January 4th, 2009 — Personal
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.- Tennyson (”Ring Out, Wild Bells”)
May 2009 be the year that you and I have been waiting for. And the year that ushers in peace in India and the world. And the year of the Linux desktop!
Cheers to a new beginning. Sweets on your desk, true Bong style 
PS: Did you spot the typo in the box above?
~Raj
November 30th, 2008 — Personal
(Warning: This is more of a long rant than an actual post)
If you are a professional working in a city like Hyderabad (or Bangalore for that matter), you would be well aware of the fact that shifting your apartment is an infinitely unpleasant experience. Be that as it may, I had it the silver lining of “it’s all going to be over soon” in mind when I started house-hunting.
Except that, things had turned infinitely worse, compared to the last time I had to shift (which was four years ago). Real-estate brokers, for example, had taken professionalism to a whole new level. This is about one such particularly clever broker.
After what must have been six weeks of meeting brokers of all shapes and sizes and visiting numerous crappy overpriced apartments, I received a call from a certain Mr. Khan from MagicBricks.com. I had registered myself at this portal, which claims to be “India’s No. 1 Property Site”. I had also given my contact information along with my criteria of apartments I wanted for rent. So, when Mr. Khan explained to me, in impeccable English, that he had at least six apartments within my budget and in the localities I was looking for, I was delighted. He also explained that should I end up not liking any of those, he would continue to present apartments as an when they become available, until I was satisfied enough. Finally, a true professional in an industry chock-a-block with cheats wanting to make a quick buck!
I promptly set up a meeting with one of Mr. Khan’s agents on the very next day. Agent Aryan and Agent Unnamed arrived on a motorbike about a half-an-hour behind schedule (which is acceptable by Indian standards, right?). One look at Agent Aryan, and you could tell that this was no ordinary real-estate broker. Clad in Levi’s and donning long rock star like hair, this dude had panache written all over him. Like his boss Mr. Khan, his English was fluent and flawless.
Then the first major gotcha dawned: Agent Aryan explained that his ‘organization’ requires an up-front registration charge of 500 bucks (before any apartment is shown to me). I argued that Mr. Khan had conveniently missed this point on the phone. He said that it was probably a mistake, and tried to call up Mr. Khan. But, again, conveniently, he turned out to be unavailable. I decided to take the plunge: 500 bucks for ’showing unlimited apartments until I was satisfied’ seemed reasonable at that point.
With ‘registration’ formalities out of the way, we proceeded to the first apartment on his list. Alas, it turned out that the owner of this apartment was not in town, and had not left the keys with the guard on duty. Fear not, we have five in queue. The next one was apparently already let out, and we had missed it by a day. Fear not, four in queue. The next one actually was a sprawling 3BHK apartment at a superb location. It was still under construction, but it did look like it would be over soon. But wait, wouldn’t this be way beyond my budget? Gotcha number two: upon asking Agent Aryan, he smooth-talked me into believing that his job was limited to showing the apartments. His boss would later call me and quote the rents of all the properties I’ve liked.
The remaining two apartments they showed were of a similar kind - looked like decent apartments, but would definitely be beyond my budget, considering prevailing rents in such localities. It was then that the third major gotcha dawned upon me: none of the apartments shown had much likelihood of ultimately getting through.
However, Agent Aryan promised me that the next day he would again call me and show me some more that were about to be vacated. Realizing that this was turning out to be like any other apartment chase, I returned home dejected and disillusioned.
It was then that the fourth and final gotcha dealt the death blow: I came upon this review of MagicBricks. Fearing the worst, I tried calling up both Mr. Khan and Aryan. Not once, not twice - at least a dozen times. And my call was ignored every single time, every single day, from that day onwards.
Moral of the story: Never trust brokers who charge you a large amount up-front. For websites with property listings, only consider ones which are posted by actual owners.
I admit - I’ve been rather stupid and allowed myself to be hoodwinked. Nevertheless, the sheer suave manner in which I’ve been cheated still continues to impress me. All in all - a ‘dear diary moment’, don’t you think?
~Raj
October 26th, 2008 — Hardware, Technology
Last month, I received a pair of Bose In-Ear headphones from my USA-return cousin bro.
As you can see here, it’s obscenely expensive, at almost 5k INR, and not something lesser mortals such as I would consider buying otherwise. Perhaps what Russel Peters says about Indians here is true, after all 
(Poor) jokes apart, unboxing the package reveals a manual, a warranty-card, two extra sets of plugs (for abnormally small and abnormally large ears) and a leather carrying case, apart from the headphones. The medium sized plugs come mounted on the headphones. People seem to have complaints that these plugs keep falling off, but that hasn’t happened with me.
The earphones by themselves are the ‘in-ear’ type, meaning that they go quite a bit inside your ear-canal. At this point, I should probably mention that I’m no hardcore audiophile. Though this is my first set of in-ear headphones, I find that they fit in quite nicely, albeit a tad loose perhaps.
I plugged these babies into my PC, and set the mode to “headphone” on the Realtek HD Sound Manager (an app bundled with my motherboard). On my PC, I personally find that the best sound is produced by VLC media player (in “Rock” equalizer mode) for mp3 files.
The first thing I noticed about the sound was the humongous bass reproduction. I’ve never experienced such bass from such small earphones, for sure. The highs were also very crisp, but not tinny. After about a month of testing, this is what I would have to say, in summary:
Pros:
Cons:
Overall, a very good pair of headphones. However, the price is way too much. And for that very reason, you tend to be very cautious - being extremely careful not to tug it by mistake, for example. So the bottomline is, if you have tons of money, go for it! If that’s the case, you may also want to take a look at the Bose Quiet Comfort range of headphones, which are said to offer the best noise-cancellation in the market today.
~Raj
October 21st, 2008 — Personal
Officially, I’ve been proclaimed a Master of Software Systems.
A few extra letters after your name never hurts !
For the uninitiated, Birla Institute of Technology and Science offers distance learning courses in various streams. The M.S. in Software Systems is a two year “work integrated” learning program, which essentially means that this is designed for people who wish to pursue the course while working full time at an organization. You need to have some work-ex to apply. It’s a regular 4-semester 2-year programme with a mix of open-book and closed-book exams. And, you should have a “mentor” - preferably your manager in your organization who guides you through it.
For more information, point your browser to the BITS DLPD website.
~Raj
September 21st, 2008 — Movies
Recently, a lot has been written on how Bollywood has come of age and produced mature flicks such as Rock On, A Wednesday and Mumbai Meri Jaan. I happened to watch the former two, and wanted to post my 2 cents on this widely prevalent sentiment.
Rock On is a story about four friends whose lives have made them sacrifice the one thing that they are passionate about most, the one thing that unites them all - their love for music. The story revolves around how their band “Magik” breaks up, how life changes after college, and how they nevertheless get to be reunited in a hell-freezes-over concert for one last time.
The cinematography of Rock On is top notch. But what really impressed me is the music of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Javed Akhtar. The songs are as good as you get in Hindi Rock.
The story reminded me of both Dil Chahta Hai and Jhankaar Beats. I would probably rate this as a 7.5/10. I liked this effort by Farhan Akhtar, but I don’t quite think it was as ‘magical’ as his first.
Another film that has satisfied established critics is A Wednesday. This revolves around the far more serious theme of terrorism. This film narrates an eventful day in the life of the Mumbai Commissioner of Police, Prakash Rathod.
It is for Anupam Kher’s and especially Naseeruddin Shah’s brilliant performances that one should see this film. While there were several obvious flaws, the storyline does not fail to thrill. Overall, this is again a 7/10 movie which I would recommend you to watch.
While none of these 2008 blockbuster Bollywood movies impressed me as much as the 1972 Hollywood movie, The Godfather, or the 2008 animated movie, Wall-E, I do believe things are looking very positive for the future of Bollywood. No longer must Bollywood flicks have people dancing around trees, or for that matter, item numbers to drive viewership.
Heck, they don’t even have to be more than 2 hours long!
~Raj
September 3rd, 2008 — Movies
It was my good friend Rahul, who suggested Wall-E when I was cribbing about the truly awful flicks produced by Bollywood (Singh-Is-Kinng for example) that nevertheless turn out to be blockbusters. He also suggested that I should watch this movie with a special-someone. Realizing that this movie would not last in the theatres of Hyderabad if I decided to wait for that special-someone to watch this with, I opted to watch this with a friend, at IMAX.
I love Pixar. Finding Nemo was one of the best animated movies I’ve seen. I found Ratatouille nice, if not brilliant. My expectations from Wall-E were, admittedly, somewhat high right from the start. Andrew Stanton’s last masterpiece, Finding Nemo, had won the Oscar for the Best Animated Feature Film of 2004.
Boy, was I not disappointed! For, not only is Wall-E one of the best Pixar productions ever (if not the best), not only is Wall-E one of the best animation movies ever (if not the best), but Wall-E is also truly one of the best movies of all time!
Now that’s a tall claim to make for any animation film! I normally use such superlatives for movies such as The Shawshank Redemption, or The Godfather Part 1.
Being a geek at heart, I do love brilliant use of computer generated imagery. However, too often, CGI is overdone. Everything looks perfect on screen, but you don’t feel a thing inside. A good example of this would be Beowulf.
Pixar has enough creative genius to weave in that elusive element called magic in their films. Wall-E is an example of a movie where they have demonstrated that they have tuned this art to perfection.
Without trying to spoil the movie for you if you have not watched it yet (and watch it you must), the movie is about a robot named Wall-E - who is the only creature left on planet Earth. Humans have had to evacuate many hundreds of years earlier since they had polluted Mother Earth beyond repair. While humans live an almost completely materialistic life on a spaceship light years away, all that Wall-E wants is a companion on Earth. His journey starts when a female robot EVE lands on planet Earth and makes an indelible impact on his heart.
I was expecting a cute Ratatouille-ish story from Pixar. But Wall-E is not just-another-Disney-film-for-kids. In fact, as my friend pointed out after the movie, there are several subtle nuances, deep issues and sweeping messages in the film. I’ve never seen computer generated robots portray emotions without words so well - they can easily put many Bollywood actors to shame . On the other hand, there is also this wonderfully charming yet unlikely love between the two robots. And all this is provided in a package so adorable that you cannot help but fall in love with Wall-E.
And if you were wondering if Pixar’s animation was up to the mark in this movie, hell yes, it is. The world, as portrayed, is covered in piles of metals, scrap and consumer waste - yet it looks jaw-dropping drop-dead gorgeous!
Let’s not even talk about the wit and humour throughout the film. You’ve got to see it for yourself. This is indeed a film that transcends generations, and will be appreciated by people of all ages - but for different reasons perhaps.
Overall Wall-E is a magnificient masterpiece. It’s going to take a lot of work if some other animation film wants to be considered for the Academy Award for the Best Animation Film of 2008! If you want a truly heart-warming experience, then don’t miss it!
Pixar - you guys are Gods! Keep up the stellar work!
~Raj
August 31st, 2008 — Hardware, Technology
This weekend, I had planned to upgrade my desktop PC.
My PC was already a venerable powerhouse. Equipped with an AMD Sempron 2200+ (1.5GHz) processor, 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce 400MX IGP, it had the muscle to play all 3D FPS games of… well, the year 2003 at best 
The reason behind this upgrade was to spend less of my extremely valuable time twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Firefox to start, or a Half-Life 2 episode to load.
So I headed off to Chenoy Trade Centre at Secunderabad, to an affable guy named Gaffar at a store called ‘Computer Bazaar’. Incidentally, this is also where I had bought this PC. Till date, I’m not sure if this guy hoodwinks me with all his tall claims
I had a budget of around 10k INR in mind. This is what I ended up with, after overshooting it by around 1.3k:
This does look neat!
The motherboard itself was highly rated by tech articles on the internet, and it does boast an array of features. I’ve yet to test the performance of the IGP on this board. As per this Techtree.com article, this IGP is capable of allowing playable framerates at medium resolutions/quality details for quite recent games such as F.E.A.R, HL2: Lost Coast and Quake 4! Far Cry should also be playable, woo hoo!
The folks at the store assembled this setup, and I brought the cabinet home. Powered on, and was greeted with this message:
GRUB: Loading stage 1.5…. Read Error
Since I had two hard drives now (an older 80GB IDE/PATA drive, and the new SATA drive), I was half expecting things to go wrong. Hence, I had planned to perform a fresh dual boot setup of Ubuntu Hardy Heron and Windows XP on the new SATA drive. When I popped in the Windows XP bootable disc, and rebooted the system, the CD failed to boot.
I rebooted into the BIOS, and could not find the DVD drive listed anywhere. Trying to plug in the IDE cable and power supply for the DVD drive again did not help. Finally it dawned upon me that the master-slave configuration of the drive was probably incorrect for my new configuration. I switched the jumper at the back of the DVD drive. Voila! Not only was the DVD drive recognized, but GRUB was also able to boot everything properly!
I still plan to perform fresh OS installs on the SATA drive for better performance. For now, I’m continuing with my old XP install, and a fresh Ubuntu 8.04 install over the 7.10 installation (since I’ve had a few problems with ATI drivers on Gutsy, and wanted an excuse to upgrade to Hardy anyway).
I’ll probably post on the performance of the IGP and the new processor/RAM combo later. But from what I’ve seen, the toil has been well worth it
~Raj
August 24th, 2008 — Literature
Back in my school days, when life was not all bits and bytes, one of the subjects I enjoyed was English literature.
I can’t remember when, (I’d say Standard 9 if I’d have to hazard a guess), our text included Ulysses - one of the best poems I’ve ever read.
That’s not to say that I’m a connoisseur at English poetry though!
As I venture into the world of blogging, I thought it might be apt to post the last few lines from this Alfred Lord Tennyson classic:
…. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I remember our teacher, Mrs. Anuradha Choudhury, and her attempts to make a bunch of class 9 hooligans understand the great verse of Tennyson, at my alma-mater, St. Xaviers Collegiate School, Calcutta.
Those were the days, indeed!
~Raj
PS: The full poem can be read here.
August 24th, 2008 — Uncategorized
Just to see if everything is up and running fine
~Raj