I came across this interesting page which showed a visual representation of the size of the Earth compared to other planets, then the size of each of the planets compared with the size of the sun and so on.
You will be able to see that as we begin to include bigger and bigger heavenly objects, the Earth seems kind of insignificant amongst all the other mighty heavenly bodies!! Quite interesting, Check it out!
My room-mate Mohan started for Sweden on official business last night, and there was no power at our place during that time. I came in around 10 PM to find the house in partial darkness, only our house, the only light inside being that of an emergency lamp. He bid good-bye and left for the airport with me wondering what to do without electricity.
Fortunately, the previous night, I had left my laptop plugged in and it had full power to last atleast for a couple of hours at the bare minimum. Also, with my Data Card on, I figured I could atleast be online for sometime before having a mosquito infested sleep.
I switched on my laptop and sat wondering how I was going to pass the night, the landlord should have slept and that was the reason that I decided to go and ask him the next day about the power cut. Then after feeling restless, I decided to go and find out if it was a blown fuse which I could identify if I could lay my hands on the electricity meter. I searched around the house with the faint light of my mobile phone which was in its last stages of its power. I finally found a hound of meters at the side of the house in a dark section. I thought I figured out the right meter when I saw one which was not showing any moment at all, With glee I decided to open the mesh gate that was enclosing it when to my dismay, I found that there was a lock in place and it was locked.
I returned to my laptop and just sat there wondering how I was going to pass the night when I got a call from my room-mate! My initial thought was that he had left something behind and was calling me to get it for him. He informed me that his baggage was overweight by over 10 kilograms and that it was very expensive to pay extra and hence he asked me to come and get it from him. I started for the airport around 11:30 PM amidst a slight drizzle. I reached there and met him and started transferring all of the artifacts which we figured he could get it there, though most of them were Indian edible items which would not be available at Sweden. Out went all the food items and some heavy clothes. He asked me to wait and went to recheck.
Unfortunately it was still overweight by some seven kilograms and he came back again, this time too, we again took out some stuff, but there was not much left to take. There were very few items that could be removed, we figured that the bag on its own was heavy. This time, he told me that he would pay extra if it was overweight. It was overweight by three kilograms, but the lady at the baggage counter who was stubborn all along allowed him in without any extra expense which I got to know via a phone call from Mohan. Finally!
I returned home around half past midnight and settled for the night with my laptop. I woke up around 11AM the next day and met the landlord and we opened the mesh gate and on investigation found that the wire leading to the fuse box had melted away completely and had to be replaced. Everything was done and I finally had electricity by afternoon. I switched on the geyser to take my bath and found that there was no water. I decided to switch on the motor and found that the motor lay dead!! I figured that they had switched off the mains of the motor and went and confirmed my thoughts. I went upstairs back to my landlord to get the keys to the mesh gate and found that there was no answer at the door, they had gone out. I came back, pondered for a moment, went searching for something long and found a new pencil that was lying around. I used that to turn on the mains switch for the motor.
Water and Electricity finally!!
I came across this via email, Really funny and the moral at the bottom speaks a lot too!
One day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops-a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” and sat down at the back. Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek Like JOOBY Well, he was. Naturally, he didn’t argue with Big John, but he wasn’t happy about it.
The next day the same thing happened-Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the one after that, and so forth. This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.
Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what’s more, he felt really good about himself. So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!,” the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, “And why not?”
With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied,
“Big John has a bus pass.”
Moral of the story:
First be sure if there is a problem before working hard to solve one!
Over the past two weeks, I fell sick and had to be hospitalized in order to recuperate! I was diagnosed with Dengue and was also told that my platelet count was very low and I needed transfusion for my well-being. But as luck was on my side, I recuperated on my own! Then my super-dad came to my rescue and brought me back home.(I was in Bangalore all along). If it had not been for my room-mate Mohan, I doubt that I would have come this far. He helped me get back on my feet!!
Then my dad came over and relieved him of his duty! I couldn’t catch the next flights out of Bangalore to Coimbatore and hence decided to take the usual bus. I landed home the next morning and a couple of “rasam” sessions from my beloved sis, was back up and kicking. I am currently seated at a bus terminal waiting for my bus back to Bangalore which is a half hour late. After being at home for more than a week, I dont feel like going back to work, but work is work and responsibilities are always there. So off I go! Back to the whirlwind I call “Professional Life”…
The frustrating series of unfortunate events that I had mentioned in my previous post have finally stopped and the project was a resounding success! If not for confidentiality reasons, I would have let the world know of a great deal of tips and tricks that they would probably come in a situation similar to mine, but more on that later.
[UPDATE : Dec 2008] : I have been using this connection for over a year and I dont see any major problems with this card or connection. I do not use NetBooster(since the proxy server goes down every now and then). But otherwise, the connection is pretty decent. If you are facing connection issues, please check your network signal strength.
I finally got myself a data card for mobile internet access. I was previously using my Nokia 3230 as a modem and was browsing through it, but it would be really frustrating at times when the connection would be active, but when there would be no response from the server. Then after that, I was using this BSNL broadband at my place which was very good, but it was shared with my room-mates and I found it difficult to use when I really needed it.
Getting a BSNL connection takes time, so I decided to get an Airtel Broadband connection and to my dismay, found that it wasn’t available at my location. So finally, after conducting some research on my own, found that the reliance data card was the best choice of the lot, being wireless, minimal setup and with the advantage of carrying it everywhere. While I have personally experienced a little improvement when using CDMA for data transfer versus GSM.. Hence I decided to go for a CDMA Data Card instead of a GSM data card, like the one offered by Airtel.
The available two choices were from Tata Indicom and the other from Reliance Communications. Though performance-wise, I found that both were the same, the delimiting factor being the strength of the network signal at your place of usage. Then I found a deal at Reliance that seemed good and went for it, I took a plan which had a one time payment of something around INR 9K for which I got a one year subscription of the Reliance NetConnect Service, with 1GB usage per month for a year and with the cost of the card being waived(more tariffs here). Initially I faced some problems with the account not being activated even after being assured by the salesperson at the Forum Branch, Bangalore. After more than a day of calling them(the branch, read below for Customer Service), they finally activated my account. The most disappointing thing about Reliance was that I could not connect to any of their support lines, getting a ‘busy’ tone even at 1:00 AM in the morning.
Then I found that the service kept getting disconnected even when the device could detect three ‘points’ of the signal, with 5 being full. I decided that I needed a powerful signal and hence I sat at another location which had four points and found that I could get decent connectivity at that location. The bottom-line now is that if you have a good signal, your connection will also be good, but if not, its as good as nothing. So check if you have a good signal using any cell-phone(borrow it from your friends!) before buying either of the cards.
One other feature I noticed is the NetBooster software by Venturi Wireless that is provided by Reliance.. I found this to be extremely effective. The software connects to its server which acts as a proxy for our connection, All content is routed through that proxy and depending on our settings, we can load pages much faster. It was interesting to see how they were doing it, If you select the “fastest” options for images, the images are manipulated at the proxy server and sent to the device at a very low quality, which obviously speeds up our download and lowers bandwidth consumption for un-necessary images. It also proclaims that it removes unwanted markup from HTML code, making it load faster without altering the layout of the page! Really very interesting to note! And I found that it was pretty effective too.
I am using the ZTE card model, Sierra and Huawei being the other two models available with Reliance. I doubt that they give us the option to choose though you get to choose if you want the USB external modem or the Data Card itself. I found the Data Card to be giving me around 6.5 to 7KB/sec download speed. The speed fluctuates going as high as 15KB per second but for the most of it hovering around the 7KB mark with four points of network.
I would recommend buying this to anyone who is in need of a “something-is-better-than-nothing” internet connection, though the advantages it offers, especially on the move far outweighs the other drawbacks such as latency and frequent disconnects.