A Shout For Change
Personal
Ubuntu certification by next birthday
Sep 7th
As a challenge to myself, I have decided to be Ubuntu certified by my next birthday. That gives me almost one year, to study, practice and take the three tests that comprise Ubuntu Certification – Linux Professional Institute Exams 101 and 102 and the Ubuntu exam. Stay tuned to the blog for updates on my progress, if you’re interested.
For all updates on my progress see Ubuntu-Certification
Emerging India : Inter-city travel
Aug 8th
What in your opinion, is the best way to transport yourself from one city to another? Not the fastest, or the cheapest or the most hassle free. Inter-city travel in India is as cumbersome and frustrating as travel within the city. So, what exactly are the options one gets to choose from?
1. Railways has and will remain the cheapest mode of transport for the middle and lower class of India. Transporting millions of people across the country everyday, trains are the preferred mode of travel for most Indians. Depending upon the distance and the class, fares can start from as low as Rs.15 and can cost as much as a flight ticket. Sleeper class fares are kept low and in reach of the lower middle class. But, you get what you pay for, and in this class, in the name of affordability comes a dirty coach, a very very stinky and unhygienic toilet and an that stays with you even after the journey. Food served (not included in fare) is subpar, though quality has significantly improved over the past few years.
A/C fares, have been artificially pegged higher for reasons best known to all the ex-railway ministers. Packing sardines into a freezer should not cost your an arm and a leg. How else did the ex-Railway minister, Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav manage to introduce exclusive 3rd class A/C trains at nearly 1/3 the fare of that on a regular train? Added to this is the fact that he managed to somehow fit a third birth into the side sleeper. Pack more sardines. And the best part of these trains is the name – Garib Rath – which means – A charriot for the poor. If the poor man had that kind of money, he’d spend it on some food and decent clothing.
Railway stations do not fare any better. Important junctions and tiny little stations alike, there is an apathy towards hygiene and little is done to ensure comfort for travellers. Rest areas or whatever they are called, are dirty, dark rooms with a few chairs strewn around. People with connecting trains are left to fend for themselves on the platform and they often end up sitting on their luggage since there always seems to be a serious dearth of seating space in most busy stations. Railway tracks accommodate a whole breed of germs and species ranging from rats, dogs and sheep to human and animal excreta lying around in a mess of plastic covers, bottles and bags. Add to that are people spitting exclusive juices obtained by fermenting ghutka with saliva for a couple of hours in the mouth; and you have a recipe for the most extravagant fragrance ever.
One of the (not so) recent facility that allows customers to book tickets online is a boon and with Tatkal(last moment) ticketing and with travel websites allowing online booking, it definitely has become easier to travel, allowing them to avoid the great Indian rush and queues at reservation counters.
Verdict: Cheap but gross.
2. Buses are a nice option for those have the extra buck to spend and are willing to forego access to a toilet for the duration of the journey. This actually could be an advantage since you do not have to bear with a stinky toilet at all. Buses have been catching up with trains ever since private operators were allowed to ply on the roads. Goverment run buses were forced to match up with the quality of their private counterparts and have remarkably managed to do so. The main areas of concern remain poorly(hardly) maintained public bus stations and the lack of bus bays for private operators.
Another major concern is the quality of drivers hired by both private and public operators alike. Public bus drivers do not fear anything, and in an accident can simply walk away since the government protects its employees. RTC (Road Transport Corporation) buses are often seen overtaking when you think is absolutely impossible and often drive way too dangerously. On the other hand, private operators might resort to employing subpar drivers in order to save costs, thus endangering the lives of those in the bus and on the road.
Verdict : Comfortable, but dangerous.
3. Air travel remained a dream for most of India’s middle class until the start of the 21st century, when the entry of private operators coupled with increased salaries(thanks to IT) allowed 2nd and 1st A/C train travellers to opt to travel by air. Low cost airlines of the likes of Kingfisher and Spice changed the way India travelled, though this celebration didn’t last long. Airline fares are tightly coupled with crude prices and with crude touching $145 at one time, it was increasingly becoming difficult for the airlines and the government to bear the burden and this was eventually passed onto customers.
This fuel commodity trading bubble burst with the start of the world economic recession. The airline industry has had to survive through all the job cuts and salary cuts. While some of them have managed to stay afloat, air travel faces another challenge.
Tremendous growth in air traffic led by the boom meant airports got packed over capacity and air space got congested. Governments of various states decided that it was time to move onto bigger airports. But, this came a bit too late. By this time cities had vastly expanded and become ‘Greater’ cities and the only way to get a bigger airport was to build them outside the city. Public Private partnership also meant that the private contractor would not want the old airport running, lest they lose money. This effectively meant that cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore no longer had a local airport. Instead, citizens were forced to travel miles across to a location outside city limits. Lack of proper and fast connectivity rendered the once comfortable air travel into a huge traffic headache.
Verdict: Fast, but not so fast due to distance to airports and time needed to check-in.
4. Private transport or owned vehicles are quickly becoming one of the preferred mode of inter-city travel, often within the state. Traveling by a motorcycle or a Maruti 800 over distances farther than a couple of hundred kilometers is a great pain in the rear and lack of safer and faster alternatives effectively prevented Indians from traveling too far on their puny and uncomfortable vehicles. But, with the advent of newer vehicles, came better power and comfort, and Indians are now traveling far longer than their previous generation did.
Still, Indian roads require one of the highest amount of concentration on the road when compared to those of other (non-Asian) countries. A non-exhaustive list of hurdles and speed-killers on Indian roads include: potholes; manholes; autos that are either parked or drive extremely slow right in the middle of the road; buses and other cars trying to overtake when not-supposed to; tractors; shepherds with sheep/goats; straying buffaloes; well elevated speed-bumps; stray pedestrians; drunk bicyclers; naxalites and robbers. Coupled with these is the fact that most of the existing ‘highways’ are extremely insufficient, narrow 2 laners. It is only recently that a few of these highways were ‘upgraded’. I guess the government thought that we had sacrificed enough lives to please the God of roads. However, these upgraded highways were built for current traffic and extra lanes will be needed within a few years to carry the ever-increasing number of cars on the road.
The icing on the cake is when the day turns into the night when people decide to blind others using the dipper light. These lights almost destroy the vision of the driver coming from the opposite end temporarily, and many a time, I’ve had to either slow down or completely stop so I could see what was coming.
Verdict: Comfortable for passengers. Nightmare for the driver.
So, have you decided the best mode of travel in this country? Well, I shall remain confused.
Time to upgrade my wardrobe?
Jul 29th
A look at my wardrobe would shame even the most fashion-tasteless of people. My collection of clothes range from those bought during my under-graduation days, some of which have managed to stay even as I graduate out of Master’s. A few pairs of clothes bought before leaving for the US were so loose fitting that I had to donate them to charity (I was really obese). Some of the other clothes that went to charity were those shall never fit me again.
One (Woodlands) of the two pairs of shoes brought in my last life is still are as reliable as they were before. My Casio watch is relatively new, although cheap and very basic. One out of the two pairs of sunglasses (Polaroid) was bought nearly three years ago and I still love and use them. My cell phone was also bought more than 3 years ago (Sony W550) and I’m amazed at the fact that this piece doesn’t look outdated yet (or does it).
I believe in using things until they reach their end of life. This, in my opinion, is real value for money. While I may seem cheap and stingy, I strongly believe that being wise with the wallet pays off for itself in the long term. Also, I think I have already outgrown the need to constantly look like someone from MTV, and I simply don’t bother myself too much to buy something new.
TVS Victor – A review on 5 yrs of ownership
May 20th
This June, my TVS Victor will complete 5 years of service, so I thought a review would help those wanting to buy a used TVS Victor (you can’t buy new since TVS has phased out its production), and will help some of you owning this vehicle decide the right time to sell it off. The TVS Victor is made to seem like a very reliable and efficient bike, providing “More smiles per hour” as Sachin would have liked to tell us in those ads. I would agree to a certain level that the bike is reliable. But so is every other non-computer-chip operated 4stroke, 100cc carb. engine. What differentiates one bike from the other, is the point.
The Victor is a 110cc carb. 4 stroke engine with 4 gears and with regular spoke wheels and drum brakes. On first looks, it doesn’t look a stunner, but you tend to get used to the looks and you start liking it with every passing day. The seats are plush and quite comfortable and the ‘pleather’ has lasted through these five years with not a wrinkle or tear. Alas, the comfort factor lasts only for a few minutes, as I discovered on longer rides, when my bum really starts to ache and pain to the point where I have to shift my position on the seat once every few minutes. Not good. The bike’s handling is average, as long as you don’t try gymnastics when you are maneuvering through a turn. Keeping the bike straight, I found out that the brakes work very well and the tires hold up without skidding or throwing you over. Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold true for bends and curves as understood from my fall at 10kmph on a slight turn. Rides on my bike have never been the same again. Braking, like mentioned before, holds up quite well and has triggered many a question from pillion riders if I had disc brakes. Once,my bike had to come to a complete stop from 50kmph since some wise guy had decided to cross that road at that ultimate moment. I braked and kept the handle steady and that was all I required to stay alive and on the bike.
The ride quality of this machine is heavily dependent on its engine. The TVS Victor’s engine is not a very smooth running one, what with terrible vibrations at 45kmph and then at around 70kmph in its 4th gear.
On trips longer than 10 minutes, you really start to feel your fingers feeling numb from the vibrations reaching the handlebar from the engine, especially if you are riding at cruise speeds of around 40-45kmph in the city. This bike either has a terrible problem, or has been mounted on some terrible engine mounts since I am yet to see any bike vibrate so badly. The suspension, on this bike speaks quality and has never given me any trouble. All the attention it needed was the one change of fork oil at its regular interval. The shock absorbers in the rear and the front really do their job in absorbing the cruel road conditions in India and hold up even at high speeds. One complaint, again, is of the poor handling during turns, which might be partly because of the suspension, but I cannot be sure. The ride position of this bike is that of a regular city bike for rides under 20min. Any ride lasting longer will surely get your spine asking for rest and over time, a deserving massage.
I have ridden bikes comparable to the Victor – Hero Honda’s Splendor and the Passion, Bajaj’s Platina and Yamaha’s Libero and found all other bikes to be far smoother and to have much better handling than the TVS Victor. The Libero was one bike that impressed me the most with its ultra-smooth engine and the sweet purrs of the engine with every gear shift. Surely, a Yamaha bike.
Now, the economy. ‘Mileage kitna detaa hain?’ – is a typical question on the mouths of every Indian even if the bike in context were a Hayabusa. The Victor definitely lives upto expectations, but what else can you expect from a puny 110cc, if not some decent fuel economy? In the first two years, whenever I calculated, I observed very high fuel economy, in the range of 75-83 kmpl, 83 being the highest that I ever noted, during the second year. Over time, and as I moved to a bigger city with messy stop-n-go traffic, the fuel economy started to drop down to the levels of 60-65 kmpl, with 45 being the lowest when the vehicle was due for a service. There is nothing more evil for fuel-economy watchers than dirty air-filter and older oil. Other factors which come into play are air-pressure, amount of braking, excessive acceleration, pollutants/oxygen availability in the air, and more. The list will exhaust you.
Quality of service, parts, and of the vehicle. The dealer where I bought my bike provided excellent service, and always made me a happy customer. There was another authorized TVS service shop nearby that also provided good customer service, and reliable vehicle repair. But that was Warangal. Come Hyderabad, and all I get are small, crampy service stations with technicians that look similar to those at the road-side repair shop. Not impressed.
The bike, in its first 3 years was a pleasure to ride, with minimum repairs and repairs came cheap. Soon enough, the vehicle started showing its age, with the plastic loosening at many a place, the one under the seat being the most irritating. The rear-view mirrors lose their rubber protectors, and the plastic turns an ugly grey from a beautiful black. The small storage space under the battery is protected by a cover with lock and key. This lock had to be replaced twice since it gets broken so very easily. The key, when it goes into the ignition and is turned on, cannot be usually removed without having to switch off the engine. Now, thats gone kaput too, since I can now ride the bike without the keys in the keyslot. Just turn the key to Ignition and pull it out. The tires on this bike held up their threads for a very long time, and I’m impressed with the quality of these TVS tires. I finally had to replace my rear tire before last year’s monsoon since I wouldn’t trust old tires on our country’s awesome ‘roads-to-be’ in the monsoons. The wheels, on the other hand, are a painful pair in the ass. I have had to true these wheels umpteen number of times, and these tend to bend and go out of shape with the slightest of the potholes our roads have to offer. Each time, I have to shell out something around Rs.50/- only to have to go back a few potholes later. Poor quality. The battery from Amco-Yuasa is an impressive battery that lasted these 5 long years without the slightest glitch ever. The battery finally declared its demise after the past few months of non-use. The ball bearings at the fork and the front wheel also showed their age or rather their inability to handle high quality Indian roads since they had to replaced recently for a whopping Rs800/-.
Overall, the Victor is a sweet bike, meant for the ultimately delicate, mileage seeking, back-breaking-ready driver who might forego his right to better quality for a lower initial price and reliability, something which this bike ain’t got! I’d strongly suggest that you don’t buy a used Victor if its more than a couple of years old, and if you own one, then I recommend you sell it by the end of its 3rd or utmost 4th year and get one of ‘em new computer-controlled Bajaj bikes since they offer better value for money for the same fuel-economy and for similarly priced after-market parts and service.
Time for Less – A Review of the Casio F91W-1 Classic Wrist Watch.
Mar 15th
I rarely write reviews and it is only when I find a quality product that I do. This is a review for the Casio F91W-1 watch – an ideal watch for those simply looking to keep time, but are also looking for a durable watch. I purchased this watch nearly 6 months ago from Amazon for $11. I was ideally looking for a digital watch that I could wear round the clock without worrying about water getting into it, or it being scratched. I found what I was looking for. The watch’s scratch proof plastic was put to test during these months of rough use in an environment that requires moving around large objects, and dealing with sharp edges and doors. I also wear it when I’m sleeping so I don’t have to fumble for my cellphone for time if I wake up in the wee hours of the night. Its also got a very useful yellow-green LED light that lets you see time in the dark. While this little light isn’t the brightest or the best, it does its job well of letting you keep time. I’ve read that this watch used to sport a regular bulb until a few years ago when it was replaced with an LED. Might save battery. But who cares, since its said that people have hardly had to replace the battery on theirs. According to reviews on Amazon, there are some who’ve used the watch for 10+ years not having to bother about batteries.
To summarise, this watch is a simple digital time keeper with extreme durability, reliability, and a battery that you’ll never have to worry about. For those looking for a better looking glow light in their watch, Casio also has a Illuminator – F105W – 1A. This is a slightly modified version of the classic F91W-1. My friend bought this a couple of days after I bought my Classic. Apparently, he was looking for something simple too. He keeps making fun of my rather boring LED and tries to show off his blue illuminator. I have to admit that it does look cool while still retaining its classic casio look.
Here are links to both these watches on Amazon:
<- Casio Men’s Classic Black Digital Resin Strap Watch #F91W-1
