Brijesh And Radhika

Vinyl Records India - Review after One year

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 20 May 2023 07:13:00 +0000

Well, this is the new craze of Vinyl Records in India. I have been collecting Vinyl records for over a year now and have 250+ records, mostly Bollywood movies.

When I started collecting records, the prices started from 500 rupees, which a year back I found expensive, the new records were released at 1200+ which was again expensive. The records prices changed based on rarity.

Some 6 - 8 months back, started seeing online stores adding more categories to rare, like Angel First Recording, Polydor first recording, Odeon First Record, Oden Double ring, HMV Red Dot ... and many more and prices of some not rare records also touched the roof. Not only this, online resellers are selling records with printed covers also with very high prices, according to me a rare record is one with 1) Mint or near Mint condition 2) Mint or VG++ condition for cover.

Not only old records, but new records with DIGITAL recording, release some 5 - 6 years back are also getting sold for some ridiculous pricing online, like DDLJ is being sold somewhere between 25,000 to 50,000 online.

I personally don't understand this pricing, especially for the new records which are digitally pressed, you can very well get CD's for the same or even wait for a few years for SaReGaMa / Venus / T-Series and others to release them again if this craze continues. For OLD records, you can wait for some sale online, especially if some collector sells the records.

I have personally stayed away from any such pricing and my max paying for any record stops at 3000, I am NOT a collector of records, just want to enjoy the experience of playing Vinyl records but not at these pricing for which the records are sold online.

Some of the websites to buy records from -

1. The Revolver Club - A decent collection of records ( Bollywood ), good customer service, the major plus is that their record grading is excellent. Website - https://www.therevolverclub.com/

2. Blisstainment - A very good option for new release of Hindi movie records, especially from Ishftar ( Venus ), they are generally very good with their services and pricing. Website - https://www.blisstainment.com/

3. MusicCircle - They also have a good collection of records, although recently old records are not in Good condition and pricing of new records is way off the charts, Rudali is being sold for 25,000 on their website so are some of the new records. They do describe the record condition correctly, you can go for VG+ records, Website - https://musiccircle.co.in/

4. Facebook sellers - I have not really come across any good Facebook seller, usually they are very expensive and don't Grade their records correctly, I would suggest to stay away, unless you have a seller at your city / town and can physically visit them.

5. SaReGaMa - Recently SaReGaMa launched Vinyl records selling directly from their website and have released 8 records, good ones, you can try them from their website here - https://www.saregama.com/vinyl/buy-now

6. RGH / NGH - these are 2 sellers in Delhi, which NGH is very expensive, their record grading is pretty accurate, RGH on other side provides records with very poor grading. NGH - https://newgramophonehouse.com/ , RGH - https://rghindia.com/

There are other websites are well, but I found the above ones which update regularly.

I would say that Vinyl collection is pretty EXPENSIVE hobby and have got more expensive because of recent prices that sellers are selling the records, the Gear is also expensive, all depends on how much you can afford, storing is definitely an issue and you would need space as all these physical media requires storage space. Also you initially would love the music but eventually most end becoming collectors, where you just want records and probably would only hear them once or twice or not even that.

LivSpace Experience - Pune

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 20 May 2023 06:10:00 +0000

LivSpace Experience - Pune ( 3 BHK Flat )

We got a new place in Pune and were looking for Interior design work for our new 3 BHK home, looked at a few options and then landed with LivSpace. We were in Bangalore and not present in Pune for design and interior work, so LivSpace looked like a good option as they are one place where you can hire Designer, Carpenters, Plumbers, Painters.. basically one place shop for entire house work.

LivSpace project work is divided into many steps but broadly

Project Briefing
Proposal
Design - 3D ( SignOff )
Site Work ( Custom and Modular )
Move In
Project Closure

Project Briefing

We started with Project Briefing in April 2021, where we gave just an estimate on how much we want to spend of the project and what all needs to be done, a very high level scope and estimate.

LivSpace gave us a call and basically said YES to all our questions, they just wanted us to lock in the project by paying some percentage of the project.

There were no updates till September 2021, where we moved to Proposal. There was nothing much in this Phase, we only had discussion with Sales Manager and she introduced us to the Designer.

Proposal

The designer went to the under construction flat and came up with some designs, to our surprise she showed us design on PHASE 1 of the apartment ( our flat was in PHASE 2 ), they had one flat which LivSpace completed design for and the designer simply showed us the same designs. She did not realise that builder had made lots of changes in Phase 2 and we could easily identify that the designs were from Phase 1.

This was our first warning that we should have LEFT LivSpace and not given the work to them, but we corrected the designer and she said she would come up with new designs

To our surprise, the designer did not care at all, she will NOT come to meetings, she will not include our suggestions in design, it was a total WASTE of time. We escalated it to the sales manager that was present in Project Briefing and she added designers manager for help.

We very clearly told the design manager that we don't want the designer and she is not good and does not do the work, again, the design manager did not agree and said the was overlook the project and make sure updates are done.

We struggled to get anything out of the designer, the designs were very ordinary, nothing great. After months we finally agreed to a design and the Proposal was made.

SignOff

SignOff was the first time we saw the costing for items ( at first the designer did not share the individual costing of items, when asked for, she shared it ). The costing of items was super EXPENSIVE. I was shocked with some of the prices that they had quoted. A few did not make any sense to me, example, kids room desk was quoted as modular work for 1.5 lacks. We de-scoped a few things which did not make sense to us to spend so much, most of the work was still kept as-is.

We also added a few things that we wanted, the designer said they will be added and we could see COSTING added for them, but never got them in the 3-D designs.

NOTE - This SignOff Document is the most IMPORTANT Document, so read it very very carefully and then sing on it. The 3-D designs are just for REFERENCE. We learned this hard way during the execution phase of the project.

Site Work

We were finally excited about beginning of work at the site and this is the first time we got to meet Project Manager, this person is responsible for executing the project on site. The project manager assigned was so lazy that there was no work done on site for first 2 weeks, he will NOT pick the calls, won't visit the site, won't call you back, won't response to WhatsApp messages. We got so frustrated, that we again escalated and asked the designer to replace the project manager with a new one, but it was not done.

Our project was very time sensitive as we were moving from Bangalore and kids school were starting in Pune, we explained this to Designer as well as Project Manager that we have a fixed date of moving and cannot change it. As work was not going on as expected, we escalated this to the Operations team manager, and again, they said that the TAT for projects depends on project value and for us it would be 4 months !!.. this was so surprising, as on the website they say 45 days ( We found out that 45 days os for modular work, which also come s with lots of terms and conditions and they will never meet it ! )

Handover

We had so many issues with LivSpace, and the work kept on going and going, finally after delay of more than 2 months, and we reducing the scope, the house interiors was completed and we could live without everyday Livspace people coming for work, it was a relief.

We had a refund and that was so difficult to get back, that took another 1.5 months and with lots of follow-up to get that refund, again such a bad experience.

Final Thoughts

After all the pain that we have gone through, we will NOT recommend LivSpace to anyone, so many issues from designing to execution and refunds. It is very expensive and does not justify the interior work at end of the day. They get most of the work done from the cheapest local vendor and it's really not worth.

Pune to Bangalore road trip - Toll Charges ( Updated May 2023)

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Tue, 16 May 2023 03:19:00 +0000

Travelled yesterday (16-May-2023) from Pune to Bangalore, below are the total toll charges

There are total of 16 toll plaza, charging below

Rs 115 at Khed-Shivapur Toll Plaza
Rs 75 at TASAWADE TOLL PLAZA
Rs 70 at Kini Toll Plaza
Rs 80 at Anewadi Toll Plaza
Rs 60 at Kognoli Toll Plaza
Rs 25 at Hattargi Toll Plaza
Rs 115 at Hirebgewadi toll plaza
Rs 100 at Gabbur toll plaza
Rs 55 at Bankapur toll plaza
Rs 140 at Chalageri Toll Plaza
Rs 125 at Hebbalu Toll Plaza
Rs 80 at Guilalu Toll Plaza
Rs 100 at Karjeevanhally Toll Plaza
Rs 25 at Chokkenahalli toll plaza
Rs 20 at Kulumapalya toll plaza
Rs 30 at Navayuga Bangalooru Tollway

Total -> Rs 1215

Bird Lounge Dehradun Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:23:00 +0000

Recently travelled from Dehradun Airport to Pune through Indigo flight, there is Bird Lounge on the first floor of the Airport after security check.

Experience

1. Cards Accepted - ONLY credit cards are accepted, no debit cards are accepted. American Express cards are NOT accepted. Priority Pass works as well. Below are the cards that I used for family of 4.

Axis bank Vistara infinite credit card
Citibank Premier miles
SBI card octane
Dinners Club

Walk-in charges are Rs 1500 / person.

2. Food - Was travelling for a morning flight and the place had breakfast, which included Poori, Aloo, Sandwiches, coffee, soft drinks, and water bottle. There is a bar there as well, but I did not try any drinks there.

3. Lounge itself is pretty small, not much space and eating is not very comfortable.

I didn't really like this lounge and walk-in charges are too much, also the food choices are not that many, you can give this lounge a SKIP, not really worth.

Living Experience - Bangalore Versus Pune

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 06 May 2023 04:26:00 +0000

I had lived in Bangalore for 15 years and then got a job in Pune, after looking at some of the posts online, decided to move to Pune and have been living in Pune for 2 years now, have lived in Pune in Koregaon Park, Viman Nagar and presently residing in Keshav Nagar

Below are my personal experiences when I compare Pune and Bangalore and individual can have different experiences.

To begin with, Bangalore is a much bigger place, so some of the comparisons are not apple to apple, but hopefully it will help a few who want to make this decision of moving from Bangalore to Pune.

1. Property / Rentals - The first thing I checked was property for rent, as my office is in Yerwada, so was looking for places in Pune near to the office. First thing noticed that Pune have very limited semi furnished housing, most of the houses are either unfurnished or fully furnished and there is a major difference in rentals for unfurnished and fully furnished. The rentals for 3 BHK can range here anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000+ depending on the location and type of apartment that you are looking for. Coming from Bangalore and living in Kaggadaspura near to Bagmane Tech Park, this was just too much rental for me, so decided to buy my own apartment in Pune in Keshav Nagar.

If you decide to buy property, then the property tax is very high in Pune, a 3BHK ( 1200 sqft ) will be around 32k / year, which is a lot more than in Bangalore.

2. Kids Schools - I got admission for my Kids to Vibgyor School and fees are the SAME as that in Bangalore, schools are almost comparable and didn't find any major difference.

3. Food / Eating out - Pune and Bangalore both have good places to eat out and you can find good places to eat, but Bangalore is more Cosmo and have food from ALL over India, my wife is from Kerala and we couldn't find a single good authentic Kerala food place to eat. Also food is expensive in Pune and varieties are much lesses, if you are someone who likes to explore eating out difference cuisines then you will miss Bangalore.

We really miss eating Goan, Andra and other South India cuisines !

4. Connectivity - This is a MAJOR disadvantage in Pune, it's not well connected to other parts of India and you have to rely on Mumbai for some of the travel. The Airport in Pune is very small and does not have that many flights to other locations. Bangalore is very well connected both by road and air to almost all places in India and out of India as well.

5. Weather - This is very obvious, Bangalore has beautiful weather through out the year ( apart for couple of months for summer), Pune gets very hot during summer and also it's very dry, you would really need to crank up the AC's in your apartments and it's not possible to live without them here. The summer is very difficult time to live in Pune for someone coming from Bangalore. Also the dryness of summer leaves Pune pretty polluted as well, with construction going on everywhere in Pune, it's very dusty, I have apartment on 13th Floor and it gets filled with dust.

6. Expenses - At end of the day, it all boils down to the question, is Pune cheaper ? I will say NO it's not cheaper at all, in-fact you will end up paying more in Pune, rentals, Property Taxes, apartment maintenance, taxes in general are higher in Pune. If you are coming to Pune then make sure to ask for more money than what you are getting in Bangalore.

7. Traffic - This is one of the MAJOR thing that I had read on blogs before coming to Pune, but after living here, I can say traffic is not that much different than that of Bangalore, if it takes you 1 - 1.5 hours to travel 7 - 8 kms in Bangalore, it would take more than 1 hr to travel here as well, really difference of 10 - 15 minutes, sometimes that is also not there are at some places it's worst than Bangalore.

My personal experience and recommendation is that I will NOT suggest anyone to move from Bangalore to Pune, if you have to then make sure you enquire about the area where the office is and rentals etc, also be ready to miss Bangalore's climate, elevated lifestyle, food choices etc..

Pizzapro Ooni Karu Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven - unboxing

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 17:35:00 +0000

I ordered Pizzapro Ooni Karu Mult-Fuel Pizza oven a few days back, after seeing feedback online and it finally arrived today !

The Pizza Oven was sent through BLUEDART and the delivery was smooth, packaging was really good.

The oven looks sturdy and compact, can't want to start using it !!.. will post more pics, happy with the purchase.

Where to order from - https://pizzapro.in/

Home loan Experience - State Bank Of India (SBI), Pune

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 07:11:00 +0000

I am re-locating to Pune for my new job and was initially looking for housing on rent, near Kalayani Nagar or Viman Nagar. Surprised to see that the rentals are top of the roof, Rs 40,000 for 3BHK (un-furnished), Kitchen without cabinets, no wardrobes... this was really shocking as I am moving from Bangalore and people as well as online posts said that Pune is cheaper than Bangalore, but really not, I didn't find any difference in cost.

After searching a lot and not able to find a flat in budget that I was looking for, I decided to take up a un-construction flat.

The flat building is approved by SBI for loan, so they were the first choice for Home Loan. I also applied at HDFC to be on the safer side.

Loan Applying process

HDFC loan process, approval process is great, but because of some last moment issues, I had to settle with SBI.

Believe it or not, I got loan distributed within a day, I was in Pune just for couple of days to sign the agreement and somehow the SBI agent made the loan approved in a day !, was totally surprised.

The ENTIRE loan process is manually, lots and lots of paper work, document, nothing automated.

I did not get any update from SBI on the loan disbursement, after a couple of months, I got a call from the apartment CRM team saying that they have not received the disbursement, so I contacted the agent, who asked me to contact the SBI branch manager for update.

After following up for 2-3 days, I finally got screen shot that the disbursement was made, but NO COMMUNICATION ? either to me or the builder, Rs 30 Lacks disbursement, and no communication on EMI, PRE-EMI, Disbursement date... nothing, no call, no email...

This was just the start of issues, initially the apartment was supposed to be completed within 6 months, so after 6 months of loan disbursement, the PRE-EMI was converted to FULL-EMI, again NO communication, No email, No Phone call... I got a SMS from CIBIL score that saw my CIBIL going down by 40 points!, when logged in I checked, SBI is showing late payment. I immediately contacted customer service (which is completely useless, as the only work they have is to tell you to contact Branch), I contacted the branch, where no one picked the call. Finally I called the bank manager ( after sending 2 emails and no response), the manager told that some one else will call me to check on this issue.

The issue was resolved after following up for a week, but they did not resolve the CIBIL score, it still till date shows late payment. Again after 4 months, the same issue happened now and I am following up with SBI, this time they told me to contact some other branch !!..

Summary -

Avoid SBI for any kind of loan as much as you can, I personally have had very poor experiences with them, I am planning to shift my home loan to some other bank ASAP.

Apple India - Online Shopping Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 05:41:00 +0000

Apple has been in India for quite sometime now but is selling through Apple Premium Resellers (Like iPlanet and others), a few years back Apple started selling in India through their website - https://www.apple.com/in/ .

I have bought a few items from their website and the shopping experience has been great. They deliver to most of the locations (where BLUEDART is available) and shipping usually takes between 2-5 days depending on location.

The shopping experience from placing orders to packaging and delivery is just great, and you also find some exclusive products which as not available with resellers. I have been buying from Amazon India before Apple started selling and sometimes the experience was not that great as a few times I have got products that were opened (usually such opened products are sold for a lesser price, as open package). Also the reseller didn't have some products (like watch bands, Apple TV first generation remote), but now with Apple India selling directly it's great to see most of the products available.

There are offers on EMI's (no cost) but no other credit card offers apart from this (no cash back offers), one of the other exciting offers is the buy back program, which is presently available for iPhone, this gives you a far better buy back price than what Amazon, Flipkart offers. I hope Apple India adds more products to the buy back program, like Apple Watch, iPads, MackBook pro..

Overall, a really good experience, great packaging and on time delivery !, I will recommend to buy from Apple India website anytime.

BBMP ( Bangalore ) Online KHATA Transfer Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 16:33:00 +0000

During this lockdown most of us are staying away from our regular work places, so getting this done online remotely is great.

I was searching for KHATA transfer for one of the properties online for BBMP and was really happy to find that there is an ONLINE process to apply for KHATA transfer, but wait, is it really online ??

Here is my experience

I went to BBMP website - https://site.bbmp.gov.in/citizenservice.html , and from there was redirected to "Sakala Online Services" registration page, the registration process was pretty straight forward. Once you are logged in there is an option for online khata transfer

Well, before you start you will need the SCAN of below documents that needs to be uploaded to Khata Transfer ( they differ from case to case, for me the property is through SALE deed, so I needed the below documents)

http://www.sakala.kar.nic.in/online/Documents/DocumentsRequiredforKhataServices.pdf

Sale Deed
Tax Receipt for present year
EC

I had the Sale Deed and Tax Receipt, but current EC is something that I didn't have !. Searched again and found that you can apply for EC Online, below is the link for the same.

https://kaverionline.karnataka.gov.in/

The registration process was again simple enough and you are allowed 10 searches in a day. Once you are happy with search results, you have to make ONLINE payment of Rs 110 and then wait for 2-3 days to download the Digitally Signed EC ( please note use FIREFOX BROWSER). The whole process was seamless, with your ADHAAR as your signed identity and I did get by Digital EC in 3 days !.. very happy with the EC process, no bribes.

After getting the EC, I scanned everything and uploaded to the Sakala website and applied for online KHATA, I got an GSC No for my request as well.

The website mentions the following steps

Documents Verification - This happened within a Day of my uploading the documents, this was done by the ARO and the status was available through website, not through SMS though
Physical Inspections - This step is the tricky part, this is where your nearest BBMP office person will contact you and ask for bribe !.. I did get a call within 3-4 days and the person came to check my house said that if I need to fast track my application I need to pay money. I said I am not in any hurry, BBMP can take their time, I don't have any money to pay. I didn't see any update on my application for next 1 week and then again I got a call asking me to come to BBMP office to submit additional documents, when I went to BBMP office, they again asked for money.... ..
Preliminary report generation - After a few days the local BBMP guys submitted the report
Khata Transfer Approval - The next day, I got the approval status online
Payment of Fees ( 2% of Stamp Duty) - You have to got to the nearest Bengaluru ONE office, provide them with the GSC No ( Application Number), they will tell you how much to pay, keep the receipt. As soon as you pay, you can see the online status update to "Payment Done"
Khata Transfer and Extract Issue - Alright, all done, within 3 weeks, I was happy that I can download the e-khata certificate and e-khata, but there is more .....

The e-khata that BBMP uploaded was BLANK ?? I was completely shocked, I again got call from BBMP guys asking me to come to their office, again pay money if I want Khata !!!!

I emailed complained to sakala@nic.in, and they were pretty responsive, but didn't help much, they said it's an error from BBMP side and they cannot correct it, I have to visit the BBMP office for Khata.

Attached is the Khata Certificate that was uploaded on sakala website.

Summary -

Well, online application is very good initiative from BBMP, but these process gaps needs to be closed, like I can pay the fees online, not sure why I have to go to Bengaluru One office to pay and also BBMP visits should be removed from the process altogether.

This is definitely better than before, but still can be improved.

Bollywood Vinyl Records - Where to Buy

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 07:35:00 +0000

In my earlier post I had talked about Bollywood Vinyl Records in general, I have been collecting records for a few months now and have bought all records online or through WhatsApp and the experience has been very different in terms on record condition and pricing.

The most important thing while buying records in the CONDITION of the record, all the retailers have the guidelines but they don't really follow them and you can get very different records for the same condition. The prices are very different based from retailer and condition of records.

I like to listen to the Vinyl LP / EP records on headphones so the condition of the records is very important to me as the listening experience can be spoiled if the record is not good.

In my experience so far, try to stick with a few retailers that maintain and have a proper storage for records, stay away from small / one time retailers / WhatsApp group as they don't take proper care of records.

I had ordered a record from a small retailer and they sold be saying record condition is VG+ when actually it was close to G+.

Below are few websites / retailers that I have ordered so far and my experience with them

TheRevolverClub - https://www.therevolverclub.com/

This was the first retailer that I ordered from and their service is EXCELLENT. Although they have a limited number of records in Bollywood, but they are very fair with their ratings for Record condition ( grading) and send the records across safely. They use FEDEX for shipping and charge Rs 150 flat as shipping fees.

Their customer service is great and they have policy to return record if something happens during shipping.

The pricing is on higher side, but the records are well managed, cleaned and properly graded. One can also join their membership program and get 10% off code for their new arrivals records.

Return Policy - YES

Number of records bought - 10+

RECOMMENDED - YES, I recommend them !

2. Music Circle - https://musiccircle.co.in/

This online retailer also has a decent collection of records and the records are updated on a regular basis, almost daily. The grading for records is fair and records are well maintained.
You will find almost all products on a discounted price, but the price shown is NOT inclusive of GST ( 18%), so you will actually pay more than the price of the record when GST is added to checkout. Also for some reason, they are charging GST on TOTAL including shipping, which is wrong. This said, new records are available at MRP which is good.
The other issue is that their shipping depends on number of records, if you buy more they charge you more for shipping, which again does not make sense as most of the retailers will either charge flat shipping or give you discount on shipping if you buy more. They have good customer service available and fast shipping (the records are shipped out same day)

Return Policy - N/A

Number of records bought - 6
RECOMMENDED - Yes, I recommend them, but be careful of their pricing.

3. Amazon India - https://www.amazon.in/

Amazon India has lots of records available from sellers both for Bollywood and English records as well. The resellers pricing is an issue as it is very high, I have only bought couple of records from them, which were new and got delivered without any issues.
The major benefit of Amazon is that you can use card offers and gift cards to pay for the records, which is helpful as the retailers themselves will not provide this benefit. Also the shipping charges are low and Amazon will also help in case there are any physical damages.
Return Policy - NO, all records are not returnable category
Number of Records Bought - 2
RECOMMENDED - Neutral ( YES for new records )

4. FlipKart - https://www.flipkart.com/

Very similar to Amazon India, Flipkart also sells Vinyl records through resellers, I have bough a few old records and was disappointed, with the grading of records. One seller sold records as NM when it was G+, the prices are very high for the records. The records are very poorly graded.
As with Amazon, you can use Gift Card for payments and take benefit of credit card offers.
Return Policy - No, All records are not returnable category
Number of Records Bought - 2
RECOMMENDED - NO, stay away !

5. Bollywood Vinyl - https://bollywoodvinyl.in/

This was my second place where I bought my Vinyl records for and they come up if you search for records in Google. They do have a good collection of records and the records are fairly graded. For some reason I only bought ONE record from them, but it was good one with competitive pricing. They are based out of Bangalore.

Customer service is okay, I had an issue where the shipping was taking time and didn't get 100% timely response from the seller, but record arrived after some delay.

Return Policy - N/A

Number of Records Bought - 1
RECOMMENDED - Neutral

6. 123sold - https://www.123sold.in/

This company is based our of Delhi and they have a very large collection of Bollywood records from old ones to new ones. Their pricing is kind of fixed, Rs 1999 for new records, Rs 2000 for old Bollywood records and Rs 3000 for Bollywood rare records. They also have some records with very high price 10,000+ which I feel is bizarre.
They do not update their website regularly, so check with them if the records are available before ordering, I had ordered couple of records and both were out of stock.
I don't really recommend them because of their pricing, but they do have a large selection of records and almost most of the records are available with them, you can give them a try. Also their pricing in inclusive of taxes and shipping, so that is a plus.

Apart from these, I have also used small resellers or people on WhatsApp groups, I will suggest to stay AWAY from them, simply because they don't invest in maintaining, cleaning and proper storage of records and their record grades are way off than what it should be. I have had very poor experiences with such orders. Remember these records are expensive and if you get a bad one, you can't really do anything about it so you have to buy a new one and would end up putting up more money for same record, better buy a good one in first place itself.

The above are all my personal experiences and does not reflect anything on the sellers themselves, as these vary from customer to customer.

Bollywood Vinyl Records - Suggestions

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sun, 08 Aug 2021 11:44:00 +0000

Writing a post after a very very long time 😀.

Last month my wife asked me about if Gramophone records are still available, as a child she had seen them playing and wondered if we can still get them today. This is when all the craze about collecting records started !

After a month, I now have 25 Vinyl records in my collection, mostly Bollywood movies. The below review is about my shopping experience on different websites that I have bought records from, pricing, new vs old records. I am still new to Vinyl records collection, so this information may change at later point.

New Bollywood Records

You can get records under this category for new Bollywood movies like Tiger Zinda Hain, Jab Tak Hain Jaan and others, 90's music is also available under this category with movies like Dil Ka Kya Kasoor, Phool aur Kaante others.

Old movies are also available in new records, movies like Jawani Diwani, Gambler, Joney Mera Naam others are available.

Old Bollywood Records

Old / Original pressing Bollywood records are available on internet on different pricing depending on their condition, which includes condition on the sleeve for the record. There are standard that are prescribed for both Vinyl records and their sleeve Gradings that each seller need to follow, the Gradings are as follows

Near Mint ( NM or M-) - A nearly perfect record. The record shows no obvious signs of wear.
VG+ - Will show some signs that it was played.
VG - Noticeable groove wear and light scratches. Surface noise will not overpower the music.
G+ - Can play without skipping, significant scratches, surface noise, groove wear.

In my experience so far, each seller has their own way of identifying the above and you can get a very a record in very different status. The pricing or NM is way higher than that of VG.

I will suggest to ONLY go for NM and VG+ records, otherwise the listing experience would not be great, especially if you are using headphones to listen to old records. Sometimes the surface sound is just too much and makes the music listening experience bad.

Should one buy new records or Old ones ?

This is a very tricky question, when digital recording was not available, then analog recordings are the closest that you will every get to what the music director wanted it to be. That said, the technology is pretty old and there has been no updates to it for decades now, recordings on tapes have been there for ages now.

New Records are available from

Saregama - they have the largest collection of records across generations, they old records are pretty awesome and you can buy VG+ graded records, but they come with a price that will hit your pockets. The new Vinyls are pathetic and I don't recommend them at all, you can skip any old record presented by Saregama through SONY DADC. The Records are available from Rs 1499 onwards, some are sold at a very HIGH price, like that for Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar movie is available for Rs 7999.
Tips - Tips also has a good collection of movies with them, the pressing company again here is SONY DADC which does not do a good job either with record or even the record cover. I personally don't recommend them, but if you want some 90's music, then you can add to your collection.
Universal - this one is GOOD !, they also have a very good collection of movies. The pressing is great for all the records that I have and I would suggest to buy new records of OLD movies that they release. Some records are sold for very High Price, SAAGAR and SHOLAY are available for Rs 4999 onwards.
T-Series - have not tried yet.
Yash Raj Music - have not tried yet.

To begin with, I started buying records for whatever price they were available, just wanted to get some for playing, but now I only buy if I get the correct price and also more importantly for old records, correct grading ( Only VG+ and above).

The pricing is an issue, considering that this is a tradition that people are trying to keep alive, the records are sold at a very HIGH price according to me. A very few are available for less and Rs 1000, which makes this an expensive hobby. Most of the Good ones from R.D. Burman or Lakshmikant Pyarelal are available expensive, SHOLAY and KARZ for example will not cost you less than 4000 rupees for each ( VG+ condition). So it all depends on how much you want to spend.

I have a few in English records as well and as English records are imported, they will cost you Rs 2500 and above, so it's better to add them to your shopping list which traveling abroad.

You can buy records from lots of ONLINE shops, I will have another blog post for Online shops that sell Records and my experience with them.

happy spinning !

R - How to read web logs

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 17:13:00 +0000

R - is one of the most powerful computing tool and it's free, I really wanted to try it out for sometime now.

Got a recent problem, had to read Apache access logs, there are a few apache viewers available, but either they are paid or it is a pain to configure them.

I looked at R, and it was pretty easy to get this going.

I used RStudio for windows, found it really usefull.

1. User read.table() to read the apache log file, please note on WINDOWS, you will have to specify path with double slashes \\, example

df = read.table('C\\Users\\brij\\Desktop\\ccsites.access_log')

at this point if you do head(df) you can see you data vectors

2. You can define your names for columns

colnames(df)=c("host","ident1","ident2","date","time","request","status","duration")

3. Next, format the DATE

df$date=as.Date(df$date,"[%d/%b/%Y")

4. Plot and see some charts :-)

reqs=as.data.frame(table(df$date))

ggplot(data=reqs, aes(x=as.Date(Var1), y=Freq)) + geom_line() + xlab("Date") + ylab("Requests") + theme(legend.position = "none")

Nice and simple ...

Never Buy Anything from RELIANCE DIGITAL

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:55:00 +0000

I had a very bad experience with Reliance Digital, Gopalan Mall, Old Madras Road.

I bought a Belking N150 Wireless Router for 2500 Bucks, on 10th May 2013 and exactly 7 days later it stopped working. The terms and conditions on back of bill for reliance digital says that they will exchange any product that is faulty withing 7 working days.

I went to Reliance Digital shop for replacement and they refused !!, when I asked them why, they said that the product should be in sell able condition ? What does that mean ? Why would someone return a product that is working ?

They went back on their own terms and conditions, and told me to get in touch of Belkin itself. I asked them to do it, there was a toll free number mentioned on the Belkin cover and they couldn't get in touch with those, when I asked why, they did not have any answer.

A very bad experience and this was mine first shopping at Reliance Digital as well, I just thank god I did not buy anything big from them, they are total cheats.

--------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------

Lies that Reliance Digital have said

1. Belking Toll free number, 1-800-419-5546, does not work after 6:00 pm. When I was there at their shop, they called on the same toll free number some 4 -5 times in-front of me. I just came tried calling on the toll free number and it says "the number does no exists". I have no idea why Reliance store manager would lie to me !

2. Again the store manager said, that belking would come at my home and fix this as they have ONSITE warranty. I just read the Warranty card and it says, we need to go to their center to drop the product. Another Lie...!!!

---------------------------

The Reliance people just seem to tell lies and sell products to people.. stay away from RELIANCE DIGITAL STORE !!!...

GMITE VI at IIM Bangalore - Take Away from the Course

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 23:25:00 +0000

Finished off with GMITE VI @ IIM Bangalore - yesterday (17th Nov 2012). Looking back at this time and trying to think how the course was ? What did I gain ? ROI ? etc

To Begin with, I joined the course because the next level of hierarchy in my company required it. The course began in Jan 2012 and ended yesterday, some points

1. This course required a good amount of time and effort from my end, the professors don't teach everything, you have to read a lot yourself.

2. The course was totally justified in the subjects and electives that were taught, we tried to introduce new courses, so next batch may benefit from it.

3. After doing the course, in general, my knowledge has increased and I feel more confident, I think the best you can do with this course is to grow in your organization, most of the professors also feel the same. The course is worth ed, the professors are really good and knowledge gained is excellent.

4. The first week of campus, there were lot of group assignments, so groups were formed the first day. Sadly, those never changed for the entire 11 months, I don't know almost more than half of my class out of 90 students. The groups should change during the course, we tried it, but most of the people didn't like working that way. There is no much time in breaks (10 minutes), so you would hardly get to communicate with people apart from your group.

5. Found some good friends and connections.

Overall, a great experience !!!

-B

GMITE VI at IIM - Bangalore, Courses Offered

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 04:26:00 +0000

Below is the list of courses done / offered for GMITE VI at IIM - Bangalore (2012)

This list is NOT complete, as the course ends in November 2012

Course Phase	Status
Phase I - 16th Jan - 20 Jan, 2012
Strategy for Emerging Markets	Completed
Financial Accounting	Completed
Managing Cross Cultural Differences	Completed
Phase II - 3rd Feb – 1st June, 2012
Micro Economics	Completed
Financial Accounting	Completed
Team Building and Conflict Management	Completed
Corporate Finance	Completed
Management Accounting	Completed
Management of Commercial Contracts	Completed
Organizational Structure and Design	Completed
Phase III - 4th June - 9th June, 2012
Management of Technology Products	Completed
EXAMS	Completed
Phase IV - 15th June - 21st Sept, 2012
Intellectual Property Rights	Completed
International Taxation	Completed
Service Management Strategy	Completed
Strategic Management	Completed
Leadership: Organizational Politics	Completed
Proactive Leadership	Completed
Thinking Unconventionally	Completed
Strategic Market Planning	Completed

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:59:00 +0000

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

Check out the latest Harvard Business Review webinar: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:48:00 +0000

Check out the latest Harvard Business Review webinar: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs

Indian Custom Duties - Upto 60%

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:22:00 +0000

Here are the details of what the customs charges me, this is for 50 USD Skechers shoes

BASIC CUSTOMS DUTY - Rs 302.10
COUNTER VAILING DUTY - Rs 398.77
ADDITIONAL CUSTOM DUTY - Rs 149.72
EDUCATION CESS - Rs 21.03
HANDLING FEE - Rs 300.00
SERVICE TAX 1O% - Rs 30.00
EDUCATION CE55 2.00% - Rs 0.60
HIGHER EDUCATION CESS 1.00% Rs 0.30

TOTAL Rs 1202.52

Think twice / thrice .... as many times as you can before ordering something from USA.

MyUS.com - Shopping Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:14:00 +0000

I got an AMEX Gold Card some time back and they are tied up with MyUS.com, using which you can buy things from USA and Ship them to India. Here is my experience.

I bought Skechers Shoes from www.shoes.com, the shoes cost 50 USD. The membership fee is waved off for 1st year for AMEX customers. MyUS.com has a good personal shopper where you can just put the details of the product you want to buy and pay for it, they will do the rest, but they charge a fee ($10 + Any USA shipping fee), for me it came to 20 USD. So total of 70 USD.

The package arrived at their FLORIDA Address. As soon as it arrived, I received an email from MyUS.com for my permission to ship it. The shipping cost after 20% discount was 40 USD. So the total came to 110 USD.

I checked the Indian Customs website and it said that anything below Rs 5000 (=100 USD) is free and will not be charged, but when the package arrived, I was shocked, that it asked me to pay, 1200 as custom charges (approx 25 USD), that's almost 60% of the shoe price, I have no idea why so much of custom charges.

So the total cost of 50 USD shoe came to

50 + 20 + 40 + 25 = 135 USD, more than twice the cost of the product !!!!

PROS (MyUS.com) -

1. Excellent communication through Emails.
2. Clarity on charges.
3. Good Package.
4. Through AMEX, discounts are available.

CONS (MyUS.com)

1. They don't mark the product as GIFT.
2. There is no calculation of custom or an estimate on how much it will cost.

FINAL words

There are other websites which include everything, including the customs etc, like www.shopyourworld.com, ebay.in (Global Shipping Program) and they are good, I have bought earlier from them. I thought, MyUS.com would be cheaper, but it turned out to me at least 20 - 30 USD more expensive. One should one use it, if you are getting some Deal, like the product is on 80% discount or something, otherwise use www.shopyourworld.com or Ebay.in or similar websites.

GMITE VI - 1st Session - 16 Jan 2012 - 20 Jan 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:06:00 +0000

GMITE @ IIM Bangalore.

GMITE stands for General Management Program for IT Executives, it's an OPEN Program (you don't have to give exam to get into it), long duration course (11 months). Upon completion you would be given a Certification along with grades.

Subjects for 1st session -

Strategy for Emerging Markets - Prof. Jean-Paul Larcon
Financial Accounting - Prof. Hema Krishanmurthy.
Managing Cross Cultural Differences -
Prof. Rabi Bhagat

The classes start at 9:00 am, and end by 6:30 pm, with break for tea / coffee and lunch. I found the classes’ very tiring, as by the time I reached home didn't have time to study at all.

Course Contents and Professors - The course contents were very elaborate and the professors are extremely experienced, overall experience of study was good, but the course demands that you read the subjects before coming to the class, otherwise lots of time is wasted in discussions which are not directly related to the subject. The professors are given a timeline to complete the course, so irrespective of time, they will just complete the course somehow or other. We had 4 sessions of Financial Management and only learned about Balance Sheets and Profit Loss Statements, that's some 16,000 rupees considering course fee is 5.3 lacks!!!.

Students - The students were from various backgrounds, mostly engineers. The companies were also widely distributed. There was hardly any time to interact with people, only time was 15 minutes break and lunch break, after that no communication. From network perspective, it all depends on you.

Should one join - Very early to say, but if you are just joining this program for IIM BRAND name, then it might not help you, unless you have a plan on how to CASH on it. If you are looking to gain knowledge, then definitely yes, but you would really have to devote time for the course.

New Experts Exchange Look - Beta

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:08:00 +0000

Certificates..

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 02:25:00 +0000

ColdFusion Certifications - Finally...

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:12:00 +0000

Finally I got ColdFusion Certified, at ADOBE and BRAINBENCH

Consuming Webservice using ColdFusion and SOAP

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:24:00 +0000

This is something that has been killing me for sometime, a while back I got a webserive which was required to be called by ColdFusion. All the methods in the webservice used COMPLEX type and it was a pain to use CFINVOKE to consume it, just too much of JAVACAST and other checks, still did not work.

Then I got a post which said to use CFHTTP with SOAP. But the issue was how to generate the SOAP headers ??

Found link http://www.soapclient.com/soapclient, here you can just give the WSDL url and the method name, it will generate the required SOAP header that needs to be send to consume it.. sweet.. that is what I wanted.

Then you can do

<cfsavecontent variable="soap"> 
<!--- PASTE SOAP HEADER GENERATED BY ABOVE URL --->
</cfsavecontent>
<cfhttp url="http://YourWebServiceURL(do not include ?wsdl)" method="post">
  <cfhttpparam type="header" name="content-type" value="text/xml"> 
    <cfhttpparam type="header" name="SOAPAction" value=""> 
    <cfhttpparam type="header" name="content-length" value="#len(soap)#"> 
    <cfhttpparam type="header" name="charset" value="utf-8"> 
    <cfhttpparam type="xml" name="message" value="#trim(soap)#">  
</cfhttp>

HTML 5 - Video

noreply@blogger.com (Brijesh) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:56:00 +0000

My First experience with HTML5, a client came back and said that he cannot see his flash video on iPad, of course, you can't watch flash on ipad, iphone, ipods.. because Apple says that it's buggy and in past has caused lot of Apple system to crash. So what's the solution - HTML 5.

Well, HTML5 is still in development and there is no standard per say and IE has only added support to it in IE9, that too it does not ship the codes, you need to download them. Basically you will need to convert your .swf to .ogg(for FF and Chrome) and .mp4 (for Apple).

Then, add code which allows flash fall back for IE.

Below is the code

<video id="movie" width="700" height="467" preload controls>
  <source src="cassic.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
  <source src="cassic.mp4" />
  <object width="700" height="467" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
    data="cassic.swf"> 
    <param name="movie" value="cassic.swf" /> 
    <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> 
    <param name="flashvars" value='config={"clip": {"url": "http://www.webcreators.com/wave/cassic.mp4", "autoPlay":false, "autoBuffering":true}}' /> 
    <p>Download video as <a href="pr6.mp4">MP4</a>.</p> 
  </object>
</video>
<script>
  var v = document.getElementById("movie");
  v.onclick = function() {
    if (v.paused) {
      v.play();
    } else {
      v.pause();
    }
  };
</script>