National Skill Registry (NSR) procedure

As most of the companies now insist on NSR registration. i know for sure of Infosys for freshers.
So what does it involve? The following is the process in case you are in Bangalore:

• Fill the form available at this place online. You would need your passport, mark sheets at the time of filling this form. Also fill it using internet explorer as with Firefox i ended up in trouble.
• It is better to pay by credit card or pay in person at POS center.
  
• Once you fill the form you would have to take the printout of the acknowledgment form.
• Stick the photograph and sign with a BLACK ink.
• Take this form to nearest POS center. In Bangalore there is one near Lalbagh. This is on the one way from Hudson Circle to Lalbagh(Lalbagh Main Road) and near the Bajaj showroom. So do not come near Lalbagh and search for it. Hit the Hudson circle to lalbagh road somewhere before Garuda Maruti showroom and then proceed to this place.
• They will ask for your passport (in case this is your ID proof. Better to use this.) and then take fingerprint of all your fingers. Once they upload it, you will get an intimation in less than 24hrs in your email mentioned.
• This will have your IT-PIN and the printout would do for your company joining purpose. You are supposed to get a card in due course delivered at your permanent address.

Hope this simplifies life for many Freshers who usually get intimated about this procedure only one week prior to joining. If you are an Infosys (i dont know about other companies) Fresher, better do this during your free time now.

Big Bazaar - AVOID Buying!!

If you plan to buy something like fridge, AC or dining table avoid Big Bazaar even if they are giving big discount. They never deliver on time, deliver things which are damaged and then ask you to run from pillar to post to get the damaged thing replaced. Let me share my experience.

I had bought a dining table worth Rs 10K/- (you have to pay this before hand) from Big Bazaar Jayanagar 9th Block around two months ago. They told that they will deliver in a three days time. They delivered after a week or so after consistent prodding and warnings. And what i got was a damaged piece (Not sure if they even have any good piece) with two torn chairs (were made of leather). I am now calling each week and waiting for replacement. I hear the same story.."We do not have replacement material in the warehouse.. will get it the Sunday from Bombay.. will replace next Monday or Tuesday.." This is my 8th week.. Now i am thinking of moving legally.

Also I bought two bed sheet from here. One has already worn out and another had a small piece of third rate cloth stitched to it. So from outside it was looking great but once you spread it, it looks horrible.

But for all those guys who are planning to buy anything (other than off the shelf branded brush paste etc) please avoid buying from this place.

Dataone Home 500C - Free 2AM to 8AM

There has been many canard on this aspect w.r.t. BSNL broadband connection. Quite a few number of people told me that this is applicable only if you login during the 2AM to 8 AM interval (But beware of one thing, BSNL clock is arbitrary and it 2AM does ot match well with the normal clock time. So if you do not take care of this in case of download you may end up with a big bill!!). But nothing like that is seen in the bill. Now one even get a separate bill of free Vs Paid details from the BSNL website.

I have found that on an average an employed person (in private sector!!) consumes just 200-300MB per month in the paid section. This is assuming that all the download are restricted to 8PM to 8AM and to Saturdays and Sundays. Also, this is purely dependent on how one uses it. I never use youtube streaming and other heavy bandwidth thing during the "paid" 8AM to 2 AM period and restrict it to 630AM to 8AM time frame. So even if you are consuming lot more it is well below 1.5GB limit in case of Home 500C.

Hence enjoy broadband at Rs 140/- through use of Home 500C (removing the phone rental and free calls) a tag above the Home 125 plan of BSNL. Also i had heard a talk which compared the quality of connection specifically to international location and found that it is best with BSNL dataone compared to other broadband DSL connections.

Applying PAN card online

There are multiple mechanism to do so. But the easiest one is the online application. For this you have to do the following:

• Fill the form given in NSDL
• Before filling the form ensure that you have your proof of identity and proof of residence. Best one of course is a passport which would serve both the purpose. (This also have to be finally submitted along with the photograph and acknowledgment form.)
  
• Your recent passport photograph (3.5cm x 2.5cm)
• Mode of payment: better one is a credit card as cheque has to be drawn from HDFC and DD is a painstaking one (For the convenience of the credit card you will pay an additional Rs 5/-)
• Fill the online form and get the acknowledgment form. Print it and fix the photo, sign with BLACK ink pen and send it to the mentioned address in next 15 days.

I remember the initial pain i took to apply for myself, as time is ticking by, processes are getting simpler. Enjoy one more e-governance initiative.

Repair center JP Nagar Bangalore

Few place of use near JP Nagar for repair

Mixer : 080-26592450 behind Apex Bank beside the HPCL city station petrol pump. You can also buy a new mixie bowl from this place.
TV, Radio : near Hopcom center opposite to HPCL city station petrol pump
Prestige: near food world in opp to RV dental college 11th main road Jayanagar 9th block

BSNL GPRS/WAP setup for prepaid

I recently tried setting up the BSNL WAP connection. This is free for excel prepaid and is charged 2 paise for every KB of download. Configuration details for south India (working in Bangalore):

• Setting Name: BSNL GPRS
• homepage: http:/localhost/home.wml
• Session mode: Permanent
  
• Connection security: off
• Data Bearer: GPRS
• GPRS access point: WAPSOUTH.CELLONE.IN
• IP Address: 10.31.54.2
• Authentication Type: Normal
• Login Type : Automatic
• User Name: ppp
• Password: ppp123

This changes based on the model of the mobile unit. But you can fill these details in the appropriate column. After that you can connect using services>Home.