- Passport- See if it ECNR stamped. If not get it done
- Ensure that the passport is not expiring in next one year. This is a requirement especially in case of Visa on Arrival (VoA)
- Get Visa stamped unless it is place like Thailand and Bali where it is VoA
- See if the Visa stamped is valid for the day of stay
- Ensure that you have all the transit visa in place, if it is not a direct flight. This is needed especially when you transit route is through Europe. Check this with your travel agent.
- In case of VoA, carry passport size photos, some place may require it. carry the one with white background.
- Insurance letter- This is a must and should be valid for the period of stay. This covers against some disease when you are abroad, loss of passport and baggage.
- Tickets- It should be the normal tickets. Avoid e-tickets and see you have the return ticket also issued.
- keep a copy of passport in other baggage as a precaution.
- Carry Forex money in dollars.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Flying abroad from India- Things to take care
If you are traveling abroad to any location outside India, please ensure that you carry the following:
Broadband connection- Go wireless!!
Recently i came across the charges for WiMaX (this is similar to the WiFi but can give higher bandwidth) from VSNL. It is 1124 per month for postpaid (if you pay 4 months charges in advance). This compares well with 900 per month for dataone unlimited plan. Buy a WiMax terminal and connect it to the WiFi hub, u will not have the local loop cut and service quality can improve. Also this is the launch price and will drop with time.
I heard similar prices from Reliance also is available. So before taking your dataone or Airtel broadband see if you really need DSL based fixed connection. But remember one thing that the WiMaX is still a shared medium and there can be drop in the data rate as the number of customer increases.
I heard similar prices from Reliance also is available. So before taking your dataone or Airtel broadband see if you really need DSL based fixed connection. But remember one thing that the WiMaX is still a shared medium and there can be drop in the data rate as the number of customer increases.
Paying DataOne Bills Online
One problem i had was how to pay the BSNL bills. And i dont like any solution other than the one which is online. So here are my findings after i tried different options.
There are two options:
There are two options:
- ICICI Bank account: If you have a ICICI account. You can use the bill pay facility for paying your bills. First time you have to register with your Customer ID and phone number. The bill from the following month will then pop up in the bill pay section which can be payed off as normal fund transfer option.
- Credit card: register yourself with your telephone bill @ http://www.bangaloretelecom
.com/ . Once You have registered it will show the bills which are yet to be paid. Click on the "pay" option and then you can use your credit card to pay the bill.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Port forwarding in BSNL Dataone
Port forwarding is mandatory to get good download speed with torrent. Let me explain the process of setting up.
1. Go to the "speed guide" under options in the bit torrent client.
2. Click on "test if port forwarded properly"
3. If it is OK it will say so else it will give a link to configuring it.
4. In case u have a UTStarCom Type IV connection. Follow the below process
5. Type http://192.168.1.1/ in the location bar and it will ask for login and password.
6. Once logged in. Go to "Advanced set up->NAT"
7. click "add" and
then type some name say "torrent" in custom server bar.
8. Check your IP address of your computer. It will be 192.168.1.x, where x not equal to 1 if DHCP is configured.
9.in the port start and end column copy and paste the info about "current port" given in speed guide section (2).
10. Keep the same nos for both internal and external port start and end. Save it.
11. Then go to "settings" section below "advanced setup" and do a "save/reboot"
Now check the speed test and see if the port forwarding is fine. If not, you have not followed the steps properly try again :)
1. Go to the "speed guide" under options in the bit torrent client.
2. Click on "test if port forwarded properly"
3. If it is OK it will say so else it will give a link to configuring it.
4. In case u have a UTStarCom Type IV connection. Follow the below process
5. Type http://192.168.1.1/ in the location bar and it will ask for login and password.
6. Once logged in. Go to "Advanced set up->NAT"
7. click "add" and
then type some name say "torrent" in custom server bar.8. Check your IP address of your computer. It will be 192.168.1.x, where x not equal to 1 if DHCP is configured.
9.in the port start and end column copy and paste the info about "current port" given in speed guide section (2).
10. Keep the same nos for both internal and external port start and end. Save it.
11. Then go to "settings" section below "advanced setup" and do a "save/reboot"
Now check the speed test and see if the port forwarding is fine. If not, you have not followed the steps properly try again :)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Firefox Simplified Search through keywords
This is one among the top feature i like in Firefox. (As i don't use other browsers i am not aware they also have). So let me explain how we do it and how it can be really useful.
Go to any search page. Say google, then on the search bar, right click and then click on "add a keyword to the search".. Add say a alphabet "g" and save. Now all you have to do whenever you need to search is use Ctrl+T (on a separate tab) or Ctrl+L (on the same window) and type "g Firefox" to search all about firefox.
This can be done for your favorite bookmarks also. In the bookmark, right click on say Economic Times and go to the properties. Here again you will find a keyword where you can mention say "eco". So next time you need to go to economic times all you have to do is use Ctrl+T (on a separate tab) or Ctrl+L (on the same window) and type "eco".
Enjoy a mouse free firefox use :)
Go to any search page. Say google, then on the search bar, right click and then click on "add a keyword to the search".. Add say a alphabet "g" and save. Now all you have to do whenever you need to search is use Ctrl+T (on a separate tab) or Ctrl+L (on the same window) and type "g Firefox" to search all about firefox.
This can be done for your favorite bookmarks also. In the bookmark, right click on say Economic Times and go to the properties. Here again you will find a keyword where you can mention say "eco". So next time you need to go to economic times all you have to do is use Ctrl+T (on a separate tab) or Ctrl+L (on the same window) and type "eco".
Enjoy a mouse free firefox use :)
Friday, January 11, 2008
How to change DataOne plan?
This is one of the most tricky thing. I had heard how simple it is to change the plan in Bharti Airtel. You get your plan changed in a day or two. But it is quite a tedious one in BSNL. You have to give a written request to the exchange from which you have taken your broadband connection!! I was thinking i will move to Home 500C or Home 500C+ scheme. But now i have to see when i can go to the exchange and do this tedious process. Also, once you give a request the change become effective from 1st of the next month. So plan to get a Home 500C on the day of applying itself.
Why Home 500C?
- You need not pay Rs 180/- as the telephone rental
- 175/- free calls compared to 50 in Home 500 scheme
- so effectively you get your broadband for 500- (180+175-50)=Rs 175/- cheaper than the Home 250 plan and if you are doing normal browsing 1.5GB limit is more than enough. but do your torrent downloads at night. And no gtalk/yahoo messenger talk daily.
I finally went and changed my plan to Home 500C. All you have to do is walk to your nearest BSNL local exchange and write in a white paper to commercial officer and submit it there. I was initially told that i had to submit this in the customer care center but i luckily asked a second person in the exchange and he told me that it indeed has to be submitted in the local exchange. So i submitted there and now one week after the submission i have moved to Home 500C plan
Why Home 500C?
- You need not pay Rs 180/- as the telephone rental
- 175/- free calls compared to 50 in Home 500 scheme
- so effectively you get your broadband for 500- (180+175-50)=Rs 175/- cheaper than the Home 250 plan and if you are doing normal browsing 1.5GB limit is more than enough. but do your torrent downloads at night. And no gtalk/yahoo messenger talk daily.
I finally went and changed my plan to Home 500C. All you have to do is walk to your nearest BSNL local exchange and write in a white paper to commercial officer and submit it there. I was initially told that i had to submit this in the customer care center but i luckily asked a second person in the exchange and he told me that it indeed has to be submitted in the local exchange. So i submitted there and now one week after the submission i have moved to Home 500C plan
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Bikes, Bangalore and Backpain
It is not that they have alphabet "B" common among them. Recently among my friend (and long back with me also), back pain issue is quite common. My analysis of my different acts on a regular day made me to conclude that bike is the culprit.
Bikes now a days come with awesome power and not not awesome shock absorber. And in Bangalore with the weird traffic, applying excessive brakes is quite common. This puts excessive pressure on the back. I think this as the key culprit as whoever had similar issue with back i suggested to minimize/avoid the use of bike and all of them recovered pretty well.
So if you are a new entrant into the club, just stop driving the bike, get some ayurvedic treatment. I did it at Kottakkal Ayurveda Hospital near Ashoka pillar, Jayanagar. This is opposite to the e-zone on the jayanagar BDA complex ashoka pillar road. Take complete rest during the time you have pain. Once you are done with the pain (takes around a week or two with medication) stop using bikes and do some yoga exercise which allows the muscle around the back to get sturdier. Do not do heavy Gym exercises. Also dont neglect it as it can get really painful and can turn into a slip disc issue which needs surgery.
Bikes now a days come with awesome power and not not awesome shock absorber. And in Bangalore with the weird traffic, applying excessive brakes is quite common. This puts excessive pressure on the back. I think this as the key culprit as whoever had similar issue with back i suggested to minimize/avoid the use of bike and all of them recovered pretty well.
So if you are a new entrant into the club, just stop driving the bike, get some ayurvedic treatment. I did it at Kottakkal Ayurveda Hospital near Ashoka pillar, Jayanagar. This is opposite to the e-zone on the jayanagar BDA complex ashoka pillar road. Take complete rest during the time you have pain. Once you are done with the pain (takes around a week or two with medication) stop using bikes and do some yoga exercise which allows the muscle around the back to get sturdier. Do not do heavy Gym exercises. Also dont neglect it as it can get really painful and can turn into a slip disc issue which needs surgery.
Monday, January 07, 2008
The tale of three movies
Last week i had a chance to see three quite different movies. One was a Malayalam, another Japanese (with English subtitle), and third English. The first from a well known Malayalam director, the second one was by a world renowned director and the last from a "unreal" director (Has an animation director)!!
First one was Mayukham, directed by Hariharan, was a dumb squib. This can be a guide to "how not to make a movie". It was so engrossing story that i didn't even care to see the climax. Hackneyed plot with some slight twist cannot make a nice movie. This though amply proved again and again by the viewers somehow is not percolating into the director and producer community. But on the positive side, it is not as worse as many other Malayalam movie hitting the screens around that time.
Second one was "Finding Nemo". It is a story of a small "comic" fish who is lost because he did not give a heeding to the advice of his father not to go into deep sea. A valiant effort by its father finally allow (through a series of mind boggling animation and with lot of imbibed subtle values like friendship etc) finding that missing kid called Nemo. A must see and hats up to the producer Walt Disney for spending good amount of money on animation. This showed that movie without real character can be as good as a the contemporary non-animated movies.
Third one was a classic. Set in old Japan, it is a story of a percieved idiot called tram idiot who wakes up in the morning and rides his illusionary tram from morning till the night with the tram hum denoted by this kid as "Dodeskudan" (and that is the name of the movie). Made by world renowned director Akkira Kurasowa, it shows movie can be better than the written counterpart. This story is similar to "The idiot" novel by F. Dostovsky which itself is a classic, and Kurosowa has went ahead and brought more life to the protagonist than at least my imagination. The world around tram idiot makes you think that the "tram idiot" is the only sane person in that society!! At least he is happy and creates no problems for the rest of humanity.
Recommendation: If one gets a chance see the last two, and if one is really interested in becoming a director, know the pitfalls, so see the first to know how NOT to make a movie.
First one was Mayukham, directed by Hariharan, was a dumb squib. This can be a guide to "how not to make a movie". It was so engrossing story that i didn't even care to see the climax. Hackneyed plot with some slight twist cannot make a nice movie. This though amply proved again and again by the viewers somehow is not percolating into the director and producer community. But on the positive side, it is not as worse as many other Malayalam movie hitting the screens around that time.
Second one was "Finding Nemo". It is a story of a small "comic" fish who is lost because he did not give a heeding to the advice of his father not to go into deep sea. A valiant effort by its father finally allow (through a series of mind boggling animation and with lot of imbibed subtle values like friendship etc) finding that missing kid called Nemo. A must see and hats up to the producer Walt Disney for spending good amount of money on animation. This showed that movie without real character can be as good as a the contemporary non-animated movies.
Third one was a classic. Set in old Japan, it is a story of a percieved idiot called tram idiot who wakes up in the morning and rides his illusionary tram from morning till the night with the tram hum denoted by this kid as "Dodeskudan" (and that is the name of the movie). Made by world renowned director Akkira Kurasowa, it shows movie can be better than the written counterpart. This story is similar to "The idiot" novel by F. Dostovsky which itself is a classic, and Kurosowa has went ahead and brought more life to the protagonist than at least my imagination. The world around tram idiot makes you think that the "tram idiot" is the only sane person in that society!! At least he is happy and creates no problems for the rest of humanity.
Recommendation: If one gets a chance see the last two, and if one is really interested in becoming a director, know the pitfalls, so see the first to know how NOT to make a movie.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
bookmyshow and free movie tickets
This is one among the top shot mistakes i have ever done. The concept was nice, economics was great (1 ticket free with every booked ticket for platinum card and 1 ticket free with every two ticket for a gold card), and so took the plunge and booked the ticket.
I was trying for a ticket in PVR, not just for me but for 9 people. After the discounts, it came to shade above 900. I tried the first time, it took me till the final phase of registration with even my card details given. and then it just does not respond. I frantically call the bookmyshow customer care. they responded and told me that the transaction is not done and you can try it again. I checked my credit card status online also. It showed no transaction.
Went ahead did the whole procedure again. Again it failed after my credit card details were given. Then i left it and we all ditched going for the movie. Then when i was going through my credit care statement the next day, got a real bad shock. Rs 1800 is debited from my account to bookmyshow. I call their representative. He maintains that no transaction is made. I called ICICI, they were mentioning the transaction was made!!
Now what?? i booked a compliant through mail to both ICICI and bookmyshow helpdesk. ICICI send me a note that they have tagged these transactions as "disputed" and i will get back the money in 60 days!!.. each time i send a mail to bookmyshow guys they tell they are working with the bank to refund my amount.. The key question: who has my money??
still waiting for the money.. hoping at least in 60 days i will get back the money.. so beware of free offers and dont take the first leap.. learned a hard way :(
I finally got back the money :)
I was trying for a ticket in PVR, not just for me but for 9 people. After the discounts, it came to shade above 900. I tried the first time, it took me till the final phase of registration with even my card details given. and then it just does not respond. I frantically call the bookmyshow customer care. they responded and told me that the transaction is not done and you can try it again. I checked my credit card status online also. It showed no transaction.
Went ahead did the whole procedure again. Again it failed after my credit card details were given. Then i left it and we all ditched going for the movie. Then when i was going through my credit care statement the next day, got a real bad shock. Rs 1800 is debited from my account to bookmyshow. I call their representative. He maintains that no transaction is made. I called ICICI, they were mentioning the transaction was made!!
Now what?? i booked a compliant through mail to both ICICI and bookmyshow helpdesk. ICICI send me a note that they have tagged these transactions as "disputed" and i will get back the money in 60 days!!.. each time i send a mail to bookmyshow guys they tell they are working with the bank to refund my amount.. The key question: who has my money??
still waiting for the money.. hoping at least in 60 days i will get back the money.. so beware of free offers and dont take the first leap.. learned a hard way :(
I finally got back the money :)
Monday, December 31, 2007
Online mobile charging
I am a prepaid user and one thing that really irritate me is that every month i have to recharge my mobile. So i usually opt for Rs 5000/- of the BSNL excel recharge during festive season which gives me 7500 talktime and that too for full one year. This is better than the postpaid connection, where the charges are comparable but you still have to pay the bills monthly.
Another option i found was recharge through internet. One was the ICICI site through the internet banking portal. I tried recharging Rs 60/- for a vodafone connection in Kerala. To my horror i find the talktime got by the vodafone customer at the other end is just Rs15.40/-. So be careful. I will update this blog once i get into the details. It was mentioned that ICICI does not charge anything for the service.
Another site was FastRecharge which allow quite a wide range of recharge even for BSNL (but restricted to chennai). This though i have not transferred any mobile currency through it looks promising, except for the long process involved in transfer. Here again i have to see if there are any catches like in the ICICI case. I will update this blog further based on my further research about this site.
Now BSNL has also started a new online service for pre-paid recharge at their website. This is free of cost though sometimes their server is down, so have patience!! You need to register in their website initially. Also the password you select has to be all CAPITAL letter and can contain number. You should have exactly 8 character. Once you register you can use it and is instantaneous. I have done it twice both for recharge and top-up. So enjoy another good service from BSNL.
Another option i found was recharge through internet. One was the ICICI site through the internet banking portal. I tried recharging Rs 60/- for a vodafone connection in Kerala. To my horror i find the talktime got by the vodafone customer at the other end is just Rs15.40/-. So be careful. I will update this blog once i get into the details. It was mentioned that ICICI does not charge anything for the service.
Another site was FastRecharge which allow quite a wide range of recharge even for BSNL (but restricted to chennai). This though i have not transferred any mobile currency through it looks promising, except for the long process involved in transfer. Here again i have to see if there are any catches like in the ICICI case. I will update this blog further based on my further research about this site.
Now BSNL has also started a new online service for pre-paid recharge at their website. This is free of cost though sometimes their server is down, so have patience!! You need to register in their website initially. Also the password you select has to be all CAPITAL letter and can contain number. You should have exactly 8 character. Once you register you can use it and is instantaneous. I have done it twice both for recharge and top-up. So enjoy another good service from BSNL.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Bittorrent Principle
Over the last few days i have been downloading quite a bit using bittorrent and optimally using my Home 500 plan of BSNL. Now i was rather intrigued by how this whole thing works. They have various parameters which are displayed but what constitute the fundamental means of co-operation in torrent. Though i did not see any one paper on that, i have run through lot of comments and opinions in different discussion sites. So this is my finding.
Bittorrent works on tit-for-tat scheme. That is, the more willing you are to upload the more download is allowed. It has an inbuilt mechanism for randomizing the selection so that there is no one congested seed or peer. Another concept which is in vogue in bittorrent is the concept of upload to download ratio. Ideally this should be one. But this is just a parameter to find how altruistic you are nothing to do with how much you can download or what the average download speed is. If it was that way, then all the ADSL2+ guys like BSNL Home 500 plan.
In actual scenario, depending on the distance of your DSL modem to the central DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer), technology allows for 24 Mbps download and 8 Mbps upload. So even the best altruistic guy in a unlimited plan with no restriction of upload, download speeds can best achieve a ratio of 25%. So ratio cannot be a means of the altruistic nature.
So if you do not restrict your upload speed you can get a better download speed. And all other parameters in bit torrent is useless as far as you download rate are concerned.
Tit-for-Tat- Is it the best strategy?
As a foot note i would like to add how this strategy is considered best by Nature.
Is this the best strategy? It is seen that nature also have converged on a tit-for-tat strategy for many of the natural phenomena. For example, how many times you have seen two dogs screaming at each other but never attacking, as an attack can hurt both. On the other hand, there can be some other advantages like getting a finite amount of food (if shared then both will die) or getting a mate. So if there is a clash in aspirational values compared to survival value, nature have hardwired all the living being to select the latter. So it may be fine to fight for food but may not be for mate. Also through your experience (which is seeing the opponent in action over a period of time) you can just repeat the strategy your opponent did last time and that can be a optimal strategy. This is also hard wired as an optimal strategy else the poor mate would be alone!!
So this assumes my strategy is dependent on the opponent and vice versa, but then this is a chicken and egg problem!! How do you break it? Randomly!! and the one who breaks this vicious circle is a leader (up to the leader to decide if he has to be good or bad) and then the opponent is a follower. As leader randomizes the algorithm, his strategy is always risky and hence there are very few leaders and lots of followers (all the peers and leachers in torrent)!! Followers are nature configured, leader is the randomizer in that. So leader (as in the original seed in bittorrent) is the initiator and then based on his start the whole cycle may end up in a good or bad state.
For more on this may be spend some time with the fascinating world of game theory!!
Bittorrent works on tit-for-tat scheme. That is, the more willing you are to upload the more download is allowed. It has an inbuilt mechanism for randomizing the selection so that there is no one congested seed or peer. Another concept which is in vogue in bittorrent is the concept of upload to download ratio. Ideally this should be one. But this is just a parameter to find how altruistic you are nothing to do with how much you can download or what the average download speed is. If it was that way, then all the ADSL2+ guys like BSNL Home 500 plan.
In actual scenario, depending on the distance of your DSL modem to the central DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer), technology allows for 24 Mbps download and 8 Mbps upload. So even the best altruistic guy in a unlimited plan with no restriction of upload, download speeds can best achieve a ratio of 25%. So ratio cannot be a means of the altruistic nature.
So if you do not restrict your upload speed you can get a better download speed. And all other parameters in bit torrent is useless as far as you download rate are concerned.
Tit-for-Tat- Is it the best strategy?
As a foot note i would like to add how this strategy is considered best by Nature.
Is this the best strategy? It is seen that nature also have converged on a tit-for-tat strategy for many of the natural phenomena. For example, how many times you have seen two dogs screaming at each other but never attacking, as an attack can hurt both. On the other hand, there can be some other advantages like getting a finite amount of food (if shared then both will die) or getting a mate. So if there is a clash in aspirational values compared to survival value, nature have hardwired all the living being to select the latter. So it may be fine to fight for food but may not be for mate. Also through your experience (which is seeing the opponent in action over a period of time) you can just repeat the strategy your opponent did last time and that can be a optimal strategy. This is also hard wired as an optimal strategy else the poor mate would be alone!!
So this assumes my strategy is dependent on the opponent and vice versa, but then this is a chicken and egg problem!! How do you break it? Randomly!! and the one who breaks this vicious circle is a leader (up to the leader to decide if he has to be good or bad) and then the opponent is a follower. As leader randomizes the algorithm, his strategy is always risky and hence there are very few leaders and lots of followers (all the peers and leachers in torrent)!! Followers are nature configured, leader is the randomizer in that. So leader (as in the original seed in bittorrent) is the initiator and then based on his start the whole cycle may end up in a good or bad state.
For more on this may be spend some time with the fascinating world of game theory!!
Friday, December 14, 2007
Bit torrent and BSNL dataone
As per the statistics peer-to-peer constitute 52% of all the traffic on Internet. What is driving all this and how can a Home 500 dataone connection guy use maximum out of it?
1. You can download and install bit torrent. There are multiple other torrent and the most used and the smallest size torrent tool is utorrent, which is a stripped down version of the bit torrent.
2. In case you want to know more about the concept of torrent read from wikipedia.
3. Now in case you want to download some e-books or some other stuff, search " torrent".
4. download the torrent file and execute it with bit torrent and it starts downloading.
5. Follow the instruction in options->speed guide else download rates will be low especially the one regarding port forwarding.
6. There is a scheduler (cntrl+P), for home 500 uses schedule it for 0200 to 0800 AM. Pl note that you can get a speed of as high as 200KBps or 60MB per 5 min (or Rs 48/-)!! so in case your clock is not synchronized do it to the standard time. Else keep the corner points like 2 Am and 8 Am in limited download mode.
7. Keep more than 2-3 downloads in torrent at one time to maximize the downloads. Keep number of active downloads at 3.
8. Be altruistic to get good speed. If the seed and peer are in India then you can get a good speed else it depends, so dont get frustrated if you do not get the speed you had expected. I am able to get more than 100KBps with three downloads happening simultaneously.
9. In Parallel use FlashGet with flashgot as i had mentioned in my earlier blog to squeeze out all the maximum data rate.
I heard of some cribs that they are not getting good speed and in most of the case i found they had bought the DSL CPE themselves. I was involved in some way with the planning phase of broadband architecture in BSNL through my company. My advice never try to buy third party modem esp for BSNL. It may be ok for Bharti and others, so even if you have to pay slightly large buy CPE modem from BSNL.
Enjoy surfing.. Enjoy DataOne..
1. You can download and install bit torrent. There are multiple other torrent and the most used and the smallest size torrent tool is utorrent, which is a stripped down version of the bit torrent.
2. In case you want to know more about the concept of torrent read from wikipedia.
3. Now in case you want to download some e-books or some other stuff, search "
4. download the torrent file and execute it with bit torrent and it starts downloading.
5. Follow the instruction in options->speed guide else download rates will be low especially the one regarding port forwarding.
6. There is a scheduler (cntrl+P), for home 500 uses schedule it for 0200 to 0800 AM. Pl note that you can get a speed of as high as 200KBps or 60MB per 5 min (or Rs 48/-)!! so in case your clock is not synchronized do it to the standard time. Else keep the corner points like 2 Am and 8 Am in limited download mode.
7. Keep more than 2-3 downloads in torrent at one time to maximize the downloads. Keep number of active downloads at 3.
8. Be altruistic to get good speed. If the seed and peer are in India then you can get a good speed else it depends, so dont get frustrated if you do not get the speed you had expected. I am able to get more than 100KBps with three downloads happening simultaneously.
9. In Parallel use FlashGet with flashgot as i had mentioned in my earlier blog to squeeze out all the maximum data rate.
I heard of some cribs that they are not getting good speed and in most of the case i found they had bought the DSL CPE themselves. I was involved in some way with the planning phase of broadband architecture in BSNL through my company. My advice never try to buy third party modem esp for BSNL. It may be ok for Bharti and others, so even if you have to pay slightly large buy CPE modem from BSNL.
Enjoy surfing.. Enjoy DataOne..
Monday, December 10, 2007
DataOne Connection
In continuing with my adventures with BSNL connection, now finally i can see my usage stats. And indeed in Home 500 plan 2AM to 8 AM is free!! So enjoy the power of speed!!
Few more findings..
- One consume 20MB/hr for browsing (on an average and depends on the site you visit) excl youtube etc..
- Now a new link has come up for at least bangalore users which indicates "Broadband Customers Please Click Here to Login". This allow to see billed and unbilled statistics in a detailed manner
Get some Flashget and then run this download manager to tweak out max speed from your connection. If you are a firefox browser user like me install FlashGot add-on which allows you a single mechanism to download the entire set of links.. Enjoy speed!!
Few more findings..
- One consume 20MB/hr for browsing (on an average and depends on the site you visit) excl youtube etc..
- Now a new link has come up for at least bangalore users which indicates "Broadband Customers Please Click Here to Login". This allow to see billed and unbilled statistics in a detailed manner
- Once in a while it does not work.. so try try try again!!
- Somehow even though i have not crossed 2.5GB it is indicated some charges. Not sure of that. I hope finally they will reduce this.. else i will be bankrupt!!
- This can be cut and pasted into a excel and then use your excel skill to figure how much exact download you did in the non-peak hour. For me it still is far below 2.5GB but only the first bill can tell me if my calculations are right :)
Get some Flashget and then run this download manager to tweak out max speed from your connection. If you are a firefox browser user like me install FlashGot add-on which allows you a single mechanism to download the entire set of links.. Enjoy speed!!
Site statistics and tracking
If you had ever wondered how to track the number of people who are coming on to any website and of them how many returning visitors, check out statcounter. Register yourself and through a series of steps it will allow you to get a java code which you would need to get installed in the source code of your website.
It is a very user friendly website, except for the impatient like me it is rather a torturous set of questions before you can get your code generated by these guys. Once the code is installed, you can login to their site and see some real details of your website viewers. It can even filter you out (as u will be going to that site to change it or update it..) provided you have a static IP. else all you have to do is reduce the count they display by one!!
Also recently i got introduced to Google Analytics which provide excellent view of all you need to know about the site visitors and their location, speed of connection and host of other things. So now i would recommend this rather than statcounter, as this is closely linked with your Google ecosystem. One problem with Google statistics is the data is 24 hrs old and does not give instantaneous statistics like statcounter.
So keep a stat of your site..
It is a very user friendly website, except for the impatient like me it is rather a torturous set of questions before you can get your code generated by these guys. Once the code is installed, you can login to their site and see some real details of your website viewers. It can even filter you out (as u will be going to that site to change it or update it..) provided you have a static IP. else all you have to do is reduce the count they display by one!!
Also recently i got introduced to Google Analytics which provide excellent view of all you need to know about the site visitors and their location, speed of connection and host of other things. So now i would recommend this rather than statcounter, as this is closely linked with your Google ecosystem. One problem with Google statistics is the data is 24 hrs old and does not give instantaneous statistics like statcounter.
So keep a stat of your site..
Friday, December 07, 2007
DataOne Connection
After a long wait i got a dataone connection from BSNL. Now i am not able to see how much i consumed and then we had animated discussion on the various options.
I have a Home 500 scheme and which has unlimited download from 2AM to 8AM and during this period u can get excess rate of 2Mbps. Is this better than Rs 900/- unlimited plan but rate limited to 256Kbps. So in the latter you can download around 2.5GB/day while in the former (assuming all downloads happen only in the free period at 1.5Mbps) we get 4GB/day. So it makes sense to go for the Home 500 scheme, as the charge is less. The only drawback seems to be it needs planning to keep all ur high download things for night.
Most downloads are peer to peer downloads using Bit Torrent. This allows to schedule your download for the night and hence planning is not so painful. now i heard a rumor that we need to reboot at 2 to get this free download. I checked with the BSNL call center and they confirmed no such intricacies are there. There is some problem and i have not been able to verify how much is my data usage.
As expected from BSNL they are not helpful in this aspect and i itself would have to figure out. i got some freeware exclusively for dataone connections but does not seem to work for me.
I will spend a whole blog on bit torrent and tell you how to optimize it, the dos and donts with dataone connection.
I have a Home 500 scheme and which has unlimited download from 2AM to 8AM and during this period u can get excess rate of 2Mbps. Is this better than Rs 900/- unlimited plan but rate limited to 256Kbps. So in the latter you can download around 2.5GB/day while in the former (assuming all downloads happen only in the free period at 1.5Mbps) we get 4GB/day. So it makes sense to go for the Home 500 scheme, as the charge is less. The only drawback seems to be it needs planning to keep all ur high download things for night.
Most downloads are peer to peer downloads using Bit Torrent. This allows to schedule your download for the night and hence planning is not so painful. now i heard a rumor that we need to reboot at 2 to get this free download. I checked with the BSNL call center and they confirmed no such intricacies are there. There is some problem and i have not been able to verify how much is my data usage.
As expected from BSNL they are not helpful in this aspect and i itself would have to figure out. i got some freeware exclusively for dataone connections but does not seem to work for me.
I will spend a whole blog on bit torrent and tell you how to optimize it, the dos and donts with dataone connection.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Firefox Extension
Recently plunged into understanding the variety of extensions available in Firefox. All of them i found it really useful and i would strongly recommend these as the minimum set of firefox Add-ons
- Calculator This is a small extension which will give a small window at the bottom to do your basic mathematical operation. The good thing of this is "ALT + C" takes u to do the calculator section and you can do calculation with not even touching the mouse
- ScribeFire This is the one i am using to publish this Blog. Allows a mechanism to reach your favorite blog site with just a click. It was earlier called Performancing. This plugin needs one time setting of your account to connect it to the blogsite, For example, http://jishnusdiary.blogspot.com/ in the "add blog", would then take you through the process. Once added you can also edit earlier posts.
- FasterFox This improves the performance of once browsing. Though i think it improves the speed, not so great.
- FlashGot This improves the download speed of big files. For this one has to first install FlashGet and then install this plugin. This is a download accelerator.
- Coolpreview: This saves you lot of clicks
- FireFTP: In case you are a heavy user of FTP.
- FireShot: Allows to take a screenshot of the webpage and edit it
- FlashBlock: Blocks all the flash Ads and only allows it after your explicit approval. This saves you a lot of time with many flash ad websites
- FoxClock: Provide you the world clock in the status bar
- DailyDilbert: In case you need to take timeoff with some comic strips
- IE Tab: For all those websites which have trouble opening or does not work properly in Firefox
- File and Folder shortcuts: Your frequently used shortcuts now inside firefox.
- PDFDownload: Allows you to decide if PDF has to be opened in browser or with acrobat.
- QuickRestart: Sometimes you would need to restart and this provides a button in firefox
- StatusbarEx: This keeps tab of the memory consumption of Firefox and allows you to decide when to use your quickrestart button!!
- StumpleUpon: Some random search trough web in the field of your interest.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Books I Read- On a Philosophical Sojourn
Recently, got to know about Easy Library which allows a very easy way to get the books. So after a long back i am now into a hectic reading. I also am reading books at a rate of min 1 per week, a nice shift from one per 2-3 months. Also the quality of book has also improved. The books i read recently are:
Author: Richard Dawkin
Books: Blind watch Maker, The Selfish Gene, Out of My Mind
Author: Hermann Hesse
Books: Siddartha, Journey to the east, Narcissus and Goldmund
Author: Richard Bach
Books: Illusions, Out of my Mind
Author: Paulo Coelho
Books: The Alchemist, The fifth Mountain
Author: Ayn Rand
Books: Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead
Author: Dr S. Radha Krishnan
Book: Indian Philosophy I
Author:Boethius
Book: Tractates The Consolation of Philosophy
Author: B. Russel
Book: Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
If you would like to go on a unknown and unchartered flow of philosophy i would recommend you to go through this and then come to the best of all "The Upanishads". And also it is strange to figure out all the books of various periods of time still continue to be relevant and little progress has been made by the mankind in this domain.
Author: Richard Dawkin
Books: Blind watch Maker, The Selfish Gene, Out of My Mind
Author: Hermann Hesse
Books: Siddartha, Journey to the east, Narcissus and Goldmund
Author: Richard Bach
Books: Illusions, Out of my Mind
Author: Paulo Coelho
Books: The Alchemist, The fifth Mountain
Author: Ayn Rand
Books: Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead
Author: Dr S. Radha Krishnan
Book: Indian Philosophy I
Author:Boethius
Book: Tractates The Consolation of Philosophy
Author: B. Russel
Book: Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
If you would like to go on a unknown and unchartered flow of philosophy i would recommend you to go through this and then come to the best of all "The Upanishads". And also it is strange to figure out all the books of various periods of time still continue to be relevant and little progress has been made by the mankind in this domain.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
BSNL One India Plan to General Plan
Recently i went to BSNL customer center for applying for a broadband. I had shifted recently to BSNL one India Plan. And now i came out with the following calculation:
Type: Pre-paid
Plan Charge : 880
Talk time : 550
Effective call rate (STD/Local): Rs 1.6/-
This above calculation assumes max call per month is 550.and if it above (where charging is done by top-up) then the effective call rate will come down.
There is also a 5000 pre-paid plan and durine festive season we get a talk time of 7500
Type: Pre-paid
Plan Charge : 5600
Talk time : 7500
Effective call rate(STD to BSNL Phones): Rs 1.5/-
And as India has at least one festival every quarter and the 5000 plan become operational, as you can see above the latter plan is better.
So now how do we shift from One India Plan back to the second (general plan) send:
MGEN to 3733.
So think twice before taking One India and if any time you find that this plan is uneconomical shift to the general plan.
Type: Pre-paid
Plan Charge : 880
Talk time : 550
Effective call rate (STD/Local): Rs 1.6/-
This above calculation assumes max call per month is 550.and if it above (where charging is done by top-up) then the effective call rate will come down.
There is also a 5000 pre-paid plan and durine festive season we get a talk time of 7500
Type: Pre-paid
Plan Charge : 5600
Talk time : 7500
Effective call rate(STD to BSNL Phones): Rs 1.5/-
And as India has at least one festival every quarter and the 5000 plan become operational, as you can see above the latter plan is better.
So now how do we shift from One India Plan back to the second (general plan) send:
MGEN to 3733.
So think twice before taking One India and if any time you find that this plan is uneconomical shift to the general plan.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Movie Review: July 4
Language: Malayalam
Protagonists: Dileep, Roma
After braving a real heavy downpour we reached the theater to watch the movie. Though we had an indication that this is going to be a average movie we were in for a shock. Not that it turned to be good but turned out to be real bad one. Usual hackneyed plot and lack of typical dileep humor didn't do any good for the movie. Character done by Devan and Siddique was commendable. Actress did try her level best in acting but with least amount of success. Hoping Malayalam movie will have better movies of the genre of Bharatam, Manichithrathazhu, some time in future we enjoyed the rain and forgot of the movie.
Protagonists: Dileep, Roma
After braving a real heavy downpour we reached the theater to watch the movie. Though we had an indication that this is going to be a average movie we were in for a shock. Not that it turned to be good but turned out to be real bad one. Usual hackneyed plot and lack of typical dileep humor didn't do any good for the movie. Character done by Devan and Siddique was commendable. Actress did try her level best in acting but with least amount of success. Hoping Malayalam movie will have better movies of the genre of Bharatam, Manichithrathazhu, some time in future we enjoyed the rain and forgot of the movie.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Getting ECNR
Yesterday i went to get ECNR stamped onto the passport. The best thing would have been if i had got the ECNR stamp initially when i applied itself. It just need tenth standard mark sheet. Let me explain the process. To know more about ECNR go through the FAQ
1. Download the ECNR form and fill it.
2. Register for an online appointment through passport office website (for Bangalore). Keep a printout of the appointment letter
3. If you have a PAN card then that is the easiest of proof else carry any of the items as mentioned in the above FAQ. Carry a photocopy of this.
4. You need to give a proof of residence. For all those people like me for whom getting a proof of residence (phone bill in your name and showing permanent address, note gas connection is not taken as a proof of residence) is a difficult get a letter from the company which mention the present address. This is taken as a proof.
5. Take a photocopy of the first few pages of passport.
6. Stick a photo in the application form. it should be with a white background. No additional photo is needed.
7. Go and submit the form on the appointed day as indicated in the appointment letter. Once again check the following:
9. Go next day with the receipt at the mentioned time and collect the passport in person.
Hope this should help someone as any deviation from the above means you would have to go again.
8/5/2008>Recently i have heard the ECNR is not needed anymore. Check with your agent to confirm it.
1. Download the ECNR form and fill it.
2. Register for an online appointment through passport office website (for Bangalore). Keep a printout of the appointment letter
3. If you have a PAN card then that is the easiest of proof else carry any of the items as mentioned in the above FAQ. Carry a photocopy of this.
4. You need to give a proof of residence. For all those people like me for whom getting a proof of residence (phone bill in your name and showing permanent address, note gas connection is not taken as a proof of residence) is a difficult get a letter from the company which mention the present address. This is taken as a proof.
5. Take a photocopy of the first few pages of passport.
6. Stick a photo in the application form. it should be with a white background. No additional photo is needed.
7. Go and submit the form on the appointed day as indicated in the appointment letter. Once again check the following:
- Passport (and photocopy of first few sheets)
- Proof of residence (letter from office would do)
- Filled form
- PAN card (a photocopy of it) or degree certificate)
- Appointment letter
9. Go next day with the receipt at the mentioned time and collect the passport in person.
Hope this should help someone as any deviation from the above means you would have to go again.
8/5/2008>Recently i have heard the ECNR is not needed anymore. Check with your agent to confirm it.
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