I used to love the smaller details of life as a kid and I didn’t spare trains either. I could distinguish if the tracks were on wooden or concrete sleepers, if the tracks were long-weld or short-joint tracks (not technical terms), and I could tell when the engine was pulling or coasting or slowing down, even those small changes. I used to wait for those diesel engines to puff away all that dirty exhaust, because I loved the sound the engine made when it did that. I used to be so particular about getting a window seat because you get to see so many beautiful things outside. Bridges, farms, tractors, lakes, puddles, rivers, cows. Hawkers selling breakfast,  cool drinks, biscuits and everything else that can be eaten, hawking away in their weird voices, and making those tring-tring sounds with bottle openers. Ticket collectors and their black suits with a pad in their hands waiting to board the train and talking to passengers looking for an upgrade or a seat-change. A guy would announce the arrival and departure of trains using a hand rail-bell. Every departure was affirmed with a loud whistle of the guard with a green flag waving in his hand. Whenever the train braked, a strange smell would fill the compartment’s air and I used to love it. People hated it. I would then sit in my window seat and watch trains after trains go by - goods, passengers, super-fast and just single engines. I could pass hours without knowledge, just looking at all the track, track yards, exchanges and traffic signals. And when I was waiting for a train, I would look at all the trains arriving at a station and would wonder about each part - wheels, brakes, pipes, and more.

Here are pics of suspension found on Indian trains :

There are lots of pictures of trains (and tracks) taken by a Mr.Sriskand. Click the image below to go straight to his website.

The second image is free. The first and third pictures have been linked to their respective websites, so don’t sue me.

Okay, now you know how much you need, but you seem to dislike the taste of water! For some people, it can be very difficult to drink such a large quantity of water when they cannot ‘taste’ anything. So what do you do?
Luckily, there are alternatives, and healthy ones too! Just make sure you have lots of ’splenda’ (artificial-sweetener) available so you don’t pump up entire kilos of sugar into your body. And be ready to prepare large quantities so you don’t run out of liquids when you need them the most.

[One Gallon = 3.78 Litres = 16 cups]

Lemon Water -> Prep. time : 5 min.

In a large jug of cool water ( I use a one-gallon jug),  squeeze two big lemons. You can use a strainer if you like it without any pulp. Add salt and artificial-sweetener. Now you should begin with small quantities of both salt and sweetener and keep tasting the mixture till you feel its right. Specially watch for the salt, as you don’t want to be adding extra sodium to your diet.

Green Tea -> Prep. time 15min.

Lipton and Tetley sell green-tea-leaves available at most stores. Boil 4 cups of water (from a gallon) in a kettle. Remember, we’re preparing a gallon of green tea, so that is about 16 cups of tea so you should remember to add all ingredients keeping this in mind. Once water starts boiling, remove kettle from heat and let is stand for a minute. Now add 16 teaspoons of green tea leaves and 16 packets of sweetener to the kettle, stir and let stand for another minute. Stir again, and strain all liquid into remaining water. Throw away strained tea leaves, stir or shake the mixture to ensure even mix and store in the refrigerator. Serve chilled.

Buttermilk with spices -> Prep. time 15 min. (No Splenda needed)

We need about half-kilo of curd/yogurt for this preparation. Take yogurt in a bowl and thoroughly beat it up using egg-beater or a couple of forks. This is to ensure consistency in the buttermilk. Next, finely grind : Semi-large ginger about half the length of your little finger; one or two green chillies (depends on your taste), half a bunch of cilantro (coriander leaves, kothmeer), and about 10 leaves of Indian Curry Leaves (Kari patta, Karepaku). Add this to the yogurt. Add upto one gallon of water and mix. Now add salt to taste. We’re now ready to enjoy a truly Indian drink.

Apart from these, you should also drink lots of fruit juices and water containing fruits like watermelon and grapes to make sure your body also gets the necessary supply of vitamins.
A video explaining what water does and does not :

What you need :

One cup of green moong seeds,
One medium sized onion,
One large tomato,
One green chilli,
Half -a-lemon,
Chat-masala/Aamchoor,
Salt and chilli powder.

• Soak one cup of green moong seeds overnight, in a bowl.
• In the morning, get rid of the water, and wash seeds once in fresh water.
• Chop one big onion, one tomato, one green chilli (optional). Mix into a bowl along with the moong.
• Squeeze half of a big lemon into the bowl.
• Add chat-masala (readily available from MDH, etc) or Aamchoor to the bowl.
• Add a pinch of chilli powder (optional) and add salt to taste. Its better to add salt later since chat-masalas usually have some salt mixed into them.
• Thoroughly mix all contents of the bowl. Get ready with a spoon and start relishing on this delicious breakfast.

Let me know if you have any healthy or interesting recipes, and I shall publish them with full credits to you.

Fast forward 2 months and I have a blown gasket. Several months back I had noticed that I had to top-up coolant quite frequently. I asked the dealer to check it out and he said everything was fine. Anyways, I’m here now with this great problem that needs another grand to be fixed. Excellent.

Then, I have to pay my fees for my next semester - $1550. And I’ve been paying all this using my credit card which has no interest rate until March ‘09. Now I have the time bomb ticking. I need to gather a total of nearly $4000 to get out of debt in the first place, and more to get going for the next semester. That brings the total to nearly 6 to 7 grand.

So now, its apparent that I made a mistake selecting the car I did. But, I’m going bankrupt ain’t I? So, can I ask the US govt. for a bail-out? Or atleast a freaking scholarship!?

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you could try being frugal. Since my financial position hasn’t been all that great since mid-spring 08, I’ve learnt to cut costs and save money. Its never too late. Try this link for 50 tips for being frugal.

Meanwhile, enjoy this funny video about a frugal man:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115499
I found this interesting review.

Click to view Image

Jason Solves’ review speaks volumes about Linux’s capabilities.
On my thinkpad, the entire Ubuntu installation including Office Suite, codecs, media players and all that I ever need were installed into a 5GB partition with 1.4GB space free. That means Ubuntu occupied only 3.6GB. A standard XP installation would easily occupy around 10GB with all these functionalities. Vista has always eaten up no less than 30GB!

Ubuntu is also much faster and less buggier than Windows, from my experience. I’ve rarely got viruses when on XP, so I cannot speak from that point of view.

In my opinion, there is no better time to make that amendment to our fuel policy. This will ensure that  we no longer have to bear with discussions and heated debates on various news channels whenever the govt. plans to put a price hike into effect. This will also help save lots of wasted expensive Parliamentary hours, which hopefully would be put into better use. Mr. Chidambaram - Please do it !!

For those of you living on cutting edge software, and for those desperately waiting for fixes and drivers for some of their hardware, get ready to gear up your Internet connections to download the release next Thursday.

If you are one of those who like living life on the safe side of Long Term releases, feel free to skip this release. This doesn’t mean that this release is not worth noticing. It definitely is, for me. My Thinkpad R500 barely worked onHardy and X.org couldn’t do anything with my display on Gutsy. But, on Ibex, my laptop runs at full steam with Wireless, Audio and Graphics working out of the box without me having to install or enable any additional drivers. The availability of Open Office 3.0 comes as a blessing, and I was one of the first ones to download the final build. (Yeah, curse me for the slow speeds and for the OpenOffice.org website going down). The good news is that Ibex comes with OOo 3.0 by default.

As a user who doesn’t really exploit most of the features of Linux, I couldn’t really find many new features. When I say features, I mean those that add more/new functionality to the end-user. One new thing that I noticed was the integrated icon for Pidgin and the User Switcher icon in the taskbar.

.. to be continued ..

… apparently not…

During my last days of my India trip(Ahmedabad and Bangalore blasts), I was nearly terrified to move about on the roads of Hyderabad not knowing which vehicle or bus nearby would explode.  I used to venture out, but with a constant fear if I would make it home safely. I guess this is what the terrorists wanted to achieve.

To the Indian govt. : Forget peace. Its time to retaliate. I’d say follow the US when it comes to terror. Bomb blasts are the last thing one has to worry apart from the plethora of other troubles a common Indian has to go through everyday just to scrape it through. 

God bless India.

My verdict : 3.5/5. Why? Here is why :

Setup : Using Skype and its various features like SkypeOut, SkypeIN, Voicemail etc are a breeze on this phone. That is, the setup is very easy and is quite newbie friendly too. Once you sign-in, all features on your skype account are automatically put into use by this phone. Whats more, all your contacts are automatically imported into the phone too and the phone displays your current skype credit as the wallpaper. Changing status of your skype account : Online, Away, etc is available at the touch of a button. So far so good. 5/5

Usage : Using this phone for making calls is pretty easy but is fraught with problems. To call a number not in the contact list, you will have to use the dial-pad to dial the number. You better not get a busy signal coz the Redial facility ( accessed by pressing the Green call button) is useless. When pressed, the screen says redialing but it never redials. I wait 5 secs, 10 and then 30 secs but still no signs of connecting. This is always the case.

Many a time, I noticed that CallerID for incoming numbers often shows Unknown. And when it does show the number, most of the times the last digit(s) is truncated. 

Once I had to restart the Base Station coz the other person(s) was not able to hear me. It worked well after the restart. Weird. 

I give the usage 2/5. 

Call quality : The call quality on the Skype phone has been excellent. Even when downloading something over the internet on the computer, calls remain as clear as a Landline and seldom drop. I’ve had my calls drop just thrice during my entire usage, and this was clearly when my computer was downloading loads off the internet. So, I don’t blame Skype or the phone for it. I give this phone’s and Skype’s call quality a full 5/5

Battery : Most important part. The phone runs on two AAA size batteries. The batteries provided with the phone are a cheap chinese brand 3YD or something. It is, thus, an advantage that you can actually replace the default batteries for a nice pair of Sony batteris. 

The default batteries on this phone doesn’t last too long. A 1hr 15 min call took off more than 1/2 of the battery’s life. The battery also loses 1/4th of its charge in about 7 hrs in standby.

The downside of having AAA batteries is the time it takes to recharge these things. It takes the phone a horribly long time to regain optimum charge. Unless all your calls last less than 5 minutes ,there is no way you’d be able to use this phone in a heavy-usage environment.

For the default batteries : 3/5. 

Range: I’ve not really used this phone outside the apartment many times but once or twice that I did, I found the range to be OK. Nothing excellent, nothing bad. Its range is just as good or bad as the average cordless phone. 4/5.

Overall, I find the Skype phone to be immensely useful over the very costly landline and mobile combo. I give the phone a 3.5/5 rating even with the usage faring so low. That is because I chose to compare the phone with a landline and not a mobile. Do you have get all these features with your landline phone? Does the average phone have callerID ? Do you get to call anywhere in the US (and canada) for just $5 a month?

That said, I definitely think the price tag of $130 that I paid for it was a tad too much. It would have been a much better bargain at about $50-70. I hope with time, as usage and awareness of Skype grows, the phones would get cheaper.

Btw, I recently noticed T-Mobile offering a similar service but at a higher price and you’ve got to be its mobile phone subscriber to qualify for the ‘offer’ which for some reason is called TMobile@Home. Duh, who cares as long as we have Skype!

But, I live in a apartment with 3 other guys. So, I thought it would be really wonderful if our room had a unlimited calling facility like Skype, but detached from the computer. Thats when I went back to the heavily priced Skype phones. The first one to impress me was the Philips VOIP841. I have always liked products from Philips. The best price I could get was on Buy.com for $112, but it was on backorder. I waited and waited and waited for nearly 2 weeks after which I simply canceled the order. I simply went to Ebay and ordered a NetGear SPH200D Skype phone for $130. Why not the philips? Coz all of the philips phones were priced at a huge profit margin. Nowhere near the $112 that I saw on Buy.com

This Netgear phone arrived by DHL today and I was quite excited to get it after all the wait since I ordered the Philips phone. I tore open the package and quickly had a look at the contents. What I had were a Base Station, one docking station, the handset, two adapters - one for the base station, and one for the docking station, one ethernet cable and one telephone cable, and two AAA rechargeable batteries.

The first thing I did was to plug in the Base station to the outlet near my desktop computer and then connect it to my ADSL Router’s Ethernet port. My Router has 4 ports. Next, I put in the two AAA batteries into the handset which triggered it to turn itself on. I was welcomed with a colorful screen. The setup started by itself. It first asked for my Country code, then for my Area code. Then the screen where I was either supposed to Login using my existing Skype ID or Create a new Skype ID.

As soon as I ordered the phone, I had signed up for the Unlimited US calling feature with SkypeIn number.

So, I entered this information into the tiny little screen. It was quite easy doing so. The password reveals each letter while typing and then becomes an asterisk. Nice feature.

After that, the handset tell me that its signing-in and within seconds, I see my userID on the screen. All my Skype contacts were automatically imported into my phone.

I tried my first call to my own mobile. I was asked if I wanted to use SkypeOut or the Landline. Since I didn’t have a landline, I chose SkypeOut. The handset had no problem connecting to the base station and then to my mobile phone number and within a few seconds I see my SkypeIn number on my mobile phone. I cannot comment on the call quality as such, coz I’m yet to talk to anybody using the phone.

Later, I explored the Menu items. It was pretty easy navigating all the various menu items and configuration.
The handset also allowed me to set the default calling setting to SkypeOut to the phone didn’t keep asking me for the same each time I tried calling someone.

Well, these were my first impressions. I’d give it a 4.5/5 just for the lack of a stable feeling when you hold the handset. It doesn’t feel as sturdy and strong as a regular mobile phone or a cordless handset. I’ll let you know more about the Netgear SPH200D phone in a few more days once I start using it widely, in a hope to reduce my minutes usage.

It seems like an team of ex-google employees have decided to take on the web giant - Google itself. Cuil - pronounced as ‘cool’ is what they have managed to come up with.

Already, I could find people on the web moaning about the way Cuil handles search results. The layout, the search quality etc.

I’m not sure about the quality, as I’m yet to really put Cuil to use, but the searches I’ve done so far have left me quite unhappy. That aside, as far as the format of the search results go, I must say I’m really happy. For the first time, some web company has taken the effort to do something that differs from the usual Googlish looking results page(though I still hate the routine usage of blue for titles and green for the links). Search results have been scattered ( in a good way) all about the page, with some description of websites to go along with it. This, I think is a useful feature.

Anyways, I just added Cuil to Firefox using a link on their website’s footer. A few days of proper usage and testing will decide the fate of this hopefull challenge to Google.

Now, I’m in India. Initially, I explored many known and unknown places in Hyderabad, and also had lots and lots of fun. Now, I feel I’ve nothing better to do than to laze around all day with the computer, watch TV, go to the Gym, eat, and sleep. Once in a while I do watch a freaking movie. And thats all. In all these days in Hyderabad, I’ve not made a single new friend, neither have I done something new.There is nothing I do here that I cannot do in the US.

Today, for the first time in mo-o-o-nths I’d say I’m bored. If you have any suggestions to get me out of this boredom, please feel free to comment.

If possible, I’d like to sneak a trip or two to places (anywhere in India) I’ve never been to. Alone. It’d be a nice adventure.

Meanwhile, I still have a few things pending, the first of which is to search for a nice topic for my Graduate project, so I can start working on it as quickly as possible. Then come shoes, ties, clothes, non-perishable food items and more.

Each day spent is one more day lost in this trip to India, and I want to make the most of it. I wish to back to the US with pleasant memories of this age-old country.

Cya!

In another three days, I’m going to launch “Red” Webhosting. The confirmed launch date is the 20th of June. The website is currently under construction, and lots of minute details are being paid attention to. As a sneak peek, we let you know that the website is going to be very ‘red’. There are gonna be all shades of Red , dark red, blood red, etc.  Nothing that’ll blow your mind off, but something that’ll definitely catch your eye.

More services and ideas are in the pipeline, but right now, I’m looking forward to consolidating myself in the webhosting industry before spreading my wings to other territories.

Check the website out : RedWeb

A few days later, my friend visited me. When he accessed Internet, he used the website - www.guruji.com . I never knew it existed. I was excited to know somebody had already come up with an idea similar to mine.

Guruji is a wonderful search engine, currently only catering to Indian websites, and content. Guruji also features Movie Timings - a blessing for Indians.

There also is a plugin to add Guruji to Firefox’s search engine list here.

Wonderful days are in store for India. Meanwhile, RedWeb.in is soon launching extremely affordable webhosting in the next few days.