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.

Making Puttu- things that can go wrong.

Puttu (Steamed Cake) is a Kerala delicacy made out of rice flour. This is made using a special cylindrical vessel which is kept over the pressure cooker. Few aspects which needs to be taken care:

• The rice powder you buy from stalls in Karnataka cannot be used for it. It is rice powder and for Puttu you have o buy Puttu powder itself.
  
• If water is more in the flour then it can explode (Never tried it myself!!)
• It just take <>
• Use prestige pressure cooker rather than Hawkins (The one with top lid being closed after putting the lid inside the bottom section), as latter does not allow steam to flow properly.

Now if you figure out that the puttu effort is a failure, you can do the following, make KozhiKatta:

• Add right amount of water and make a mix which looks somewhat similar to Chappatti Dough.
• Add grated coconut and mix properly. (Coconut is luckily there from the initial puttu effort failure :) )
  
• Add some oil while mixing the dough
• Make small balls and steam it over idilli thattu.

Please understand that it will NOT taste like original KozhiKatta as this is made of raw rice rather than boiled rice and we do not do any Kindal process. But it is good enough to douse the hunger!!

I got motivated to write this blog as this has happened with many of my friends and not just with me. Hope at least u do not go hungry even if you do not have the original Puttu in front of you.

Getting Marriage Certificate

Recently i went through the process of getting a marriage certificate. This require the following details to be provided at the corporation office (The corporation office/ Village Panchayat under whose jurisdiction the marriage happened), and for this bride and groom has to go in person and has to be done within 15 days of the marriage (In case 15 days are over, procedures are little more difficult)

• Form filled in duplicate (This can be obtained from the respective Corporation/Panchayat Office)
  
• Date of Birth (Preferably Class X certificate) - Attested true copy
• Original Wedding Invitation letter
  
• A letter written in local language addressed to secretary to please issue a married certificate. This letter should clearly mention your parent details, marriage hall details and date of marriage.
• A letter from the marriage hall or the temple at which the function was held.
  
• Rs 100/- (Additional amount in case copy of married certificate required)
• Two witnesses (Should not be a direct relative but should be one who have attended your marriage)

Give the filled form with other details as requested at the respective department in corporation/panchayat office. They will ask you to get a signature from the secretary (If he is not around you just have to wait) in a filled up form. After that you pay the money in the cash counter and get a receipt which you give back to the department where you gave the form initially. they will then inform you to come and collect the married certificate in less than a week.

The actual collection of the married certificate need not require the bride/groom to go in person and can be collected by any person who goes with the receipt.

visa credit card and firefox

Many e-commerce sites in India i have noticed does not work properly with firefox. So whenever you think you would have to do any credit card transaction use Internet Explorer. With Firefox it may take you all the way till confirmation and then you figure out that you did not get the service but your money is debited.

Though i am an ardent supporter of Firefox, better be safe as i think i had issues with bookmyshow because of this complication.

This is now solved within firefox browser by using the IE Tab add-on which allows you to change the rendering from firefox to IE7 and back by just clicking the icon in the status bar.

Online ticket booking to Kerala

There are two online mechanism to book tickets in bus. One is the karnataka transport corporation and another called redbus. The former starts 10 days in advance and the latter is provided by a private agency.

KSRTC

1. Login to the site
2. Register in case of new users
3. Use Internet explorer as the payment gateway using firefox seems to have some problem.
4. This allows you to select the seat and allow e-ticket for which you need either PAN card, Driver License, Voter's ID card.
5. The site is not the best and is far behing the irctc train booking. So prepare yourself for multiple attempts before you get your tickets!!

Redbus

1. Use the link to get onto the site
2. You can get bus tickets to anywhere in India.
   

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:

• 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.

Enjoy the trip abroad!!

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.

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:

• 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.
  

So now enjoy paying BSNL dataone bills from the comfort of the house. this at least works in Bangalore. Please check if it works in other places.

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 :)

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 :)

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

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.

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.

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 :)

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.