 seconds and if you try to start the car anyway, there will be a loss of power.
Solution
Try this- put the key in and start it with one quick turn. It works almost all the time.

Explanation:

Normal Procedure: Key in >> Twist to start battery power >> wait for the heater and pump indicators to go off >> Twist more to start ignition.

Solution procedure: Key in >> Twist all the way to start ignition.

Intel July 2008 Price Drop
Intel announced a huge price drop in Core 2 Duo CPU segment on 21st July 2008. The best buy now is Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16 GHz 6MB L2 Cache). Current Price in India is going below Rs 8,500. Here is the original Intel Price list. Since I am a Quad Core fan, I was not very happy with this.

Intel August 2008 Price Drop
When I went to place an order for Q9450 (Quad core 2.6 GHz, 12MB L2 cache) processor my dealer suggested me to wait for a couple of weeks. There is a memo sent to the distributors about a new price cut scheduled for 10th August 2008, in Quad Core segment and it is a really good one. Intel Q9450 and Q9550 are currently at Rs. 15,500 and Rs. 25,500 respectively. Q9450 is going to be phased out and Q9550 is going to be available for Rs. 15,000 + taxes.

I read this Indian inventor who lives in penury just now, and it is about the inventor of an amphibious bicycle from Bihar, who made it under Rs 6000 against patented designs of Rs 45000 to 50000. The BBC got an interview and declared that NIF used and left the guy to his fate. The NIF gave an explanation about the help he received and expressed their sympathy and apology for not being able to make this a financial success for the Inventor.

My Ideas
I think this amphibious Bicycle / Tricycle can be sold in states like Kerala and in countries like Thailand where waters ways are highly used.
Instead of the usual boat, tourists can get a ride on this amphibious bicycle / tricycle. They can even rent their own Amphibicycle and have a trip in the water ways. If successful we can see couples in this amphibicycle instead of a gondola in Venice.

If you have any ideas please share them here.

2 Things about Yahoo Hosting

[1] Yahoo Removed the line “500 Concurrent MySQL connections” from their features list. I couldn’t find it anywhere in their site now. May be they realized that it’s too much for such a low price.

[2] Yahoo India is offering a domain, 5 GB space, 200 GB transfer and a Rs 250 worth of Ad promotion for Rs. 999/Year. Not a bad deal, considering they are offering .in domains also which go for Rs 800/year on renewals. The catch - it’s only for small businesses, so no personal sites are officially allowed. The workaround is - You can call any site with ads as a small business venture and may one day actually make it your cash cow.

2 Broadband Connections, 1 Billing Account - Convert BSNL’s Free land line into a second Broadband Connection

I already have a Home 900 Unlimited Connection from BSNL.
Recently a marketing guy from BSNL called me and offered a free phone connection for 1 year. The reason - I was paying more than Rs 1500 per month in bills for the past one year. He told me that this new phone has no free calls and no security deposit or installation charges. The call charges were Rs. 1.20/min.

Then I asked him if I could use this new phone for a second broadband connection. He told me that this was the first time he had heard this question. So he checked and told me that it’s absolutely possible. He gave me a choice of numbers and picked a good one out of them. I said OK, and believe it or not, with in 1 hour I got my new phone installed. The phone was activated the next morning. I applied for a Home 500 plan and paid for the Type 2 Modem (1 WiFi + 1 LAN port). With in 4 days I got a second broadband connection with a Type 4 Modem (1 WiFi + 4 LAN ports). The guy who brought it doesn’t even know what he is holding. I opted out for installation, so he gave me the DNS, login, pass, helpline no. etc. and left.

Now I have a Home 900 automatically converted into a Home 750 (which I will convert into a Flexi 350 next month) and a Home 500 Plan. I use the unlimited one all day and for all systems and the 500 (with 2Mbps true speed) in the free hours. I wanted this setup for more than a year now. And they always said that one billing account can get only one Broadband connection at home. Somehow it’s changed for the better.

Here is a big disappointment with a little bit of good news.
The disappointment -
“Flexi 350″ is a 256 kbps plan, not a 256 - 2 Mbps one. And there is no Night time free (2-8am)

The Good News -
“Home 900″ unlimited is now “Home 750″ unlimited (at 256 kbps). A slash in price of Rs. 150 . BSNL automatically changed all Home 900 plans into Home 750 Plans.

If you are not sure how much bandwidth you are going to use, then take Flexi 350 which is enough for casual browsing, email and a lot of instant messaging. If you exceed the plan’s limit of 2GB in a month you will be charged at Rs. 0.85 /MB of transfer. So after exceeding ~ 2.5 GB of transfer in a month your plan will become unlimited Home 750 for that month only.

Impact -
Is minimal, but encourages more people to get a broadband (as it is called by BSNL) connection.
Decreased risk of heavy bills, compared to Home 125 , Home 250 and Home 500 plans which are not suitable for people with less understanding about bandwidth.
If your broadband usage varies between months this plan will save a good amount of money. There is no worry if you decided to use more bandwidth in a particular month- your monthly bill will never exceed Rs. 750

People who don’t have a clue about the bandwidth, usually take a plan with minimal monthly pay i:e 125, 250 and 500 Home plans. And most of them end up paying the heavy bills. There was no option for an optimal speed + cost plan in Broadband category. The beauty of this Flexi 350 plan is not fully explained by BSNL people. They have to brush up their pitch. We used to pay 12000 (including taxes) for a 900 Home plan per year. Now the same plan costs between 4600 to 9960 depending upon usage.

Recommended -

I strongly recommend BSNL Flexi 350 Broadband plan for - email , browsing and instant messaging.

For beginners and parents at home.

For net junkies. If you are on Home 900 (or Home 750 now) you can change to Home 350. There is a psychology aspect here. There is no excuse now. If you know that ‘not being a net junkie’, you can save money, then it can help cure net addiction.

For people with legitimate necessity for net access and a tight budget- like job seekers and part timers. They actually know the value of money.

I hope, one day, we all can enjoy much higher speeds and learn to better utilize the resources.

Good News for New Webmasters and Small Businesses.
There are many web hosting deals that oversell and offer unlimited everything for peanuts and ban you when you try to use what they promised. They offer this because they know you are not going to use. But when Yahoo announced their new Unlimited Hosting plan I was sure that it is going to make a huge difference.

This plan replaced all the 3 old plans ( Starter, Standard and Professional ). Yahoo says the plan includes Unlimited Web Space, Unlimited Transfer, Unlimited MySQL 4.1 databases and Unlimited Storage for the 1000 email accounts besides all the other goodies like constant backups and multiple mirrors.The best part is 500 concurrent MySQL connections, which is not offered by anyone in this price range.

Did not happen. Check this post.

At last the day we are all waiting for has arrived. Unlimited 2Mbps Broadband Home Plan is here. BSNL gave this ad today and I’ve confirmed with the their customer care. This is going to be integrated into the system tomorrow i:e 8th April 2008. I repeatedly asked them if it is a 256 kbps to 2Mbps plan (Like the Home plan 500) or one like the current Home 900 Plus at 256kbps constant speed and their answer was very exciting to me. It is a 256kbs to 2Mbps variable speed plan (like Home 500) . BSNL did mention that this is an Unlimited Plan in the ad and their customer care explained what “Maximum Rs 750 per month billing” means.

The Plan Details

-

1. You pay Rs 350 per month for 2GB of transfer limit.
2. Once your limit is exceeded, you are billed Rs 0.85/MB of transfer.
3. The maximum billed amount per month is Rs 750.
4. Once the overage exceeds 470 MB (470 x .85 = Rs 400) or your total bill reaches Rs 750 ( initial 350 + 400 = 750) the plan becomes unlimited, and you will be billed no more than Rs 750 for that month.
5. No more “2 AM to 8 AM free hours”. (Who needs them now ?)
6. This plan is for a limited period only. ( It sounds cheesy.. cos they didn’t say if they are going to keep the plan for a limited time or the sign-up period for a limited time)

This the coolest thing BSNL has ever done (besides rural mobiles). I am waiting till tomorrow to see if they keep these specs or change them to 256 kbps.

It’s Impact

- More e-learning courses can be launched by providers
- Rich content can be delivered without compressing too much detail
- The real broadband experience can be felt by everyone
- Students have more time to learn and less frustration downloading a lecture
- We can see an exponential increase in creation and exchange of rich media content

Let’s see tomorrow whether this holds true.

Yesterday, I was searching for a cable in my attic and I found a rusty piece of metal fitted with a wooden handle. I brought it down to throw it away. Then I found out that, this is my Air Rifle which was a gift from my uncle in 1994.

The butt was broken off at the grip. It’s GNW India make .22 cal with Grill tip, scope rail and an excellent Trigger. They don’t make this anymore. I bought a Chinese made Sisco Air Pistol a couple of weeks ago and because of it’s pathetic performance (couldn’t even pierce a coke can at 10m) some new boxes of .22 pellets are in my closet. I loaded the old rifle with a .22 pellet, set up an empty Coke can, aimed and fired a shot. I was totally surprised. This gun was not used for 7 years and it is covered in rust, still the first shot sliced through the coke can, a plastic bin behind it and chipped off a piece of cement before ricocheting and hitting my hand.

I gave it a quick overhaul, fixed it with some nylon rope (the screws on the sides are not available, I have to find some other solution) and zeroed it with some rusty tricks. Now it is amazingly accurate even at 20m. Here is a coke can and my old air rifle.

Ziziphus + Muesli

This is a Good breakfast to start the day.
Take 45 gm muesli with 6 fruits of Ziziphus mauritiana (regu pandu in Telugu). Muesli are available in all Major Super Markets. There are many blends and brands of muesli some have added dry fruits. For best results select a brand without any added sugar. Muesli are usually better than cornflakes and have a high fiber content and low glycemic index.

You can add sliced banana or diced apple for a change. Keep changing the fruit everyday.
You can eat it dry or with some hot milk.

Toshiba R15 Tablet PC / Laptop Fan Sound Problem - Solution

My Toshiba R15 Tablet is making a lot of noise and the Fan is running at full speed almost all the time. In addition to this the laptop is overheating. Usually this is caused by clogging of the heat-sink or fan blades with dust.
My options were -

1) Send it to service (1200km away)
2) Replace the fan and heat sink by my self
3) Try a simple repair. Though risky I took the third option and proceeded with the cleaning.

[Caution: This procedure is not tested thoroughly and any harm caused to the equipment is unknown. Proceed at your own risk.]

Procedure:
1) Turnoff the laptop, remove battery and Remove all connectors.
2) Use suction to remove easy dirt.
3) Use fine nozzle attachment to blow away hard dirt.
4) Use suction again to remove any dirt residue. (If the cleaning is complete, you will hear a whistle during suction- this indicates the vents and fan blades are dirt free.)
5) Plug-in all connectors, replace battery and plug-in power.
*Extra Caution: Some suggest removing Ram modules and Hard Disk also during this procedure. I did not remove them and there seems to be no problem.

After the cleaning my Laptop is cooler and more silent than before. I might need to change the fan later, but this cleaning bought me more time and less noise.

This is a real inspiration for me. Lee and Sachi are doing a great work in a simple yet powerful way.

CMS : Vivvo
Problem: mod_rewrite not working/enabled on 1and1 hosting.
The main problem for implementing Vivvo CMS News Publishing system on 1and1’s non server packages is the confusion about mod_rewrite. Well it is enabled by default, according to 1and1. The problem we see while installing Vivvo is the pre-install page that checks and gives us a “?” after mod_rewrite. If we proceed ignoring the problem the installation will end up in a 500 error or 404 error.
Solution:
Just add this one line in .htaccess file in the Vivvo root directory (before starting installation). After the line RewriteEngine On just add

Rewritebase /

. The .htaccess file might look like this before the change

Options All -Indexes
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php

FileETag MTime Size

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^sitemap\.xml$ feed.php?output_type=sitemap [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)(\.html|\.htm)$ index.php [L]

..ofcourse there are more lines of code after this.

And after the change-

Options All -Indexes
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php

FileETag MTime Size

RewriteEngine On
Rewritebase /
RewriteRule ^sitemap\.xml$ feed.php?output_type=sitemap [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)(\.html|\.htm)$ index.php [L]

That’s all. You will see that installation pre-check detects mod_rewrite this time and you can start tasting the flavor of Vivvo.

I just got these ideas about how tringme can be used.

-If you have a tringme widget at your homepage you can receive wedding/birthday wishes as voice greetings, even when people don’t know your number.

-When someone wants to complement you, but they are shy, they can use tringme.

-Anonymity and accessibility are the best features of tringme. But you might get some unwanted threats/messages also if you don’t protect it. Any calls for me

I love this animation. Simple and brilliant.

Esc - Animatior Vs Animation In 3D - Click here for the funniest movie of the week