Simplysimple.info

Suppressing read receipts in Outlook 2003

Benjy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:21:10 +0000

@ Ref : EHA/End User Self Help/Common IT Services setup

These steps are mandatory for our mail server as return receipts are interpreted as spam by our smtp server. This might be a bug in Outlook as it happens exclusively in Outlook. Not following the steps outlined below, will ensure that your outgoing email is blocked by invisible return receipts cooling their heels in the Outbox which can be a veritable nightmare. Another option is to set-up your email in Thunderbird.

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Click on Tools > Options

On the Prerences Tab, click on Email Options

Next, Click on Tracking Options

Under Read Receipts, (towards the end), click on Never send a response and click OK

HTC Wildfire S Review

Benjy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:58:25 +0000

I didn’t think I’d ever be doing a mobile phone review on simplysimple.info. However operating systems like Android and the iOS have pushed mobile phones into the computer category. For once -a computer that never sleeps. This brings in a lot of privacy implications, and at the same time a lot of fun too… being able to Tweet, check in and check on your friends without booting up Windows or Linux and hastily shutting down when there is a power failure -not to mention the joy of having a ticking computer with you as your sidekick. This is not a full fledged review with all sorts of tests to measure CPU, battery life and Graphics performance. This is the common man’s review -his experiences and recommendations on this phone.

I read a lot of reviews on the HTC Wildfire S before I bought it. Initially I planned to buy the Sensation, but went for the Wildfire S as it came with Android 2.33 and HTC Sense 2.1. HTC had better build quality than Samsung, although Samsung seemed to have more current features and faster hardware on the phone. The features I needed were…

Standalone GPS operation
USB Tethering and wireless hotspot (To use Internet on my laptop, Desktop, e-book reader etc.. without purchasing an additional Internet connection)
Blocking of unwanted calls and text messages
A mobile platform where I could be always online
To be able to catch up on news and personal emails while traveling
To be able to keep in touch with friends and relatives 24 x 7
To read my subscription to Linux Journal and my other pdf books while out of station without carrying a laptop.
To use Google Maps and other location based services

I bought the Wildfire S from Flipkart.com along with a screen protector and a 32GB micro SD card. I also bought a good leather flip case for it from pdair.com. It came well packed in a sturdy box but with scanty operating instructions. However a comprehensive operating manual is available from htc.com for download.

It came with a cute charger which has a USB connector into which the data cable can be plugged into and charges from a Desktop or laptop as well. In addition I bought an HTC car charger from amazon.uk ~~but it is in dispute since it never reached me~~ ( I finally received it after more than a month). It comes with headphones of very high build quality. I was not overly impressed with the sound quality though. However I do not intend to use this as a music player. That being said, the volume from the phone is very low. I kept missing calls till I changed to a ringtone which simulates the ringing of an old rotary telephone. Although people laugh in my office when my phone rings, I am glad not to miss my calls. The camera is pretty lousy and can’t handle scenes where there is too much contrast and it blows out the whites. Probably will work under studio lighting and under perfect sunlight conditions. The camera doesn’t have a dedicated button for clicking which makes it very awkward trying to take a photograph. I therefore use my trusty Nikon DSLR for photos and never access the Wildfire’s camera.

The phone itself is a piece of art and I like its sculpted shape which makes the iPhone’s design look like a slice of bread. Its touch screen is beyond words and very responsive and smooth as silk and so is the display on the screen. HTC sense too is a pleasure to use -especially its famous weather applet. I did have to Google a bit to get the current weather to display rather than an always on New Delhi weather display, but it now works great. I was however not very impressed by the friend stream, the HTC Facebook and Twitter apps. These would always stop working citing low memory.

: GPS Compass map for Android at work

The 512MB memory or what is left of it for use after Android and HTC Sense is a cruel stroke by HTC -particularly at a time when memory is so cheap. I have to continuously keep making choices as to what app to delete to make space for something else. In spite of that the Facebook for Android app uses up a lot of memory. Every time I clean out the cache, it wipes out everything including my login credentials. Another big memory hog is the HTC contacts application if allowed to link contacts to Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. In spite of not linking, I still had to delete my Linux Journal app, updates to Google’s idiotic voice search, Angry birds(which incidentally plays OK), Google +, the excellent Aldiko e-book reader and Adobe reader. Many of the apps with came with HTC which do not work -like the stock video player which keeps repeating like a broken record that it can’t play this type of file cannot be uninstalled. I had to install MX video player which is thankfully free and very good.

The FM radio is a dud and doesn’t function at all. My Sony NWZ B-153 picks up all the FM radio stations while my HTC can’t find a single one. I’m hoping my phone gets some sort of update, but there are always no updates. Hoping to get an upgrade to Android 4 is only a pipe dream what with the measly left over MB’s in its internal memory.

I understand why some of the applications insist on installing in Internal memory. When the phone is used in disk drive mode, all the applications installed on the SD card become unavailable. This means if system apps were allowed to be installed on the SD Card, the phone would crash when using the phone in USB mass storage mode to access its SD card through the computer.

As a phone it works very well and even in noisy locations the sound the other person hears is clear. The sound however in hands free mode is mostly inaudible even at full volume unless you are in a very silent room with fans and other things turned off. The battery is pathetic and although I have stopped turning on Wi-fi and GPS (I’ve never turned Bluetooth on yet) on an average I charge every 12 hours which is again pathetic as I make or receive only about 2-3 calls a day (or less). Thankfully the phone charges reasonable fast -particularly from the supplied charger. The supplied handsfree earphones with mic are extremely comfortable and fit well and are the best earphones I’ve ever possessed.

HTC Sense has been quite good, I haven’t used a lot of its features though, except its gorgeous weather app and its online features. For example, I can log into www.htcsense.com and click on various buttons to locate my phone, lock it, erase it and make it ring at full volume. I tried only the ringing part, however on the day I truly misplaced my phone it was unable to connect to my phone. After I found my phone later on, I tried to investigate and figured out that it wont work if GPS is off even though the 3G connection is on. This is a big shortcoming or a bug, as the GPS is useless inside my house, but the locate feature seems to be tied to GPS being switched on. A note here, a few weeks later I misplaced my phone twice and when I tried locating my phone, the website could not locate my phone in spite of GPS and wireless being on in addition to 3G. this happened twice when my phone was at an arms length away and I can no longer trust this app anymore. It is more of a gimmick in its beta state. I prefer to call from my other mobile and make it ring.

In conclusion, if you don’t want to install apps and have easy access to battery charging facilities, this is one heck of a phone to buy as it fits in your palm beautifully, has a wonderful browser which actually enables you to read web pages and a beautiful crisp, colorful, bright display with an excellent touch screen.

Some of the apps that I use:

Adobe reader : Miraculously very small and fast.
Mobile Manager : Block those rude callers and junk text messages
GPS Compass map : A weird name, but an excellent GPS tracking app, can be used like the Bushnell backtrack.
Tuk Tuk2 : A much needed auto fare calculator for India, uses GPS
WordPress for Android : Enables me to keep track of my blog visitors
Facebook for Android : Self explanatory
Quick Mark Barcode : An excellent Bar code and QR code reader
MX Video Player : Plays all the formats of videos that I have
Adsense Dashboard : Gives me stats and totals of my Google Adsense earnings.
Delhi Metro Navigator : A boon for those confused by all the different colored routes on the Delhi Metro
No lock : Helps to disable phone locking when I’m using my phone a lot.
Tiny Compass : Turns the Wildfire S into an analogue compass
~~Flashlight Zaphrox : Turns the camera flash into a flashlight. A good use for the otherwise lousy 5Mp camera~~. Am now using a smaller flashlight app downloaded from the HTC hub.
King James Version : An offline Bible
You version Bible : One of the best Bible apps I’ve used. However needs to be online mostly.
Astro File manager : An excellent file manager for Android
Color Note Notepad : Sticky notes for Android
Locale : An app I purchased to reduce battery consumption by turning on/off services by location. However to know my location, it kept turning GPS on so often that my battery life worsened. $3.99 down the drain.
Astrid Tasks : Also purchased the Astrid power pack, however it embarrassed me a few times in the lift by reading out items from my TODO list. An excellent task management app nevertheless! Uninstalled it for more space, am currently using Color Notepad to manage my tasks… Another $3.99 down the drain.

3rd Dec 2011:

I’ve more or less come to terms with my phone now. I leave wireless and GPS on and I always carry a charger. This sucks, but overall the phone was still a good buy. I’ve stopped reading books on it, including the Linux Journal, as I’ve now got a Sony PRS-T1 E-book reader. However I use the Wildfire S’ News applet regularly to keep in touch with the headlines and update my self by the time I reach work. I used Google maps a few times and got lost, so I’ve started using my head as well.

Getting USB Tethering/wireless hotspot up on the HTC Wildfire S

Benjy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:13:11 +0000

I’d been a bit down lately after purchasing the HTC Wildfire S. The purpose was not only to have 3G data access on my phone, but also to tether it via USB and use it as a modem in lieu of my Tata Photon +. This was not because of poor performance (Tata’s performance and customer support were of a very high standard, although technical support was not too good -thankfully I didn’t need much of that.) It was more because footing a total of Rs. 2000+ plus for Internet access for which a large percentage went for office work was just not feasible. I have to admit that the Photon or Reliance do not work very well in far flung places where I occasionally visited (and where I needed their service the most) so I switched over to MTNL and the Wildfire S.

For the month or so that I was out after getting the Wildfire S before I could get my SIM, I used standalone GPS, Wireless -where available and Internet pass through via USB and it was a wonderful experience even without a SIM. I also became aware of the biggest shortcomings of the otherwise excellent HTC Wildfire S. Insufficient internal memory and lousy battery backup.

The internal memory was the worst as I had to keep uninstalling applications to install new ones in spite of buying a 32GB micro SD card. In addition, there was no obvious way (unless you rooted the phone) to remove HTC’s apps that you didn’t or couldn’t use -an example is that Facebook’s app works quite well, whereas the built in HTC app refuses to run complaining of insufficient memory.

It came as a shock to me when I got my SIM that USB tethering would not work on my Windows 7 desktop which had the latest version of HTC Sync installed on it. I tried it on various Windows 7 computers and laptops and the results were the same. It randomly assigned an IP address and a gateway which I could ping but seconds later Windows would show the exclamation mark on the network connection showing no Internet connection. This seems not to be an HTC issue but more of an Android issue so the fix should work for other Android 2.3x phones as well.

I turned off the firewall and it did not help. Searching the forums, I found some overseas Orange customers complaining about the same issue. They suspected that Orange had blocked tethering so I likewise assumed that MTNL Delhi had blocked mine too.

Finally today I dashed off an email from the HTC website for support as there was no way that I could consume my 6GB plan on the phone. However after filling in all the details including my serial number and submitting my details, the small window turned white and there was no acknowledgement of my request either on the page or on my email address. Frustrated, I searched Google one more time and got lucky!!!

Here is the fix!

From the home screen, tap the Menu button (The three lined icon).

Tap Settings from the pop up (The gear icon)

Tap Wireless & Networks.

Scroll down to and tap Mobile networks (In small text, “Set options for roaming, networks,APNs“)

Click on Access point names

Here mine shows MTNL GPRS, choose yours -probably the default shown by the green radio button.

Tap “MTNL GPRS” or whatever your AP is

Scroll right down to APN type and tap on it.

Without changing any of the existing types (Mine says default,hipri) add a comma and add dun (no spaces anywhere). I suppose it stands for Dial Up Networking.

Click OK and come back to the main screen. You’re done! Mine worked without restarting.

This is my first post using USB tethering on my new phone, now I can surrender my Tata Photon without worry.

This should sort out the wireless hotspot problem as well. I will test it in office tomorrow.

Note: Yes the wireless hotspot works too

Poha

Benjy — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:33:49 +0000

This has been one of my favorite snacks. I have written it down from mum many times but have always misplaced the scrap of paper I wrote it on. From now on I can refer to this post. Poha is flattened or beaten rice. It is manufactured by rolling de-husked rice which has been parboiled. This flattened rice is then dried and called poha. The clearance of the roller determines whether the poha is thick, medium or thin. Although this is prepared in Karnataka as well, this recipe may well have a Maharashtrian influence as we lived in Mumbai for a long time. Poha is called Avalakki in Kannada and Bajil in Tulu. In Maharashtra, there are two variants of the dish -one using potatoes and the other using onion. We have always used both of them together.

For this recipe, we use the thicker poha as using the thinner variety will cause it to clump up when it gets wet. I think this served 4-5 of us.

Ingredients:

2 peeled potatoes cubed
2 onions chopped
“5 as much as you can grab from the bin” handfuls of poha (My mums measurement)
chopped green chillies to taste
Roasted groundnuts
Chopped coriander leaves
A few curry leaves if available (Not mandatory)
Turmeric
Oil for frying
Salt
Sugar (optional)
A lime or lemon

Get all your ingredients together.

Pre-process all your ingredients except the groundnuts and lime

Cover the poha with water and mix with your fingers to clean it. drain the water either using a colander or by holding a plate against the vessel while draining.

If the groundnuts have not been roasted, roast them in a wok at this point. My mum has fried them but I prefer not to. Keep them aside.

In a little oil, add the chopped items (except the coriander leaves). Also add turmeric and stir fry till the potatoes are cooked. You can choose to add salt at this point or can add it later.

Once the potatoes are cooked, add the groundnuts and the coriander leaves and mix well.

Now add the poha and salt, (if you didn't add salt before) and mix well. Check if the salt is ok.

Stir till the poha warms up, then sprinkle sugar if you have a sweet tooth (I don't). Turn off the flame and squeeze some lime and stir well for the last time.

The poha is now ready to be served

Credits:

| Mrs. Manorama Soans|Mrs. Dawn Soans|

Components of a Network

Benjy — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Back to Networking Simplified

The Network schematic showing how the parts of the network connect to each other are detailed in the next post. You might want to take a peek. In this post, I want you to get familiar with each of the devices and the connectors you would find on them and how they can be accessed for configuration.

Keep in mind that specifications and design change constantly. In addition, I will be mentioning only those features on the device that need mentioning, there may be other features which would be beyond the scope of this post. One more fact that needs mentioning is that the web administration interface on each device is different, so it is impossible to put up screen shots and provide customized guidance for each and every model out there, so treat these series of posts as a generic guide.

Switches

Let us start off with the most familiar device that would be found on any network -the network switch. For those who have lived longer, they would remember the predecessor of the the switch -the hub. Don’t bother about the difference between a switch and a hub, the switch does the same thing that the hub did, only it does it better -and faster. Switches come in two types -managed and unmanaged, which can probably be explained off as programmable (managed) or dumb. We will be dealing only with “dumb” unmanaged switches.

When buying a switch, always buy a switch that has a metal box which would also have an inbuilt power supply, rather than switches in plastic boxes with bulky unwieldy external power adapters. The metal body shields the electronics from stray RF fields.

: A 10/100 Network switch without its rack mounting brackets attached. A more expensive and faster switch would be a Gigabit switch ( 10/100/1000)

The switch in the photograph above can also be rack mounted. The rack mount brackets are basically two L shaped brackets which attach to the switch body with four set screws each. You can see a picture below. All you will find on this switch, (apart from all the Ethernet sockets) is a AC power socket which is identical to the socket used for powering your desktop or monitor.

: Two switches mounted in a standard 19″ rack.

If you run out of ports on one switch, you can daisy chain another switch by connecting the last free port on the existing switch to an empty port on the new switch. However for optimum performance and reliability, this must be kept to a minimum and used only when there are two groups of computers in physically different locations such as on two different floors of a building, this saves on the number of wires but machines connected to the second switch will not be able to connect at the rated speed of the switch to a server on the first switch. (This is not true for expensive managed/stackable switches) This is why, it makes sense on a busy network to go in for the fastest switch that your wallet allows. If you expect your network to expand, it is good to buy a switch with additional ports (normally 16, 24, 48 etc) the additional ports also help if one or more ports fail in operation.

Wireless Access points or AP’s

Wireless access points act like wireless switches. They need to be connected to a port on a network switch before they can be usable. They can usually be configured in two modes -as wireless AP’s or as wireless repeaters. In wireless repeater mode, it does not need to be connected to a wired network switch. It repeats or amplifies and rebroadcasts an existing wireless signal. It works well for extending the range of an existing wireless signal. As with network switches, if the wireless signal is repeated from repeater to repeater in succession (which is like daisy chaining switches) you end up with degraded performance.

: A wirelss AP for Small office/Home (SOHO) use

You can see the connections in the photograph above. A LAN (Ethernet) port for connecting to the wired network, a DC socket (yes it has a boxy external power adapter) and a hole to access the reset button which resets the AP to factory settings.

: An AP for business use having primary and secondary antennae

AP’s come in two speeds -54Mbps (older AP’s) and 108Mbps. The above AP has its power supply built into it instead of an external adapter. Wireless access points are programmable and come with their own web interface through which they can be setup. This means that you can open Internet Explorer or Firefox, type the AP’s IP address in the address bar, enter the default user name and password when prompted and configure the AP according to your preferences. More on this later in a separate post.

Modem/Router

Finally we move on to the Internet modem/router. Since our target audience is basically Home/SOHO, we will only be discussing DSL connections under this section. All the DSL modems I’ve come across from MTNL, BSNL, Airtel etc.. seem to have their IP addresses set to 192.168.1.1 By connecting to its web interface through a web browser, it can be configured in a similar fashion to that of the AP’s above. DSL modems come with a reset button too, but keep in mind that initiating a factory reset on one of these boxes would wipe your ISP settings and you might need to call up your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to send their representative to re-program the modem.

: A buch of assorted modems/routers

Please note that both Modem/Routers and Wireless AP’s have built in DHCP servers. Some manufacturers foolishly leave them on by default to ease initial connectivity/configuration. Unfortunately sometimes they get reset and start broadcasting which causes chaos on the network as only one DHCP server should run on the network. If this DHCP thingy sounds like Greek, then you need to re-visit the post on networking basics as this is important.

Some Internet modem-routers come with a wireless antenna, I haven’t found this very effective. Avoid buying it except for home use. Some routers also have a few additional ports as they have an integrated switch which saves users from buying a switch for home use. For an office with a busy network, these are more or less toys. So choose the right stuff for your network.

Pundi (Steamed Rice balls)

Benjy — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:29:31 +0000

As a kid, this was not one of my favorite dishes, but it did rank above the idli. Now I have no such reservations and I actually regret that I did not enjoy these special foods when I had a chance to do so. This was on my list of To Do’s last Christmas, actually one of over 75 different posts that I had planned to write in December during my annual leave. Unfortunately, it was barely enough for data collection. So here is how you make Pundi. Pundi sounds like and is probably derived from the Tulu word pundi which means fistful. You will soon see why

The Ingredients:

Oil (for tempering -Traditionally coconut oil, now any refined oil)
Mustard seeds (for tempering)
A sprig or two of washed and chopped curry leaves [Murraya koenigii ] (for tempering)
Coarse rice flour available in the market sold as idli rawa, or coarsely ground rice in a blender.
Salt to taste

Optional:

chopped green chillies
A handful of grated coconut
I’m not sure of this, but I think you can also add a finely chopped onion. the onion needs to be chopped like when it is added to an omelet.

Unlike most of the other recipes from coastal South Karnataka, we will be working on the tempering first. In a kadhai or wok, heat oil. Add Mustard seeds and when it splutters, add chopped curry leaves and chillies. Stir a couple of times.

Immediately pour water into the wok. The ratio of the water to rice flour is 1:1.25 i.e. for every cup of rice flour you would add 1 1/4 cup of water.

When the water comes to a boil, slowly add the rice powder while stirring all the while. Add the salt and mix well.

Keep stirring until the mixture traces. Then take it off the fire.

Wait till the mixture is cool enough to handle. However don’t let it get cold. If it has become too thick, sprinkle some water and mix well till you get the desired consistency.

Moisten the palm of your hand with water and shape the mixture into 2" round balls. Since this is normally a fistful, this is where the word pundi (fistful) comes in.

Place in a steamer. Sorry, this is not the traditional copper steamer that we use. I'll post its pictures in some other post. Mum likes to take shortcuts, which irks me as I'm trying to document the old way of how things were done.

Steam for 10 minutes or until it is done. Place on the steamer only after steam starts exiting the steamer and not when its cold and just starting up.

You can check for doneness by using a toothpick or a knife. It should come out clean!

Ready for the table

You can see two different chutneys here. The one below is sweet -coconut in jaggery -not exactly a chutney. The other is a spicy-tangy podi or powder chutney. This chutney is sometimes also mixed with oil to make it adhere to the pundi more readily. Two other chutneys are also served with it, one is the standard coconut chutney served with dosas and idlis and the other is called the puli-munchi chutney which transliterates to sour-chilly. I’ve also often seen mum mix some chilly powder and a pinch of salt in a teaspoonful of oil and use that as a dip for variety. I will post the chutney recipes at a later date and then link to them. These are just various options that go with it. There is no reason why you should not eat chicken curry or some other curry with it.

There is one more variant for making pundis -stuffed pundis. Mum usually stuffs them with the same jaggery-coconut mixture shown above to make sweet pundis. To make sweet Pundis, while shaping the pundis prior to steaming, insert your thumb into the pundi after shaping it. Widen the hole and put in a teaspoon full of the jaggery-coconut mixture into it and shape the pundi again closing the hole that you just made. Steam as usual. I’ve not experimented with other stuffing -anything should work I suppose. Putting in a spicy chutney this way, you will have a good snack to carry when traveling and you won’t need to worry about extra containers for the chutney…. what about minced meat? Hmmm…

Credits: | Manorama Soans | Sunayana Walters |

How it connects together

Benjy — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:26:09 +0000

Back to Networking Simplified

You now know enough about your networking basics to start putting things together. However don’t rush into it as this post would be incomplete without the upcoming posts on wiring your network so that you can setup your wiring once and forget it for a long time to come. Then there are also power considerations to ponder upon. Networking equipment is very sensitive and your switches, routers and modems do not need too much of a spike to damage them making them die a premature death or making them unreliable due to reduction in capacity or intermittent operation. They are also affected by RF (Radio frequency ) and other strong electromagnetic fields, so whenever you have an option of buying any of these devices in a metal enclosure instead of plastic, go for it.

The network that we will be looking at will have a few computers connected through a network switch. Unlike electrical wiring, you cannot splice two or three networking cables together to extend your network. The signals on the 4 twisted pairs of the Ethernet cable must be amplified and then split into additional channels by a network switch.

To this network we will be adding an Internet connection so that everyone can browse the Internet, a network printer (an unlikely purchase for a small network) and one or more wireless access points to serve the needs of devices that connect through wireless, like mobile phones, laptops and other WiFi enabled hand held devices.

A simple office network (Network printer is optional as it is pretty expensive)

Note that the Network switch is at the center of everything and it ties your network together. It’s predecessor was called a hub for obvious reasons. A wireless access point works as a wireless network switch. All service recipients and service providers, connect to the switch through which information interchange takes place.

The main network consists of the Desktops, Laptops and smart phones. All others only add value to the network by providing services, For example, the Network printer provides print services and the Modem/router provides a gateway for Internet access and the wireless access point extends the network and provides network access to devices wirelessly.

This network diagram is only indicative of the connections, you can add more than one network printer or wireless access point. If you run short of wired network ports, you can connect another switch to one of the free ports on the existing switch and extend the network. However I advise against this as it creates multiple points of failure on the network, so preferably try and use a single network switch for such a small network.

If you remember what a DHCP server was, [ Go back to Networking basics and brush up if you've already forgotten] then it needs to run on a server. All of the devices -the router, wireless access point, network printer are servers and they mostly run Linux from flash memory i.e they have no hard disks. So all of them have DHCP servers built into them. This means that you must configure and turn on only one DHCP server for your network or there will be chaos. The printer might be turned off if there is a paper jam. Your DHCP server must always be on so the ideal place to run the server would be on your Internet router. In addition, each of these boxes also run a web server -a complete “website” is running on each of them. This is its web administration interface. we can configure/program these devices using a web browser such as Firefox (preferred).

We will look closely at each of these devices in the next post and also on how to configure the devices.

Review: Hohner Golden Melody 10 hole diatonic harmonica

Benjy — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:04:57 +0000

Its been a while since I played a harmonica, around 30 years at least. I remember the black Hero harmonica that dad had. In fact most of my friends who had harmonicas had Heros. Its quality was pretty good and I was surprised to find out a few days back that it was/is made in China. I always thought the print on the cover was Japanese.

My mother presented it to my dad sometime after they got married, sometime in the late 1960′s. I called her up yesterday and she told me that she had paid about Rs. 34 for it. The cost of a Hero today is around Rs.240, still cheap -the price of a meal at a good restaurant. When I remember the Hero, I remember it with a pang of guilt, because as a kid to satisfy my scientific curiosity I took it apart in such a way that it would only make farting noises when put back together. Dad had various things locked up in his cupboard -always for display and never for use, but this harmonica was one thing that he sometimes used, although I don’t remember hearing it very often (probably my fault again).

In its strong pretty plastic case

The harmonica was forgotten except for a couple of toy harmonicas bought at fairs which had covers that would rust and had bad quality reeds and wooden combs painted pink which cut into my lips. When I was nine, I started learning the violin and it was my companion for many years until a few fractured fingers later (at work) I stopped playing it. It was a beautiful instrument no doubt but had too much maintenance associated with it -tuning, proper posture, notes and of course perfect fingering and bowing to eke out the proper sound. This always made it feel like a tedious chore rather than an enjoyable and relaxing past time -like I felt when I played my cheap bamboo flute. Soon my violin was relegated to its case for close to 10 years and it still awaits repairs as some of the parts have begun to separate.

Close up of the plastic comb

When I was working on a draft for posts in my bug-out category. I wondered if I were to pack a musical instrument in my bug-out bag, which one would it be? I knew that the mood lifting properties of music are a great stress reliever and from experience I knew that my body and soul responded better to music I played rather than those heard through head phones. The answer was pretty simple as the instrument had to be light, compact and more or less maintenance free, so the choice boiled down to either a flute or a harmonica or probably both!

High quality brass interiors

Checking out Youtube for AV samples of small harmonicas, I finalized on the Hohner Golden Melody primarily because of its size. Although all recommended that a C harmonica be procured for beginners, I opted for the GM in D as that was what was available at the Furtado’s website where I bought it for Rs 1875 + Rs. 50 for shipping.

Matt finish makes a valiant attempt at hiding fingerprints but does not completely succeed

Although I knew it was relatively small, I was shocked at how small it was when I actually received it. Its size was comparable with my Victorinox Swiss champ and it looked like one of the toy harmonica’s that we bought as kids from fairs for a few rupees. This seemed more so because the harmonica was seated in a a black formed plastic holder which looked as it was made of recycled garbage bags and was formed (inset) in a similar way to disposable blister packing. The lower holder had also come unstuck and I used some petroleum based adhesive to stick it back on. Another visible feature was that the M.HOHNER stamped on the covers was not sharp as though the impression was worn out or the stamp had failed to cut deep enough into the metal.

The slots in the box vent the moisture inside the box -works very well in the dry Delhi summers

On the positive side, the red plastic box was without reproach with all the printing impressed onto the hard plastic cover in golden color. This plastic feels very good to the touch, shuts with a positive click and won’t open easily if it is dropped. It also has two rectangular cut outs which form slits when the box is closed thus allowing air circulation and drying of the harmonica when inside the box.

The golden melody comes with a red plastic comb and its sound is hauntingly sweet. The low tones when properly played sound like a pipe organ and are incredibly beautiful. I found a lot of complaints on various forums that some of the reeds were stiff and needed more energy to blow. I have the same “problem” but I don’t think the good folks at Hohner have anything to do with this. Although I am a beginner, I think this has to do with the laws of physics. Just as it is more difficult to bend a shorter object and easier to bend a longer object, similarly the higher notes need more air pressure to bend/vibrate their reeds. I could be wrong on this though.

Size comparison with my Victorinox Swiss champ

In a similar way, when you create a proper resonant cavity with your mouth and blow from deep inside, the lower notes sound sweeter. This again uses the same principle of a woofer requiring a large resonant box and so has nothing to do with Hohner’s quality control but more with playing style and skill.

I enjoy playing the GM every night before going to bed. Unlike my violin I can play it with the lights out with one hand and even sometimes lie on my side while playing. The deep breathing probably relaxes the body as a psychiatrist friend had once told me that stressed people breathe in a shallow way and that they must consciously breathe deep. The GM helps me do this in a melodious way and clears the mind.

I was a bit apprehensive about the plastic comb and personally I’d prefer a wooden comb, but the sound was still excellent and the comb will definitely last a long time. Although I read on some sites that there is no data to prove that wood is better, with my experience on the violin and the flute, I feel that wood being a natural material resonates better. Wooden speakers sound the best too! Some people swear that the sound gets sweeter as the instrument gets older.

Of course I’ve realized that I can’t play all tunes on the GM. Initially I thought that the GM was defective. Then of course you can’t play half notes which takes away a bit of the joy. The beauty of the chords however do patch up some of this lost joy, but I went ahead and ordered a Hohner Chromatic 270 deluxe with a Pear wood comb. This time I bought it from newharmonica.com as it worked out cheaper in spite of the International shipping and I should have received delivery in a couple of days if it wasn’t for this unpleasant Independence day security delays. In addition it wasn’t displayed on the Furtado’s web site. I will let you know how it performs in a new post. In case you are contemplating on buying the diatonic Golden Melody, go ahead and get it, its a great buy! BTW if it means anything, mine says No. 542 on the cover, and it is in D.

Notes:

After using my Chromatic 270 Deluxe for over a month, I have learned to appreciate my Golden melody more, not that the Chromatic is bad. I’m just amazed at how easy and effortless the golden Melody is to play -hats of to the Hohner team. Comparing the wooden and plastic combs, I couldn’t make out any appreciable difference in sound quality. The plastic comb however seems to stink when played regularly in humid weather. With the wooden comb on the other hand, I was inhaling sawdust for quite a while and close inspection saw the inside of the comb finished pretty roughly. More on the Chromatic 270 Deluxe in a separate review.

Networking basics

Benjy — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:41:41 +0000

Back to Networking Simplified

Remember, you are going to get only as much basics as you need to set up your own Home or small office network. If you need additional information please look elsewhere as this post is written with a particular audience in mind and too much information is overwhelming and confusing.

I’m assuming you want to do one or more of the following.

Share your Internet connection on your network
Share printers
Share folders
Connect to your network via wireless on mobile devices

This is what most people would want to do. Any thing beyond this is also beyond the scope of these series of articles titled Networking simplified. However without a wee bit of theory, understanding the practical aspect will be a bit difficult, so here goes.

To start with, we all know that each of us needs to have a unique postal address or email address for either post or email to be successfully delivered to us. This is no different for computers, only in their case, these addresses are called IP addresses short for Internet Protocol addresses. This is standard for computers communicating over the Internet and we will use the same to setup our local network. These are not only required for delivering email, but for any kind of communication between two computers.

The format of an IP address is XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX . If any of the numbers are less than three digits then zero’s to the left of the number are omitted. There are various classes of IP addresses and we will not go into details. We will be using only one type of private addressing scheme often called the class C address.

For any class of address, an address can be assigned to a machine either manually (statically) or dynamically through a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. Assigning computers static IP addresses is tedious and dumb and is only done for machines which need to be uniquely identified such as a server or other networking appliances providing services to other computers on the network.

An example of an IP address would be 121.245.8.55 This is the IP address of my computer right now and is assigned to me by my Internet Service provider (ISP) from their DHCP server. This changes every time (mostly) I connect to the Internet and when I disconnect, it is assigned to the next subscriber who connects to my ISP.

This is a common way of assigning a limited range of addresses. The IP addresses are recycled and leased to new users as and when they connect to the network. This way, if we have 100 laptops on a network, and only 40 of them on average are in office at any given time, I can safely setup a pool of 60 addresses on the DHCP server. In addition I wont have to keep a list of who has which IP address (for all 100 of them) which is crucial if IP addresses are assigned manually as two computers having the same IP address will have an IP address conflict and will lose their connectivity or work intermittently.

To connect any machine to the Internet, we need to specify (either statically or dynamically through a DHCP server) 4 different addresses. On a Linux server, you will need to setup two more, however we will list them and forget about them as we are not setting up such servers in this series of posts.

An IP address 192.168.1.11
The Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
The default gateway 192.168.1.1
One or more DNS servers 8.8.8.8

Like we said, on Linux machines with a static IP, we need to specify two more addresses

The Network address 192.168.1.0
The broadcast address 192.168.1.255

In our tutorial, we are going to setup the 192.168.1.0 network. I chose this because traditionally Airtel, MTNL and BSNL modems have been shipping with modems configured with a static IP address of 192.168.1.1. In case we change this address, there will be chaos and your network will break every time the service technician comes to repair any fault or to troubleshoot your modem.

In this network range, you can address up to 254 different machines. This is because the highest number 255 is reserved as the broadcast address and the lowest 0 is reserved as the network address. In addition it is good practice to reserve the first few IP addresses for devices requiring static IP addressing. I reserve the first 10 to be on the safe side. This leaves you with an effective IP address range from 192.168.1.11 to 192.168.11.254 – 244 addresses, more than sufficient for a small office network.

Coming back to the 4 essential addresses listed above, the first, the IP address is unique for each computer. If the first one ends with 11, the nest one ends with 12 and so on up to a maximum of 254.

You can forget about the subnet mask, the default gateway and the DNS server as you can safely use the given values and expect your network to work, so don’t break your head over it. For the above service providers, the gateway is always 192.168.1.1. The DNS server 8.8.8.8 is the address of Google’s public DNS server so it should work everywhere. So apart from the main IP address, all the other settings will be the same as shown above for all the computers on the network.

We will look at DHCP (automatic addressing) in more detail when we actually configure our network. This is enough theory to get started.

Remember that you can have a working office network with addresses 1 and 2 stated above, but you will not have Internet access, until the 3 and 4 addresses are in place. The gateway tells the client computers through which device it needs to send its external (Internet) requests to, while the DNS address is the address of the DNS (Domain Name Translation) server which translates Internet domain names such as www.eha-health.org to an IP address such as 207.58.183.47

What is a server?

Benjy — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 03:32:22 +0000

Back to Networking Simplified

This is something I get regularly quizzed about. When the server is installed in a networking cabinet and looks radically different from a desktop in its form factor, people have no questions about it. However when its form factor changes for example in the lower range servers and someone looks at a tower server, which more or less resembles the CPU (box) of a desktop computer, or if they know that a server operating system can be installed on a Desktop computer and it can then be used as a server, then a lot of questions arise in people’s minds. These questions often come into the minds of the bean counters or that of the top level management who are not well versed in this field of operation, so it becomes difficult for them to justify the cost of a server when presented with the fact that theoretically the same software will run on a desktop as well .

Just a note before we proceed… Remember that when we speak of servers and desktops, it can mean either the hardware or the software. When a server operating system is installed on a desktop, it performs the role of a server and is therefore a server although practically it is only a Desktop masquerading as a server.

A desktop operating system also has some server functions built into it. When a Windows, Mac or Linux desktop shares a printer with other clients on the network, it works as a print server, when it shares folders over the network it emulates (with limitations) a file server and when it shares its Internet connection with other computers it acts as a proxy server.

A server is a machine that is dedicated on the network or Internet to provide services to its designated clients. Its services depend on the configuration of its Operating system (e.g Windows 2008, Linux, Unix, etc…) and applications if any running on it.

So why not run from a Desktop?

For the sake of illustration, let us assume that a certain company runs its web site, email and some other critical services from a single server (Not a very good practice). This now becomes a single point of failure for the services required by that company. Although the same server operating system will install on a Desktop computer and run the required services, the reliability and performance of the services will be poor which would become a liability for the company. Let us look at some of the major differences between a Desktop machine and a server.

The server is designed to run 24 x 7 x 365. While it is possible that a Desktop can do that too, the desktop was never specifically designed for it.
A server and desktop are designed for different applications, so they perform as they are designed in those areas. Installing a Windows or Linux desktop operating system on a server and using it as a desktop will be a miserable experience with bad graphics performance. Similarly running a server on a Desktop will result in poor performance as that machine was not tuned in specific areas required for working as a server.
Because a server is designed to run 24 x7 x 365, the air flow passages, position of boards and fans are designed keeping that in mind. A desktop has no such design consideration as most users shut down after work. In fact some of the assembled desktops overheat even under normal operation.
A server supports a faster multi-core processor and oodles of RAM and has very reliable high speed network interfaces. It can usually read and write from disk much faster too.
A server boots slower and intensively tests its hardware before starting up. Our server takes close to 5 minutes to start up, but when it is up, it is blazing fast.

In addition to this, a server may have any or all of the following features.

More than one fan. In higher end servers, the fan speed and temperature is monitored. In addition, the fans can be hot swapped -pulled out and replaced while the server is running so that the server needn’t be turned off for fan replacement.
RPS -short for Redundant Power Supply. This means it has more than one power supply. Often these are hot swappable too, which means that you can unplug and pull out the damaged RPS unit and replace it with a spare with the server continuing to run from the other power supply.
Hot swappable hard disks usually using some kind of redundancy like hardware RAID. Without going in to too many details, RAID (or rather some levels of RAID) allow you to write to more than one disk at a time thus preventing data loss if one of the hard drives fail. The failed disk can be (if hot swappable) ejected out of its bay and then replaced with a spare after which the new RAID member (disk) can be rebuilt or synced to the state of the failed disk without data loss and without turning off the server for disk replacement.
Advanced diagnostics and fault alert systems and a remote console for administering the server from another machine on the network. This enables you to in addition to many other tasks to forcibly shut down or restart an unresponsive server without going through the operating system or having to go to the server room.

A server would usually be housed in an air conditioned cabin to keep it running within its optimal temperature range. This would also reduce the amount of dust which is as great an enemy as high temperature is.

In the next post in this series we will be looking at Networking basics.

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