Friday, October 31, 2008

A deathly calmness!!!

Over 60 lives were lost when a series of bomb explosions took place in Assam at around 1130hrs today(30/09/2008). The blasts didn't take place in a single place but were rather scattered all over the state,with Guwahati taking the maximum damage with 33 lives. Most importantly nearly 400 lives(TOI report) are still in critical condition. So the final toll is most likely to rise. What has surprised me is that the bombs were exploded in strategically "secure" locations like the Deputy Commissioner's Office, the Ganeshguri area just a few hundred metres from the Chuef Minister's official residence. Almost all the bombs,which exploded in Guwahati were done via timer devices and kept in vehicles. Favorite haunting ground of the public like shopping places, markets were also not spared.
This topic is not created to publicise the report or some propaganda related activity but rather to introspect the after effects and to mull over the future of our nation which is deteriorating day by day. The Times of India the nation's largest selling English daily posted this astounding fact on its website that
"The country has witnessed 64 serial blasts in six states in less than six months leaving 215 people dead and nearly 900 injured. "
Seriously what is happening? What about the basic security of innocent citizens who are busy in earning their daily bread? What about the basic moral values which separate us humans from the creatures of forests and oceans? Or is it some mindless dilly-dallying between the predator and the prey? Who is the hunter here and who is being hunted?
The figures above only seem to put any reader to a seemingly endless vortex of disturbances and confusion as these questions gain strength after every such man made casualties. This is not some skyscraper collapse or some dam break. For God's sake, this is cold blooded murder of human beings using modern and sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. Oh wait a minute! Weapons of Mass Destruction-did I mention? Oh no! WMDs, the same convoluted phrase oftly repeated by the president of the strongest country to make it an excuse to invade Iraq. What are WMDs doing in India? And worse still how can some groups of murderers gain access to it?
The country has a huge ever burgeoning population,I fully agree and worse the density is simply too high in heavily conglomerated urban clusters. So even a small accident can cause heavy casualties. But if these same clusters are being subjected to WMDs, Oh no I don't even want to imagine the extent of damage possible.
Well I am still confusing you ain't I? What is the point of this topic then? After every accidents or disasters or terror attacks we Indian seem to forget one thing
To learn from past mistakes and to correct the existing loopholes in the system.
Can we do it then or shall we continue to suffer and accept it as our fate? The time for reckoning has come. It was the same laid back attitude which led the people of this land being colonized by invaders and trading companies going back to the time period of PrithviRaj Chauhan's rule in Delhi. I guess we still haven't learnt from our mistakes. What those mistakes are and how can we correct them?
Yes my friends, this topic was created to invoke these very questions on your minds.
Bye then.
Let all the victims' souls rest in peace.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Milk the cow until it runs dry

NVIDIA is a Graphics Processor manufacturing company that specializes in making graphic cards and chipsets for Personal Computers around the world. Based in Santa Clara, California ,it raked in close to 5 billion dollars as revenue in the last fiscal year. Such is its dominance in this segment that its monopoly is virtually unchallenged,although another company ATI, a subsidiary of chip maker AMD tries desperately every now and then.
The story goes on.. I am not writing this piece for NVIDIA's glorification but rather am trying to reveal and analyse the opportunistic behaviour of this company due to good faith reposed on them by the public. NVIDIA makes Graphic Cards for both Desktops and Laptops all over the world. In case of laptops the mobile GPUs(Graphics Processing Units) are manufactured by NVIDIA and supplied to various OEMs(Original Equipment Manufacturers) like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus,etc.
The current mobile GPU series is the 9 series which was released 3-4 months back. Regular users of laptops containing the 7 series GPUs experienced intermittent failing of their graphic cards almost ranging from a year ago and is still continuing. When these complaints were conveyed to the respective manufacturers like Dell, HP,etc, they expressed helplessness. In most of these cases, the GPU failed when the laptop was just out of warranty. So users had to shell out almost 350-400 dollars(15k-20k) to get their laptop motherboards replaced. In case of laptops the GPU is soldered to the motherboard. So one has to replace the motherboard itself if it fails. NVIDIA revealed the design problem in its GPUs only around 6 months back and that too only for the 8 series cards. They had a subpar substrate applied to the card during manufacturing which caused these cards to overheat and fail before their expected lifetimes. The following cards have been documented by users to have this problem:
Go 7200,Go 7600,8400M seies,8600M series.
But NVIDIA still refuses to acknowledge this problem in all the cards. Worse of all they have not done a product recall and have kept on masking this problem . In fact they have been quite successful in creating an impression that nothing actually has happened. But the true repurcussions of this calamity can be gauged only by looking at the number of complaints at HP and Dell's consumer forums.
Is there any hope for the thousands of affected customers who have been milked by the respective manufacturers and now have been ignored by means of obnoxious excuses???

Ethnic Responsibility!!!

It seems that politics in India has taken one step back again. Recently the elected MPs from the state of Tamil Nadu protested that Tamil people in Sri Lanka were being harassed. They demanded the Central Govt. to intervene saying that the Tamils of India and those of Sri Lanka are linked by a common thread. Unless the Indian Govt. intervenes they are ready to resign. What about those innocent and gullible common people of the state on whose votes they had become MPs at the first place. The most presposterous idea is what right has India got to intervene in Lanka's internal security and political manners? So does this mean the MPs from Punjab will resign because Punjabis in faraway Canada are being mercilessly beaten.!!! They are now Canadians and India can't do anything. What about Biharis living in countries like Mauritius and Guyana? What about Pakistan interfering saying that Muslims in India are harassed? Same is the case with Tamils in Sri Lanka. Although ethnically similar, they belong to different nations now and interfering is out of the question.
Knowing fully well the disastrous consequences faced by the Indian Peace Keeping Forces in 1987 under the able stewardship of Late Rajiv Gandhi(loads of sarcasm he he) , Indian Govt. shouldn't bat an eyelid before dismissing these so called bunch of sycophants and restoring order among the administrative machinery of this particular state. I also hope that this Govt. won't blow away this last bit of hope the T.N public has kept on it.

Long live the sanity of Homo sapiens race.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Latest versions of softwares available

1. iTunes 7.6.2.9 (57.01 MB)
2. AVG Free Edition Antivirus 8.0.100 (45.57 MB)
3. VLC media player 0.8.6f (9.28 MB)
4. Mozilla Firefox 3.0,Release Candidate 1 (7.15 MB)
5. Internet Explorer 8 Beta1 (14.43 MB)
6. Real Player 11.0.0.446 (12.67 MB)
7. Adobe Reader 8.1.2 (22.37 MB)
8. Open Office 3.0 Beta (144.45 MB)
9. CCleaner 2.07.575 (2.76 MB)
10. K Lite Codec Pack 3.90 (13.47 MB)

It is recommended not to use beta or pre-release softwares because they are usually meant for testing purposes only. The manufacturer is not responsible if the particular pre release software crashes the machine on which it is installed. The above mentioned softwares can be downloaded by just typing them in Google and obtaining the links mentioned therein.From now onwards,I won't provide the actual download links but only the latest version numbers available for each software and the corresponding download size. It is the prerogative of each user to find the exact download location for each software he/she desires from the internet.

Happy downloading.

The Kolkata Detour,Part 2

Whew !!! Finally Calcutta is cooling down with the Rain God himself showing so much mercy that Kolkata Knight Riders were routed at Eden yesterday. Park Street was under a foot of dirty gutter water. I had gone to the Reliance office in the evening to pay my net bills and had to be trapped in the office for an hour because of the thunderousmonsoon carnage being lashed on the hapless commuters.Of course got a chance to see some of the "Bong Babes" over there. At night I and Girish had our dinner in a Punjabi Dhaba in Sudder Street-the favourite haunting place of the so called "firangis" -of all races and creed. The food was yummy and it reminded me of Lajpat Nagar's Dhabas in Delhi where I stayed almost 6 years back.With the weekend coming to an end and the dawn of a new week, both of us were quite apprehensive of the future happenings of the day as we were told that we will almost start our "project" by today. As Girish had mentioned, our original live ERP project had been postponed because of irreversible reasons. So we hoped that at least before arrival of dusk, we will be clear on our project. But lo,what happened!!!Mr. Dey introduced us to the project manager(PM) who gave a lengthy lecture on the deliverables and other crap. Half of the day was already gone by the time we met this chap.Then it was almost 6pm when the help & support guy set up our desks with brand new sexy black DELLs. By that time PM passed by us and entered the HR office. That bloke was busy chattering with the ladies inside. And we thought he would finally inform us about our projects and at least introduce us to the team managers before we leave.Imagine our consternation at finding out that this fellow had already left for his home.Then the time was 7 pm. We were badly pissed off.Girish was out of control and yelling about the awful place and its
people.He was feverishly insisting to return home as soon as possible.What else can I say? If these companies claim to be professional, the least their managers could do is just to have the basic etiquette and courtesy of treating their summer interns in a "proper" way. And this PM didn't even give a damn for us or our project. We are utterly disgusted at this fickle minded behaviour of people at BOC. For three continuous days we have been sitting in the chairs idling away . And progress is so slow that sometimes I feel that this is the local MLA's office with its damn-care attitude and lethargic way of life. Nothing else to do but to hope for a better tomorrow.

The Kolkata Detour Part 1

Almost a week has passed by since I and Girish arrived in the once erstwhile capital of the Indian subcontinent. I am finding the urge to write something now because the cyber connections in Dum Dum,where we are based, is a little better than snail mail.Secondly I absolutely loathe the feeling which overpowers me when someone else peeps into my screen when I am working. That was the reason why I could n't fully utilize the 2 Mbps net connection in our sashy office building, the India headquarters of British Oxygen Corporation, a member of the world famous Linde Group.
Okay first things first. We arrived by Coromandel Express on the afternoon of 14th May. Nicely enjoying the heavenly pleasures of 2nd AC,we hardly expected that Kolkata's sweltering heat will engulf us the moment we detrain.(Of course now I have fallen in love with its heat.) Prepaid taxi services are duds with the intermittent arguments between the passengers and the drivers/owners/operators. We got a panoramic view of the Hooghly while we were over the Howrah Bridge.Finally we arrived at our "newly constructed" flat via endless alleys and snaking roads. Fortunately the only furniture inside the flat wereour belongings!!!
I won't go into much details but hats off to the Metro services which operate exactly ontime carrying thousands of daily commuters along the route from DumDum to Tollygunge and back. The office building is a modern architectural showpiece and it really feels refreshing -a nice change from Coimbatore. Its main attractions include a centrally airconditioned facility, Moksha-the multi cuisine restaurant,Suswasthya-the AC multi equipment gym(common for both male and female employees hehe), and of course Nirvana-the Library cum browsing center. All these are housed within the Ozone hub of the building. Office hours are not restrictive and are for 5 days a week. I have visited Park Street seeing those corporate offices and New Market. Of course not much shopping has been done here.
Finally to wrap it up, I am in a double mind-whether to continue in the present flat or to relocate to an alternative accomodation. Bye for now.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

The Indian Summer is here

Today I finished my end term exams for the 1st year here at ASB. Most of my friends were leaving for their Summers-a cliche word for one's internship programme at specific business organizations for a period of 45-60 days. If done too satisfactorily, one is rewarded with a PPO(Pre Placement Offer). This time, most of my batchmates have secured their summers in reputed companies -thanks to their hard work and personal contacts. The faculty's role has been more than special in ensuring that the entire batch gets their summers confirmed within a stipulated time. I have got mine in British Oxygen Corporation, Kolkata .The project is based on "ERP Implementation of Adrenalin software on HR staff payrolls". I am really excited about it as it starts on 15th of this month. Hope I live upto the expectations of all those who believe in me.

I will be continuing to write once I reach the "City of Joy".

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Latest Freewares for all

CCleaner 2.05----Removes unwanted files from your PC.

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

uTorrent 1.7.7------Bittorrent client for those download freaks.

http://download.utorrent.com/1.7.7/utorrent.exe

AVG Free Edition 7.5.519-----An excellent free antivirus.

http://free.grisoft.com/filedir/inst/avg75free_519a1276.exe

VLC Media Player 0.8.6e----An all-in-one media player.

http://www.videolan.org/mirror.html?mirror=http://mirrors.optralan.com/videolan/&file=vlc/0.8.6e/win32/vlc-0.8.6e-win32.exe

HP beats DELL again!!!

After Hewlett Packard took over as the World No. 1 PC manufacturer in 2006, it has continued to extend its lead over DELL Inc. sizeably. Now HP wins the price war as well which has been DELL's forte and strongest USP over the ages. To compare the prices of a mainstream laptop,I chose the HP Pavilion dv9700t series and the DELL Inspiron 1720 which are correspondingly offering similar configurations.
The configuration for the HP Pavilion dv 9700 was:

Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64 bit;
Intel Core2Duo T9300,2.5 GHz, 6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB;
4 GB DDR2 667MHz RAM;
17 inch screen;
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600 GS;
640 GB HDD;
DVD Writer.
Total Price----$1869


Similarly I configured a DELL Inspiron as follows:
Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit;
Intel Core2Duo T9300,2.5 GHz, 6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB;
3 GB DDR2 667MHz RAM;
17 inch screen;
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT;
640 GB HDD;
DVD Writer.

Total Price: $2229

Thus we can see that for a worser configuration,DELL is charging almost 400 dollars more than HP.So I can safely recommend HP over DELL as regard to better prices. Similar results were obtained in other notebook categories where HP triumphs over DELL.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Coming back !!!!!!!!

Well this is the first time I am writing in this new year and indeed a lot of things have happened since I last posted here. It was nice to be once again back in the Amrita School of Business campus here at Ettimadai. Mind and heart welled up with joy at getting to know about the successful placement season for our seniors. They,nevertheless deserve those offers.The last day of the year passed by quite uneventfully here amid mild and docile celebrations .With the Damocles Sword constantly hanging over our heads to prevent us from going "astray", we have to continuously accede to the rules and regulations inside the campus.

In between, I could find out time to visit the local Reliance Web World outlet and they sucked up Rs 3200 as I got a wireless internet connection. My experience with it has been far from satisfactory as the browsing speeds are worse than even that in a remote Pacific island,I presume.

It was a long Pongal holiday celebration for the campus residents. Most of the inmates beat a hasty retreat from Planet Ettimadai to be with their friends and foes(just joking). I went to Mylapore,Chennai to be with my close friend . My plan was initially to visit the temple town of Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry during the holidays as the entire Tamil Nadu is in the palm of my friend Sangu. But worse of all, we had to cancel as all bus drivers fleed Chennai during Pongal. The rush in the Marina beach was overwhelming and this incoming rush clogged virtually each and every arterial road of the city.

While in Chennai, I decided to give my lappy to the HP service centre at Royapettah.The centre in itself is sophisticated and the persons are courteous. Believe me,you have to take tokens to make an appointment with the service engineers. They replaced my keyboard and the lappy fan and advised me to replace my system board as soon as possible.Time was ruuning out for me so I came back to Coimbatore.

Last but not the least, my birthday was on 24 January.Technically I turned 24 . I am not a firm believer of throwing lavish parties on something as insignificant as a birthday celebration. Nevertheless, I conceded a breakfast party for my close friends at K.R Bakes on 26 January.

This entire week I have been ill with fever and a weak body. Now I am going to sleep at 3:20AM .I need some rest badly. See you again fellas .