Sanjay Varanasi

Squeezing every Watt from your electricity bill.

vsanjay — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:50:41 +0000

Summer is fast approaching, and we are all gearing up for power cuts for multiple hours. This is exactly when we also start running fans at full speed, water coolers, and air conditioners for several hours a day. While you get ready for huge electricity bills, here’s what you can do to reduce that pain on the wallet:

1. Stop using your water heater. Have a bath in the evening when water is at its highest temperature due to the afternoon sun. Let me assure you, you won’t notice a difference in body freshness the next day.

2. Insulate windows and doors, especially those facing the sun, and if possible add glass glazing. Glass glazing lets light in, while putting the heat out. An alternative is to add window tints, those that reflect sun away.

God didn’t create the Sun for nothing. Use the sun’s light to the maximum extent possible but make sure to keep the heat out. When building a house design it keeping in view to maximise daylight.

3. Add heavy drapes or curtains of a light color to prevent any sunlight in during the day.

4. Close all doors and windows when the sun rises. Open up all possible doors and windows after the sun sets to let the air in the house cool down.

5. Lighting: Replace all bulbs in the house with Compact Fluorescent lights. Modern CFLs also come in yellow so you don’t have to compromise on that. Install 5W CFLs in bathrooms, because, believe me, they are bright enough for the job. For night lamps, don’t make the mistake of buying the so called Zero Watt bulbs, as most often they draw around 10-15W. Get a 1W LED bulb available at many electrical stores nowadays. These are nearly as bright as their bulb counterparts at a fraction of the drawn power.

Your job is only half done. Make sure you switch off any and every light when not using that room. Contrary to what rumors say, modern CFLs don’t lose their life with regular on/off cycles.

Turn off unnecessary lights. Avoid lighting the entire room and more for simple tasks. Do you need three 25W CFLs to watch TV? Use targeted lighting when working at a desk or on a kitchen platform or for a sink/basin. LED based target lights are very popular and save big on electricity and pay for themselves very quickly. Get a USB LED light for your laptop and avoid lighting up the entire room when working on your laptop.

6. Traditional PCs consume 200W – 300W during regular use along with a monitor. Laptops consume around 35-50W for the same processing power, and are also mobile. Get a second hand laptop if a new one seems expensive. For those that don’t require extensive processing power, an option is to go for Net-Tops that are stingy on electricity use.

If buying something is not an option for you, make sure you apply aggressive power settings on your PC like switching off the monitor when idle, powering down hard disks and switching into standby mode after a set time. Reduce the brightness on your CRT monitor to decrease power drawn. Switch off monitor when not at your desk. Shutdown the PC when not using it. Standby mode also keeps drawing some power from the outlet.

7. Completely switch off all devices like your TV, Set-top box, DVD Player, Music systems, microwaves, airconditioners, cellphone chargers, etc when not in use. Turning them off, and leaving them in Standby Mode without flipping the switch will continue to drain power and burn a hole in your pocket. Standby losses of one device can be as much as 10-15W (according to WikiPedia), and sometimes more. Beware.

8. In the summer, if only using a fan, do not start it with a full blast. Instead, start from the least speed setting and slowly increase it to a comfortable setting. If using an evaporative cooler, get a modern energy-efficient branded appliance as these are optimized for effective utilization of both electricity and water. Non-branded coolers tend to draw very high electricity, thus reducing the cost benefit over an air conditioner.

If using an air conditioner, make sure to follow points 2,3 & 4. It helps to cool down the house by opening doors and windows before switching on the air-con so there is lesser hot air for the air-con to cool, thus reducing load and the electricity consumption. Most Indians are used to heat and hot summers, then why freeze yourself at 22′C ? Instead, take off your rugs and increase the temperature to 26′ or 27′C and use the ceiling fan or a targeted table fan to remove hot air pockets around you. Remember, you only want to keep your body cool but you are cooling the entire room, furniture and appliances for this purpose. Air conditioning is the most inefficient way to keep cool. Just remind yourself that your ancestors lived without it for centuries, and didn’t go extinct.

9. Avoid stuffing your refrigerator with items that don’t need refrigeration. Some of us throw in everything at a refrigerator, ranging from ketchup, flours, dry masalas and powders. Don’t store half of your kitchen in the fridge. An over stuffed fridge runs at reduced efficiency.

Get the right sized refrigerator. Remember, a frost-free fridge needs more electricity to keep the freezer frost-free. Avoid repetitive opening of the fridge door. Avoid opening the door and then wondering what to take out. Use a clay-pot to cool your water and reduce that extra bit of load on the compressor. Water from clay pots are reportedly tastier. New clay-pots also come with a fitted tap to improve hygiene.

9. Buy energy efficient devices. The Indian government has come up with the BEE ratings that define the energy consumption of that particular appliance using a 5-star system. It is mandatory for several appliances to carry the rating. Energy-efficient devices may be expensive, but pay for themselves in the long run in electricity savings.

10. LCD monitors typically consume 1/5th of a comparable CRT monitor and newer devices also feature better viewing angles.
Get a steam iron instead of a regular iron so you achieve a similar ironing experience using lesser heat.
Use exhaust fans and chimneys to keep kitchen and bathroom heat off the house.

Energy efficiency shoots two birds in one shot. You not only pay lesser, every unit of electricity you save helps light another home somewhere else in the country. Report electricity thefts to your nearest electricity distributor, and spread the message of power saving to your friends. As proof, throw them a party using some of the energy savings.

Cheap Webhosts

vsanjay — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:59:41 +0000

You get what you pay for. How many times had I heard that. Yet, I blatantly ignored all such words of caution and continued with my previous webhost (Reseller Scene), even after there were rumors of it going kaput, and even after several very long downtimes. I stuck with them, and got stuck in the middle last month (January) when those guys simply (seemed to have) switched off everything at their datacenter (if they had one). I was left with all my website content lying with them with backups for only a couple of websites. Thankfully, I had backup until November’09 for this blog, the rest of which I got from Google Cached (Thanks Google!). Unfortunately, this means no posts for January’10. I’m back to GoDaddy’s webhosting (which, btw, has a very bad control panel), which I know will atleast be reliable and up and running for the larger part of time.

Why did I take light years to come back online, then? The reason for that lies in the fact that I have returned to India for good, and the website was completely ignored for many days while recovering from the jet lag, and getting things into order here at home. Now that my blog is also up n running, it feels so good to have everything in place for once in life.

Till the next time!

Last post of the decade.

vsanjay — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:02:31 +0000

The very first decade of the 21st century comes to an end today and this shall be the last post of the same. It has not been an easy decade for India, or for several other countries. It was a decade filled with many advancements -

Better communications: Mobile phone market has grown from a mere 36 lakh subscriber base in Year 2000 to nearly 51 crore connections as of Nov 2009. Last month alone, we added nearly 180 lakh more connections. Internet penetration has been extremely slow, growing to a mere 1.34 crore connections from 46 lakh connections in Year 2000;

Urban growth: At the helm of this decade, around 27% of Indian population resided in urban India. However, extremely rapid urbanisation due to globalisation helped grow sectors like IT and Services as if on steroids. Urban Indian population as of 2006 stood at 29%, however, there is no data for 2009. We could safely estimate it at around 31-32% based on previous growth data. With a 4-5% increase in urban population every decade, India is struggling to cope with providing infrastructure to its urban areas.

Middle Class rises: Globalisation of India helped fuel the rapid growth of India’s middle class, thus creating a new demand for processed foods, high quality and imported clothing and accessories, lifestyle products and services such as fine dining restaurants, high-end malls and multiplexes. Finally, it jumped up the demand and sales for 2-wheeler 4-wheelers like never before. People were traveling farther to work, and since the government did not meet demand with supply of public transport facilities, citizens had to make their own arrangements. As a result, urban traffic is very dense, chaotic and unruly.

Economy: Indian economy, despite all its problems, has been on a roll with our GDP rate nothing less than 7% since 2003 with a high of 9.9% in year 2000. However, owing to this century’s first depression in the developed world, India’s growth rate slipped to around 6.6%. It is still highly commendable that our economy stood while other nations struggled.

This decade was also filled with sadness owed to an increase in the number of attacks by terrorists, be it the attack on Indian parliament in 2001, or the series of blasts in the trains of Mumbai in 2006, or the coordinated attacks in Mumbai – November 2008, multiple bombings at various parts of Hyderabad in August, 2007; or multiple blasts in Bangalore in 2008, there is a trend that is to be taken seriously. These attacks have been more regular, are more planned, and are targeting not just Indian monuments or places of importance, but places of general public like parks, restaurants and train stations.

This decade has also witnessed a huge support for separatism, what with three new states(Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand) all emerging in the same month of November, 2000. Blame or hail BJP for that. Following that, there have been more requests and agitations for separate states across India, with Gorkhas wanting a piece of West Bengal; Mayawati and her supporters wanting BundelKhand again from UP; Vidharba from Maharashtra; and most importantly the agitation for a separate Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. A month of severe agitations have brought AP to a grinding halt and there seems to be no respite from rasta-rokos, bandhs, and other forms of anti-democratic agitations. People of Andhra Pradesh have been spared two days of ‘relief’ on the occasion of New Year’s celebrations.

There were also several scams, as always. But the one that takes all the cakes is the Satyam fiasco early 2009 that was a result of misreporting of profits and figures ending up in a Rs.7000 crore fraud and the abrupt demotion of Mr. Ramalinga Raju from a role model to no-more a model, with several charges pressed against him and his co-scammers.

I could go on and on, it is, after all a decade I’m talking about. But I should leave the rest for you to ponder about. On the other hand, this was the most important decade of my life and decisions I took in this decade form my career for the rest of my life. I finished my Xth grade in the year 2000, my +2 by year 2002 and a fun-filled Bachelor’s in 2006. Worked in several jobs for abruptly short durations and after much confusion I ended up in the US of A for my Master’s. I graduated out of school just this month, marking a very eventful and fruitful decade.

Here is wishing all my (very few) fans out there a new year filled with memorable events and successful endeavors and a very grand new decade.

Jai Hind!

Why a separate state?

vsanjay — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:14:33 +0000

If you’re an Indian I’m sure you have been reading and seeing what’s happening around the country, specifically, a region called Telangana. K. Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS Chief, apparently went on a ‘fast’ unto (an illuding) death and his rowdy supporters disguised as OU students wreaked havoc across Hyderabad, breaking and damaging several public and private property – buses, cars, malls, not sparing hapless commuters getting a fill at a petrol bunk. For several days, the very powerful (not) Rosaiah, AP’s CM apparently seemed to have the situation under control, by arresting TRS members and other potential protestors in advance. However, nothing was done to stop the ridiculuous amount of damage being done by crazy agitators across Hyderabad. Finally, the army was called in, ready to get into action from the next day, when another weakling named P.Chidambaram and his co-weaklings – Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, our PM, gave in to the demands of a separate state of Telangana on 9th December (09) night-fall.

So, there we have it. A separate state of Telangana in 11 days of indefinite fasting at the NIMS hospital! We all know how the mighty get away from arrests by staging heart attacks and such at NIMS, and I’m 200% sure this was no different a case. After the death of our ex-CM Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy, time was ripe for KCR to raise this issue, since it was evident that K.Rosiah did not have what it took to be CM. Will power. With yesterday’s events however, the atmosphere in AP has gone haywire. Politicians opposed to the idea have been resignating left, right and center. TRS and his rowdy janta are having a gala time celebrating its ‘victory’ (and how they can start robbing this region’s coffers soon). On the online front, communities on websites like Orkut are seriously divided over this issue, with some shouting (not really) Jai Telangana! and some mourning the separation like losing a brother just because he spoke differently. Twitter has seen massive amount of responses in relation to this issue and there have been thousands of Tweets every hour. Many polls online, like those in the Orkut – Andhra Pradesh community show that the majority of citizens still prefer a united Andhra Pradesh. Some of us have also been signing a petition at- http://petol.org/1andhra for a Unified AP and has almost 22,000 votes as of the time of this writing.

This is not going to be the end of the pain and agitation, yet. The Congress government is infamous for making very slow decisions (as evident from their Common Minimum Plan, or their ridiculous budget in 2008) and any delay in regards to this issue will fuel and spark more agitations across the state. This separation is going to have a serious implication across AP and India. A domino effect is in waiting, wanting to make more bits of India. Now, politicians from the Rayalseema region demand a separate statehood for Greater Rayalseema, if Telangana becomes a reality. Hyderabadis demand a Union Territory status and do not want to be part of any state. It is a wise demand, as including Hyderabad into any of these new states will mean a resentment among citizens of other states, because Hyderabad is a very high-revenue generating city and having it as your state’s capital will mean lots of global attention to your state. However, if Hyderabad is not declared a UT, it would be wise to predict violent agitations and bloodshed over who gets to have the city, and will turn into a dog-fight over a bone. These apart, it is heard that Gorkhas in the state of West Bengal have taken a cue from TRS chief. KCR’s fast and 21 activists are planning to start an indefinite hunger strike for a separate Gorkhaland. What we’ll be seeing in the coming months will be an increase in agitations like these, and the dilution of the Indian state into infinite bits and pieces. Our Union minister of Home affairs, hon’able (not) P. Chidambaram has these words to say ‘The US has one-third of our population still it has 50 states.’ Incredible. I had respect for PC before this. India is one-third the size of the US and has 29 states and soon 30-31 states while the US has 48. His statistics, are also wrong, because US has a population of 304 million people as against 1.2billion people in India. With the passing of every year, the words of the British, in this case Winston Churchil’s seem to make sense : “Independence for India!! They cannot rule themselves, they are destined to be ruled”. Sad.

Getting Serious: Ubuntu Certification

vsanjay — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:39:42 +0000

A few months back, I resolved to myself to be Ubuntu Certified by my next birthday (3rd September). To be Ubuntu certified, you would need to clear three exams: LPI 101, LPI 102 and Ubuntu 199. These can be taken in any order, but you need to clear them all in order to be certified by Ubuntu.I plan on taking them in order. Exam 101, 102 and finally 199.

Now, 2-1/2 months down, I have made progress, albeit little. Apart from collecting valuable websites, and guides, I have also covered Command-Line tools and Text-stream processing. I have also read a bit about managing software using Yum and Yast since I was not familiar with those package management tools before.

I have installed SuSe 11.1 and also plan on installing Fedora 11. My idea is to work with these Linux distributions and learn more about them in the process. Notice I’m installing an older version of both the Operating Systems so I get a chance to learn the upgrade process. My final aim is to get a working system with all drivers, codecs and updated packages at the end of this effort.

However, I’ve been going slow due to several reasons. I had to finish my requirements with the university, work on my resume and more. But, I’m getting serious about this now. I had a goal and I need to start working on it. I plan on doing so, one topic at a time. I’m starting with topics from LPI 101 objectives. I shall be updating this blog regularly, and whenever I complete a (sub)topic. If I happen to stumble upon good online resources, I will be posting them along with the update.

Wish me luck in my endeavor. May the countdown begin!

Media player(s) hits brakes on Linux’s trip to the deskop

vsanjay — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:19:46 +0000

While the entire open-source world is all praise for the development happening with FOSS these days, and of how Linux will ‘take on the desktop’ market (every) next year, I have a few reasons of my own for not making the complete switch to Ubuntu on my laptop. In this post, I shall talk about sound: music and video players. It is true that a media-player can make or break a user’s choice to switch. My issues:

1. Equalizer: Does anybody using Linux never feel the need for an equalizer? Why isn’t there a system equalizer? I’m not sure how hard it is to code one, but when Canonical had enough resources and developer-time to deliver all the features that make Ubuntu so great, I’m sure it could allot some resources towards creating a system equalizer. Canonical, do you not get it? They should have included this idea with the 100 paper-cuts development program.

2. Proper Media player: And I mean ‘proper’. Windows Media Player, though criticized for God-knows-what, plays a lot of formats, with appropriate codecs, and it has a darn-good equalizer and a bass boost! Right now, Ubuntu has Movie Player for videos, Rhythmbox for music. Inconsistent. Have ONE media player, that actually works. And its not like these players play every format by default. They are worse than WMP for that matter, as you have to install proprietary codecs (including MP3 support) for formats you intend to play. Note: I KNOW its simple to install proprietary codec support on Ubuntu, but its not like its any harder on Windows. And, again coming back to the point, there is no darn equalizer integrated into either of these players (Totem MP/Rhythmbox).

But hey, Linux is all about choice! Right. List of players I tried:

Exaile:
Pros : Enqueues Files, has mini-view and taskbar icon
Cons: No Equalizer in the latest 0.31 version. Why would ‘development’ remove features?

Songbird:
Pros: Has library support, equalizer, and more
Cons: You cannot select a file and say ‘Play with Songbird’, nor Enqueue files.

AmaroK:
Pros: None
Cons: Its v2.0. Nothing works. Doesn’t even play.
Its a KDE app. Lots of KDE libs needed.

Listen:
Pros: Enqueues files.
Cons: Takes too long to start. Also, I fiddled with some settings and it never showed up again,
though it played files from terminal. Strange.

VLC:
Pros: Lots of formats supported
Cons: Buggy. Some videos open up multiple (blank) video windows and some open up (blank) video windows during play.
Equalizer cannot be saved. Each file opens in a new window, no matter what setting I choose in preferences.

To sum it up, none of these players qualify, even with my minimal player requirements:
-Equalizer
-Minimize to tray
-Enqueue files on double-click
… and thats it! I don’t need libraries, or FM support or device support or anything else!

Aren’t these supposed to be basic qualities of a ‘proper’ media player? Well, with the Windows 7 launch, its full-on war from Microsoft, and in order to make Linux win, Canonical must listen to the community’s cries and must come up with a unique, all-in-one media player that can finally end the hours of time users spend in search of an ideal media-player.

———————————————————————————

Update: Tried Banshee after reading some positive reviews. It has a good equalizer, minimizes to tray and enqueues files on double-click. There however, is an issue with the way queues are handled. Everytime I enqueue a file, it gets sorted into the currently playing queue. So, if for some reason the song I enqueue sorts itself above the currently playing song, it never plays.
Nevertheless, I’ve switched to Banshee, it being the closest match to my requirements. Verdict: Half-Pass.

Update2: Banshee now satisfies all my requirements. I had to turn off the sort feature to prevent files from sorting themselves into the queue. However, I wasn’t able to follow the instructions from banshee’s website . What I ended up doing was adding the Date Added column which specifies when the file was added to the queue and using this column to sort the queue. You could then hide the column once you’re done setting it up. Now files added up onto the queue as FIFO and not in any sorted order. The next issue was of the player popping up (stealing focus) each time a file was enqueued. To this, I used the ‘–no-present’ option and got rid of the menace.

I’m not an expert, neither a beginner. If it took me so long to figure out how to turn-off or on some feature, I can’t imagine the plight of new users. Ideally, these should have been options under Edit>Preferences. Where is the usability?

How green is your urinal?

vsanjay — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:43:11 +0000

No, I’m not talking about the color of your .. uhum, but rather about the amount of water you waste each time you flush your urinal.

The ones I use at my dormitory are at the farthest end of the green rainbow of water usage. These urinals call themselves the American Standard, wasting nearly 4 litres (One Gallon) of water for every flush.

These were probably bought several years ago by my university, maybe during times when the push towards conservation wasn’t really felt. What’s more strange is the fact that American Standard continues to manufacture 1.0Gallon Per Flush urinals even in this day and age. Surprisingly, their catalog (on their website) also presents several low-flow and waterless urinals.

Often, we talk about low-flow faucets and shower-heads, when in fact, about 50% of home water usage is due to toilets. Ideally in a urinal, no more than half a litre (0.125Gallons) of water should be wasted, and nothing, at best. The government must work towards mandating the usage of low-flow toilets and urinals and should formulate laws to phase out existing water-gulpers.

By the way, this blog is going green, and literally, too. Over the next few weeks, there will be more posts on Green topics. Also, if you have noticed, there are hints of green taking over the dominant-red slowly. Welcome Mr.Green!

Hindustan Unilever Pure (bullsh) iT

vsanjay — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:40:05 +0000

UPDATE – 9th Oct ‘09 : A visit from PureIt sales guy, and a promise of replacement.

UPDATE2 – 16th Oct’09 : Another visit from PureIt. We received a complete replacement of the battery kit, for free.

A consumer battle WON!

—————————————————

Read these words of caution before you decide to buy Hindustan Unilever’s water purification product – PureIt.

We bought our PureIT water purifier around 3 and 1/2 months back, a month after I came back to India. A sales rep had promptly landed at the door within a few hours of us asking for the demo. He went on to demo the features of the purifier and we were told that PureIt’s main mechanism worked on a :

Mesh+Battery kit combination – The kit consists of

(i) a cloth like mesh (called Unique Microfibre Mesh) right at the top to collect large particles when you pour water into the purifier. This is largely a pain to maintain since it gets clogged up very easily. The rep had told us we would have to clean it up by turning it inside out and rubbing it slightly, every couple of weeks. You have to do this more frequently else you’ll be pouring water at the rate of a drop every second. Imagine yourself standing with the water container for 5 minutes just to pour water into the purifier.

(ii) A black, brittle dome of carbon (called Unique Compact Carbon Trap) immediately below the mesh(middle chamber) supposedly removes other bacteria, dirt and parasites. If you watch closely, you’d be able to see small particles of this very carbon crap floating around during the first few uses. We scratched it slightly in front of the rep and scratched off some carbon with that. To that, the rep added that the first round of water dished out must be thrown away.

(iii) a Chlorinator (called the Unique Germkill Processor) at the middle chamber which also houses the battery indicator(more on this advanced feature later). If you stand close enough to the purifier, you’d be able to smell the chlorine strongly. I see no reason for further chlorinating water that was already treated with chlorine by the water supply board.

(iv) Unique Polisher at the bottom(lower chamber) apparently removes odor and more impurities from water. This seems to work since we’ve never tasted any odor with water dished out by this purifier. But the fact that a couple of litres of water are lost in this hidden area raises doubts if this area is being used as a sediment area for particles not purified by the stages before and probably also for those added by the carbon trap. Add to that, you may never be able to clean this hidden storage area.

(v) Unique Battery Life Indicator indicates if this battery kit needs replacement. It works by displaying a white powder like substance that (should) slowly turns red as the battery’s life nears its end. For us, it worked as mentioned for the first 3 months, during which I saw the indicator 1/4th red. But then, the indicator quickened its reddening and changed to a complete red within a span of around 15 days.

From their website:

The ‘Germkill Battery Kit’^TM has been designed to give typically 1500 litres of water at a water temperature of 25°C, in moderate humidity conditions.

Now, why should humidity affect water purification? If humidity were to kill the purifier, isn’t water humid enough to do so? Anyways, the city of Hyderabad is seldom humid. And we had almost no rains this year either.

Advanced Auto Switch Off – is so advanced, we had to wipe off our floor a couple of times before we could understand what the problem was. Apparently, this advanced mechanism works by cutting off supply of water to the lower chamber. Yes that works. The problem is that water continues to flow to the middle chamber from the top and with nowhere else to go, water leaks out by overflowing from the middle chamber storage. Very advanced indeed.

Kudos to Hindustan Unilever for their ‘Unique’ naming, their overuse of TMs and their advanced mechanism. We tried calling PureIt to lodge a complaint. The response to this complaint was a call from another sales rep asking if we wanted a new battery kit (Rs.500). We say no and that we want someone to resolve our issue. Rep disconnects immediately. Other responses to our calls include : “Please give us one day, we will resolve this issue”; “No, please don’t use the email facility, we will look into this issue immediately”; another call from sales rep for battery replacement; “It depends on the usage”(favorite line); “Do you keep it beside the fridge, or do you use it under the sun”?; and so on.

-Near a fridge? The demo representative never told us that. Anyway, its not beside the fridge.
-Under the sun? No seriously, who would do anything like that?
-Depends on usage? Okay, for two persons, (one at office), do you expect the usage to be (1500 litres/105) 14 litres per day? We don’t use this water for cooking or any other purpose other than for drinking. We boil 3 litres per day after PureIt stopped working.

If this ain’t enough, you should take a look at the One Crore Challenge. It is the most ridiculous challenge ever. Give it a read.

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) agrees to pay Rs 1 crore to any claimant who can bring to it any Indian commercially manufactured and marketed in-home drinking water treatment unit (water purifier) which, after passing through the defined process of the Challenge, and under these terms and conditions, has all the features specified below, which HUL believes only the Pureit water purifier has: …….

If you were even remotely considering buying this expensive piece of junk, this post should have warned you sufficiently against it. Bad mechanism, poor customer care, misinformation and false promises make up for a pathetic product. PureIt? No. Pure Bullshit.

Ubuntu Certification Exam discounts

vsanjay — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:57:14 +0000

Ubuntu is currently giving out discounts on exams for those willing to get Ubuntu certified. Two vouchers are given out, one for LPI exams 101 and 102 – a near 20% discount, and another one for Ubuntu exam 199 – a near 23% discount. You get to choose between a Prometric or a Vue center for your exam(s) and you don’t have to book right away. These vouchers are good for one entire year, so that is 12 months of solid preparation allowed.

But, apparently these discounts are not forever so go grab them if you’re willing to get certified. I got my vouchers a few days back and I’m happy I’ve taken my first step towards certification. Next, start preparation!

Ubuntu certification by next birthday

vsanjay — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:02:08 +0000

As a challenge to myself, I have decided to be Ubuntu certified by my next birthday. That gives me almost one year, to study, practice and take the three tests that comprise Ubuntu Certification – Linux Professional Institute Exams 101 and 102 and the Ubuntu exam. Stay tuned to the blog for updates on my progress, if you’re interested.

For all updates on my progress see Ubuntu-Certification

A sad day in India’s history.

vsanjay — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:02:57 +0000

The demise of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy has been confirmed and it has sent waves of shock and grief all across the state and Telugu people around the world. The very fact that this could have been avoided, is sad. The Meteorological department said that it had clearly informed the staff about bad weather before the copter took off. Also, the CM apparently had to fly in a different copter(an old Bell 430) as against the more advanced Augusta Westland 130 as it was due for inspection. Had the CM waited an hour and a half for the new copter, there was every chance he could have survived. The people of Andhra Pradesh had pinned up their hopes when the search teams confirmed the lack of any distress signal from the copter. This distress signal indicates a crash or an emergency landing. But, in an unfortunate turn of events, the copter was found in a mangled state and at around 9.50 am, the search team knew what had happened. It is still unsure as to the reasons leading to the crash and it is of utmost importance to let the citizens know the causes behind such an accident. The Nallamala forests, according to an article on Deccan Chronicle (3rd Sep), was once a Naxal area but had been mostly flushed of the Maoists, and that those now living there had no power to execute a gunning down operation. Plenty of questions will arise and it is upto the government under the new CM to provide answers to the same.

The big question here is who would succeed a leader like YSR. The CM had just begun his second term at office and had been earnestly deploying new programmes for the people of AP. Whether his successor chooses to continue on this path, is a question. Rosiah seems to be a likely choice, given that he has always lead important roles in the ministry and because he has often been seen interacting with public on several instances. He has been appointed by the interim-CM as of now, but there will surely be a debate as to who to elect for the CM’s post here-after. Congress must ensure to tread a careful path here, lest they fall prey to factionism among its own leaders. Such a situation would lead to a failed government and eventually lead to re-elections. This will only lead to a huge waste of public money and we can only hope that the opposition leaders maintain calm and support the government in this situation and help us smoothly transition to a rule under a new CM.

Emerging India : Inter-city travel

vsanjay — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:49:59 +0000

What in your opinion, is the best way to transport yourself from one city to another? Not the fastest, or the cheapest or the most hassle free. Inter-city travel in India is as cumbersome and frustrating as travel within the city. So, what exactly are the options one gets to choose from?
1. Railways has and will remain the cheapest mode of transport for the middle and lower class of India. Transporting millions of people across the country everyday, trains are the preferred mode of travel for most Indians. Depending upon the distance and the class, fares can start from as low as Rs.15 and can cost as much as a flight ticket. Sleeper class fares are kept low and in reach of the lower middle class. But, you get what you pay for, and in this class, in the name of affordability comes a dirty coach, a very very stinky and unhygienic toilet and an that stays with you even after the journey. Food served (not included in fare) is subpar, though quality has significantly improved over the past few years.

A/C fares, have been artificially pegged higher for reasons best known to all the ex-railway ministers. Packing sardines into a freezer should not cost your an arm and a leg. How else did the ex-Railway minister, Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav manage to introduce exclusive 3rd class A/C trains at nearly 1/3 the fare of that on a regular train? Added to this is the fact that he managed to somehow fit a third birth into the side sleeper. Pack more sardines. And the best part of these trains is the name – Garib Rath – which means – A charriot for the poor. If the poor man had that kind of money, he’d spend it on some food and decent clothing.

Railway stations do not fare any better. Important junctions and tiny little stations alike, there is an apathy towards hygiene and little is done to ensure comfort for travellers. Rest areas or whatever they are called, are dirty, dark rooms with a few chairs strewn around. People with connecting trains are left to fend for themselves on the platform and they often end up sitting on their luggage since there always seems to be a serious dearth of seating space in most busy stations. Railway tracks accommodate a whole breed of germs and species ranging from rats, dogs and sheep to human and animal excreta lying around in a mess of plastic covers, bottles and bags. Add to that are people spitting exclusive juices obtained by fermenting ghutka with saliva for a couple of hours in the mouth; and you have a recipe for the most extravagant fragrance ever.

One of the (not so) recent facility that allows customers to book tickets online is a boon and with Tatkal(last moment) ticketing and with travel websites allowing online booking, it definitely has become easier to travel, allowing them to avoid the great Indian rush and queues at reservation counters.

Verdict: Cheap but gross.

2. Buses are a nice option for those have the extra buck to spend and are willing to forego access to a toilet for the duration of the journey. This actually could be an advantage since you do not have to bear with a stinky toilet at all. Buses have been catching up with trains ever since private operators were allowed to ply on the roads. Goverment run buses were forced to match up with the quality of their private counterparts and have remarkably managed to do so. The main areas of concern remain poorly(hardly) maintained public bus stations and the lack of bus bays for private operators.

Another major concern is the quality of drivers hired by both private and public operators alike. Public bus drivers do not fear anything, and in an accident can simply walk away since the government protects its employees. RTC (Road Transport Corporation) buses are often seen overtaking when you think is absolutely impossible and often drive way too dangerously. On the other hand, private operators might resort to employing subpar drivers in order to save costs, thus endangering the lives of those in the bus and on the road.

Verdict : Comfortable, but dangerous.

3. Air travel remained a dream for most of India’s middle class until the start of the 21st century, when the entry of private operators coupled with increased salaries(thanks to IT) allowed 2nd and 1st A/C train travellers to opt to travel by air. Low cost airlines of the likes of Kingfisher and Spice changed the way India travelled, though this celebration didn’t last long. Airline fares are tightly coupled with crude prices and with crude touching $145 at one time, it was increasingly becoming difficult for the airlines and the government to bear the burden and this was eventually passed onto customers.

This fuel commodity trading bubble burst with the start of the world economic recession. The airline industry has had to survive through all the job cuts and salary cuts. While some of them have managed to stay afloat, air travel faces another challenge.

Tremendous growth in air traffic led by the boom meant airports got packed over capacity and air space got congested. Governments of various states decided that it was time to move onto bigger airports. But, this came a bit too late. By this time cities had vastly expanded and become ‘Greater’ cities and the only way to get a bigger airport was to build them outside the city. Public Private partnership also meant that the private contractor would not want the old airport running, lest they lose money. This effectively meant that cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore no longer had a local airport. Instead, citizens were forced to travel miles across to a location outside city limits. Lack of proper and fast connectivity rendered the once comfortable air travel into a huge traffic headache.

Verdict: Fast, but not so fast due to distance to airports and time needed to check-in.

4. Private transport or owned vehicles are quickly becoming one of the preferred mode of inter-city travel, often within the state. Traveling by a motorcycle or a Maruti 800 over distances farther than a couple of hundred kilometers is a great pain in the rear and lack of safer and faster alternatives effectively prevented Indians from traveling too far on their puny and uncomfortable vehicles. But, with the advent of newer vehicles, came better power and comfort, and Indians are now traveling far longer than their previous generation did.

Still, Indian roads require one of the highest amount of concentration on the road when compared to those of other (non-Asian) countries. A non-exhaustive list of hurdles and speed-killers on Indian roads include: potholes; manholes; autos that are either parked or drive extremely slow right in the middle of the road; buses and other cars trying to overtake when not-supposed to; tractors; shepherds with sheep/goats; straying buffaloes; well elevated speed-bumps; stray pedestrians; drunk bicyclers; naxalites and robbers. Coupled with these is the fact that most of the existing ‘highways’ are extremely insufficient, narrow 2 laners. It is only recently that a few of these highways were ‘upgraded’. I guess the government thought that we had sacrificed enough lives to please the God of roads. However, these upgraded highways were built for current traffic and extra lanes will be needed within a few years to carry the ever-increasing number of cars on the road.

The icing on the cake is when the day turns into the night when people decide to blind others using the dipper light. These lights almost destroy the vision of the driver coming from the opposite end temporarily, and many a time, I’ve had to either slow down or completely stop so I could see what was coming.

Verdict: Comfortable for passengers. Nightmare for the driver.

So, have you decided the best mode of travel in this country? Well, I shall remain confused.

An encroachment has no religion.

vsanjay — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 06:23:42 +0000

Encroachments come in two forms : public, and private. Religious places of worship have seriously encroached upon both public and private spaces and nothing is ever done about it. We should.

Lets talk about public space. How do most religious places of worship break ground? Someone places a boulder under some tree, and overnight the boulder is turned into God by local foolish inhabitants and the place then converts itself over time into a temple by building upon donations from fools. And there you have a temple. There are simply way too many illegal shrines all over the country, urban and rural. Its land-grabbing made easy. No government dare touch shrines such as these since it is always a touchy affair and a ‘law and order problem’

The recent Supreme Court order that prevents new shrines from cropping up has come is little, and way too late. This would have made much better sense atleast 3 decades ago. This is because removal of these structures is way too expensive now, both in terms of money and effort – safety and security aspects – needed to do so.

Talking about encroachment into private space, I write this article as I listen, or rather am being forced to listen to ‘religious’ songs of Batakamma, with thunderous drums in spurts. I have been blessed with a temple bang opposite my apartment. Every morning, millions of Indians are subjected to torture of many sorts ranging from temples’ bhakti songs to dargah/masjid’s morning prayers broadcast to the entire locality over loud-speakers. And may God help those with a marriage/function hall somewhere nearby.

A unique encroachment of both spaces at the same time is when we decide to announce an entire part of the city of our marriage. We roam about streets with the choicest of drums accompanied with a whistling, dancing and drunk batch of people all around – in the process, waking up every little inch of other human beings trying to rest. We clog up traffic behind us and hit drivers that honk. After all, we built the road with our money and we have every right to (mis)use it, don’t we? Yet another horror every year is the Ganesh nimmajanam when every street in town is a virtual parking lot for traffic. We also celebrate Deepavali with deafening bombs(as in firecracker bombs) and the smokiest of other fire crackers. And you thought deepavali was a festival of lights.

The police seems to have gone deaf with all the noise and fails to even try any form of noise and nuisance control.

I’m pretty sure a majority would rather prefer illegal religious structures removed or shifted, and would love to wake up to a bright, lovely morning, with the air filled with nothing but the occasional chirp of the bird and the occasional wind brushing past tree leaves . Alas, the government has to deal with the so-called religious organizations and senas that are nothing but a bunch of madmen and religious fanatics ever ready to destroy public property and to instigate religious sentiments of discrimination all over again.

Solution: India needs to develop a national demolition force – a team comprised of a couple of trucks of armymen/ or men from the Anti-terrorism squad and ofcourse bulldozers. Teams should be formed and sent based on the religion the structure deals with. (A man of a different religion demolishing a structure of another could seriously risk life in the hands of the above said madmen.) This demolition force could easily bulldoze atleast 3-4 illegal structures everyday. Policing in sensitive areas of the city could be upped whenever a demolition is scheduled. Several such teams across the country would immensely speed up the entire process. Meanwhile, the government must keep talking to the public in various forms of media to explain the entire process and to request co-operation. The government should also engage in talks with religious organizations and keep them in trust. This will help ease taking over religious structures for government projects such as road widening.

Finally, as citizens of this great democratic country, we need to open ourselves up to seeing our favorite place of worship vanish overnight just as it cropped up. We need to understand that it is for our own good and in a country with no dearth of religious places of worship, one would always find another.

Time to upgrade my wardrobe?

vsanjay — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:23:51 +0000

A look at my wardrobe would shame even the most fashion-tasteless of people. My collection of clothes range from those bought during my under-graduation days, some of which have managed to stay even as I graduate out of Master’s. A few pairs of clothes bought before leaving for the US were so loose fitting that I had to donate them to charity (I was really obese). Some of the other clothes that went to charity were those shall never fit me again.

One (Woodlands) of the two pairs of shoes brought in my last life is still are as reliable as they were before. My Casio watch is relatively new, although cheap and very basic. One out of the two pairs of sunglasses (Polaroid) was bought nearly three years ago and I still love and use them. My cell phone was also bought more than 3 years ago (Sony W550) and I’m amazed at the fact that this piece doesn’t look outdated yet (or does it).

I believe in using things until they reach their end of life. This, in my opinion, is real value for money. While I may seem cheap and stingy, I strongly believe that being wise with the wallet pays off for itself in the long term. Also, I think I have already outgrown the need to constantly look like someone from MTV, and I simply don’t bother myself too much to buy something new.

Emerging India – Are we prepared to emerge?

vsanjay — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:41:21 +0000

It is a known fact that India is an emerging country. The kind of development in the form of new swanky offices, high rises, malls and pubs that takes places in my city of Hyderabad certainly means one thing : Be prepared for more. It also means that there is similar development in several other new cities across India. But, more of what, you may ask? ‘More’ includes fresh influx of people from the rural area to the cities in search of means of livelihood; more pressure on existing resources such as electricity, water and living spaces; more number of vehicles on the road and more people on buses and trains. The question to be asked: Are we prepared for the future? The answer is blatantly obvious – absolutely not! The posts that will follow in the coming weeks shall concentrate on different aspects and deficiences of the new urban India, and will propose solutions to some of these problems.

Let’s look at Hyderabad: a city with over 90 lakh people (Hyderabad is ‘Greater’ now) adds thousands of immigrants to its ever-growing population, everyday. Hyderabad has the country’s highest traffic density per kilometre – standing at 2337 per km (in 2007), with road availability of just 6% (again, 2007). Roads that were once a pleasure to drive on, like the Inner-ring road connecting Secunderabad to Tarnaka has now become a nightmare, especiialy after the government planned to take up road widening on this stretch. Several bottlenecks on my daily commute to Hitech City from Tarnaka include : a badly timed traffic signal at Parade grounds, a narrow stretch at Shopper’s stop, another narrowing of the road at the BP gas pump, ever-increasing traffic on the Begumpet bridge, traffic curbs and barricades near Somajiguda to let our Hon’able Chief Minister reach his destination every morning and evening, a narrow road at Chutney’s, another narrow stretch on Jubilee Hills which is due to a graveyard if I’m not mistaken. I have more on my daily ride – the best of the worst being three religious obstacles at the Malkajgiri junction in the form of the famous Church, opposite to which is a tiny church, and bang in the middle of the road, under a tree lie a temple – all in an unbelievable proximity to each other. The right turn that I take towards Rail Nilayam from under the bridge is another awesome example. A new entrant to the pain in the rider’s ass list of irritable traffic spots include the split in the divider bang opposite Axis Bank in Tarnaka just a few yards ahead of the flyover.

I’m sure that you have come across similar experiences either in Hyderabad or in your own large city. What does/can one do in a situation like this? I, being a huge believer of reducing pollution and of saving petroleum for the future would jump at the idea of travelling by public transport. If only I could find a proper mode of transport. Let me shed some light. The previous govt. did a huge favor to the citizens of Hyderabad by starting what we call a Multi-Modal Transport System. What was initially envisaged to be a huge public-mode-of-transport, including a train cum bus system turned out to be a big disaster. That was until the govt. started actively advertising about its services, at a time when new offices in Hitech city were cropping up every other day. These MMTS trains now run jam packed during peak office hours partly due to the large no. of employees working in the Software industry. The other part of the reason is the sheer lack of frequency of these trains, due to the fact that these trains do not run on dedicated tracks, instead further clog the already clogged rail network of South Central Railway. This also means that the routes do not serve a major chunk of Hyderabad citizens. Add to this the poor connectivity of buses and the sheer location of these MMTS railway stations.

I do not think I need to comment on the condition of travel in an RTC bus over 20 km.

Keeping these limitations in mind, the Congress govt. envisaged a new metro rail network that would run over major existing roads connecting the dots and covering gaps left open by MMTS and RTC. The tenders to this project created tonnes of footage of news and more news due to the fact that Maytas Infra, a Hyd. based construction company bagged the project. People applauded this move and waited eagerly. And waited, as we saw Satyam get into a scam, taking down Maytas with it. We continue to wait with what all us Indians (are forced to) have : Hope. The last heard news about it was a couple of days ago when the Chief Minister asked Maytas to reply in a week’s time about its ability to fund and take up the project. Originally projected to be completed in 2013, we hope atleast our kids get to enjoy the fruits of this ‘dream’, while we continue to drag our shoes along the roads for what seems like an eternity.

Next post : Intercity travel.