Blogically mine.

The Big One - Mt Everest

2011-08-29T23:54:00.003+05:30

Every once in a while , a wild idea springs to mind. After having been trekking for about 5 years now , I have decided to embark on a journey that is the ultimate goal of many a trekkers. Mt Everest ! Oh yes , this is the big one.

Everest , the ultimate mountain of all, the most ruthless of all , the most unforgiving , the most satisfying , the highest of them all.

Yes , I shall be heading to Mt Everest Base Camp on Sept 6, 2011.

The draw to Mt Everest is inevitable. Once you read about it , watch documentaries about it , get to know about the place which is engulfed in decades of history , you feel yourself magically called by it. I first thought of going to EBC about 2 years ago. The time has finally arrived! There are a lot of heart wrenching and blood curling documentaries of Everest , one notably titled : The Dark Side Of Everest, which describes the delirium of the "Death Zone" in flagitious terms.

So, here I am , about 7 days away from embarking on this phenomenal journey! This journet will take me from the city of Bangalore,India to New Delhi,India to Kathmandu,Nepal to Lukla, the starting point of the trek. About 10 days of climbing to get the most stunning views of Everest and back to lukla in another 5 days.

There are multiple highlights I am looking forward to :
1. Mt Everest
2. Lukla - Landing and taking off from one of the worlds most extreme airports ( 500m in length and perched on top of a cliff )
3. Bungee Jumping from the worlds 3rd highest bungee perch ( and highest free fall in the world)
4. Casino's in Kathmandu
5. The experience !

I plan to take a lot of timelapses this trip. I am hauling up quite some bit of camera gear to get what I plan to.

I just can't wait to get started! See you around!

DiY Macro Lens For Less Than Rs.100 !

2010-12-05T23:23:00.014+05:30

Have you paid a few ten thousand rupees for a Macro lens ? Maybe you have paid a bit too much for it! Described below is the method to make a DiY macro lens for less than 100 rupees ! This method follows the technique of using the reverse of your lens as a macro.

What you will need .

1. Any lens that you have with you. (kit, prime, zoom)
2. A spare DSLR body cap
3. A spare rear lens cap
4. An old/unused filter
4. Superglue
5. Drilling machine
6. Sandpaper

I use a Canon EOS 450D dslr. I have a 18-55 kit lens that I decided to use for this project.

Step 1: Drill through the body cap and rear lens caps. Use a drilling machine for
cutting through. Round of the edges with a rounding bit and then use sandpaper to smoothen it out.

Step 2: Take apart an old/unused filter. I used a fluorescent filter (dia 58mm) which I had never used since I bought it! Take it apart either using a filter opener or by smashing the filter glass. Since I didnt have the heart to smash the glass nor did I have a filter opener, I used a scwerdriver head to open the filter fastener in the filter threads (It's a very small notch in the filter fastener that you can put the screwdriver into)

Step 3: Keep the rear lens cap aside for the time being. Now , attach the Fluoroscent filter to the body cap using superglue. Allow it to dry for atleast 2-3 hours. WARNING: Though the superglue dries in 5 minutes, the chemical vapors from the glue can damage the lens coating if used before 2-3 hours). You can also use m-seal or araldite or hot glue to glue the two together.

And you are done ! You now have your very own macro adaptor !

First affix the macro adaptor to your lens.

Attach the lens to the camera .

Attach the rear lens cap to the back of the lens ( It is helpful to protect the contacts and internals of the lens from dust etc )

And this is what it finally looks like :

Here are some first shots of the macro lens. This image is of a rather smooth bedcover. We can see the texture in the fabric with amazing detail so much so that it looks like a coarse jute mat !

I dont know how to calculate the magnification that I'm getting , but I'm pretty impressed with the results ! The disadvantage is that you will not be able to control your aperture since the lens' metal contacts are not connected to the camera.( Well, actually , you can , but more on that later)

So, have fun building a macro lens yourself!

High Times Ahead ! - Ladakh teaser

2010-07-18T13:39:00.004+05:30

Its high times ahead. Quite literally ! Its going to be a phenomenal trip which shall includes a ride on the highest motorable road in the world at ~18,000+ feet, through some of the most amazingly barren vista's
Yes , you got it right. Its time for ladakh . A teaser below.

This is my destination :

And this is going to be my ride !

This promises to be quite an experience !

Experience starts 24th July 2010 !

Follow me on twitter : @abhinavrm for latest updates LIVE! from the journey.

Clickety-click

2010-05-31T02:02:00.005+05:30

I realised I have not blogged since ages , largely due to
1) Work
2) the advent of Microblogging ( aka Twitter ) . Not that I am active on twitter anyway, but due to blogging no longer being the "in thing". All that content syndication which used to happen on blogger can be done more quickly with twitter. ( I don't subscribe to RSS feeds anymore ! )
3) I have been trekking and travelling a lot. I've been on countless treks( all over karnataka and Himalayas ) Too many to enumerate ! Basically , I have seen all sorts of terrain you can think of! My treks have lasted anything between 1 day and 10 days!
4) Travelling : Been travelling quite a bit too. Best was a undertake a skiing course earlier this year and an awesome trip to Bhutan in Dec last year.
4) Bitten by photography bug. Trust me , this is very addictive ! You can spend a lot of time and resources on it .

Which brings me to this post ! This post is just a blatant publicity drive for my photostream! The link to my photostream is here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhinavrm . Click through and enjoy !

www.flickr.com

Go to Abhinav Mathur's photostream

The day we got Churned ! 30 minutes of .....

2009-09-15T01:13:00.009+05:30

It was like any other rafting session , except for 30 minutes of being stuck in a "hydraulic" .
Ok .first a few pictures to illustrate my point.

The rock formation in the river was something like this . A planar water flow over a flat rock that led to a drop about about 5-8 feet . Although this seems very calm and just like a bit of water falling smoothly over a little rock , the dangers it has is potentially fatal !

When water falls over a low head obstruction two things happen :

1. The velocity of water increases at the point of the fall, due to the obstruction.

2. The water at the base of the "fall" gets churned and is highly aereated.

3 . Due to the planar water flow , a feedback current or a reverse current is formed. Anything stuck at this point will be ....well ..... Stuck !!! You just can't escape it !

Now imagine a boat , raft, canoe or swimmer "going over" the fall . Firstly , the hydraulic current will suck the raft underwater and the loss of buoyancy due to highly aereated water will keep the raft under. Its very difficult to get out of this situation unassisted.

Experts advise not to fight the hydraulic , but to dive deeper into the current and get out at the far end of the hydraulic which has an outward flow.

Alright , so that was the gyaan on the hydraulic !

6 folks from office - Maddy , Sweta , Anshuman, Poonam , Senthil , and me decided to head for white water rafting to bheemeshwari. After a delayed start , we headed out onto Kanakpura road , which is now surprisingly smooth and easy to drive on . Thanks to poonam for playing 1940's ridiculously old hindi music , which made the driver miss the turn and we ended up at Galibore instead of Bheemeshwari ! 25kms of backtracking and an hour later we reached the camp. After an uneventful walk ( some call it a trek ) up a maybe 20 foot hillock ( figuratively ) and a lunch and a nap later , we started rafting. The water levels were relatively high, compared to the last time I was there. After a couple of hours of rafting downstream and upstream ( yes , we even rowed upstream ) we finally hit it . "The Hydraulic " ( almost sounds like a horror flick or the name of a machine with intelligence that threatens to decimate planet earth )

Almost near the end of the 8 km course , there was a formation ( like the picutes above ) . Our guide safely maneuvered us safely from the side of the formation. And then all of us thought ".....wait a minute .... this isnt fun" . We should probably go over that rock again . With all our might and josh , we rowed back upstream of the rock formation ( lets call it the Hydraulic rock ) And then it happened. We went over it and got stuck . It was like a cycle lasting about 40 seconds each . Out raft would get filled with water and go underwater, get pushed downstream a few feet and then promptly get pulled back to the base of the falls due to the undercurrent. This cycle went on endlessly ! All of us had to move to one side of the raft to prevent it from capsizing. In the meanwhile , the guide lost his oar in the current. I had to tow-line near my feet. The guide told us that one person on the raft has to swim ashore and pull the raft out. The guide told us that he will swim ashore and pull us out. But, he could not get out as he was counter-balancing the raft and keeping it afloat. Basically , there was a perfect balance to the raft and any movement or shift of weight would topple the boat over. The guide asked us if anyone was good at swimming and can swim ashore to pull the boat out , for which I volunteered. I would have to swim ashore , tie the towline to a tree and start pulling ! Before I could jump , the other raft which saw us pulled over to the shore. We tried throwing our tow line to them . However , the line couldn't reach them. The guide of the other boat entered the water holding onto the folks of the other raft and threw his line to us . Alas , thanks to his perfect aim and longer tow line , the line reached us . We strapped the line to our raft and a couple of tugs later , we were out . In a couple of seconds our raft turned and we had a chance to get out. Our instructor immediately shouted " Left backward, right forward " . We were finally out of the hydraulic. We looked back and glaanced at the point at which we were stuck . It seemed seemingly harmless on the surface . It had quite a punch in the currents underneath ! It must have been an area of max 10-20 feet where the hydraulic current is acitve.

Our guide later told us that escsaping a hydraulic is part of rafting training. Had all of us been trained rafters, we would have had to get out of it oursleves by rowing hard to the side or far end , or jumping out of the raft , while maintaing the raft's balance. Overall , a great experience !

The folks . maddy missing.

Missing coz he was too busy playing AOE in-person or reliving a moment from
Gladiator !

Geocities bites the dust

2009-07-25T02:52:00.001+05:30

Welcome, Abhinav

GeoCities is closing on October 26, 2009. On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files.

Poof and its gone . My first online presence ( www.geocities.com/abhinavrm) will be gone in a short while . It was a static page with the only moving thing being the marquee message quote of Sir Issac Newton ! In these days of Web 3.0 ( the new and improved Web ) and highly interactive web , plain vanilla pages seem like a novelty. My first "website" might be more than 10 years old now . I remember making it in class 9 or class 10. Anyway , it shall perish now .

Adios Geocities !

The Information Age

2009-07-16T00:34:00.005+05:30

There you are . I've said it before and I'll say it again . The internet would not have been the internet it is today without the number-churning, web-crawling, page-indexing,search-bot'ing,page-ranking stuff the Google does. !

Yes , that's right . Google has brought about the "Information Age". Every trivial bit of information I may ever need is just a single key stroke away ( quite literally , thanks to the search shortcuts that Avant Browser offers ) . Without Google , an internet search is hopeless.

Such is the omnipresence of Google, I even dare to classify the Internet into two era's :

Before Google [ B.G] - Internet and Information was just 'there somewhere...' lying in some nook of cyberspace

After Google [A.G] - The internet came to "Life" .

I remember the days , more than 12-13 years back , when we had one 'multimedia computer' (among 100 DOS computers) at school , where we used to access the internet over a VSNL dial-up modem running at 16.6kilobits/sec, the concept of a search engine never existed . You had to know the exact URL of the portal you wanted to visit . If I remember correctly, there was only one search engine called :Lycos ( probably more , but unheard of) . Searching information was tough.

And then , sometime in 2000, a cousin told me about this 'really awesome search engine' , which blew you away with its simplicity and effectiveness . And was he right or what ! You query it and Google spits out your results in mere milliseconds. Numerous other search engines have made many unsuccessful attempts to match google's search. None come even close . Yahoo, Live, Ask, (even lycos) fail miserably in comparison . The revered Google's page ranking algo has been imitated , but never perfected by any other algo. Google , Hat's off .

But hang on a second , is there a dark side to Google ?

Is there more to it than meets the eye ? I feel yes . With google buying out most widely used internet tools/websites/products , google has a deluge of information about every user , thanks to the single sign-on that google enforces for using a site/service. Your online presence(via search), search tags(via search) , personal info (via gmail) and multitude of associated data is mined for every-user ! Imagine all the information being stored in those countless exabytes of storage that google houses !

Reminds me of a data flow progression that one of our professors(AP) taught us in Engineering college : The DIKI.
Data --> Information --> Knowledge --> Intelligence . I hope google stops at the first "I" !
Google is already connecting a lot of dots using the Zeitgeist (only a part of it being made public via the Zeitgeist )

Overall, barring this recent "Intelligence" that Google is deriving from dominance over Internet Search, Google still rocks ! The world would have been different without it .

[Disclaimer: I'm not being paid to write this blogpost :-) ]

Some Pictures !

2009-03-24T00:28:00.001+05:30

Some pictures from 2007 and 2008 .
Dec 08 - Trip/ Trek from Dalhousie base camp : http://picasaweb.google.com/abhinavrm/HimalayanRendezvous#

Oct 07 - Jammu and Kashmir trip with Fly .
http://picasaweb.google.com/abhinavrm/KashmirAndJammu#

Statistics

2009-01-18T00:41:00.003+05:30

I'm fully fida over the statistics that Clustrmaps brought up for me the other day. I have had 8705 hits since Feb 08 to-date to my blog from numerous countries. It's a humbling statistic ! Frankly , I never knew Estonia was a country ! Thank you readers and do stay tuned in ...

The details are as below .
United States (US)
1,212
India (IN)
913
Germany (DE)
429
Canada (CA)
376
Sweden (SE)
359
United Kingdom (GB)
270
Finland (FI)
215
Norway (NO)
125
France (FR)
119
Poland (PL)
114
Mexico (MX)
110
Italy (IT)
110
Austria (AT)
79
Australia (AU)
70
Netherlands (NL)
70
Hungary (HU)
59
Bulgaria (BG)
58
Switzerland (CH)
57
Belgium (BE)
55
Turkey (TR)
54
Greece (GR)
53
Brazil (BR)
50
Slovakia (SK)
46
Romania (RO)
45
Croatia (HR)
43
Czech Republic (CZ)
33
Russian Federation (RU)
29
Singapore (SG)
29
Thailand (TH)
29
Chile (CL)
29
Indonesia (ID)
28
Denmark (DK)
27
Portugal (PT)
26
Spain (ES)
25
Malaysia (MY)
22
United Arab Emirates (AE)
22
Colombia (CO)
21
South Africa (ZA)
20
Argentina (AR)
19
China (CN)
17
Serbia (RS)
17
Slovenia (SI)
17
Ukraine (UA)
15
Pakistan (PK)
15
Israel (IL)
14
Europe (EU)
14
Philippines (PH)
14
Asia/Pacific Region (AP)
13
Japan (JP)
13
Saudi Arabia (SA)
12
Korea, Republic of (KR)
12
New Zealand (NZ)
10
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA)
9
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR)
9
Ireland (IE)
8
Venezuela (VE)
8
Cyprus (CY)
8
Vietnam (VN)
7
Estonia (EE)
7
Egypt (EG)
6
Taiwan (TW)
6
Costa Rica (CR)
6
Bangladesh (BD)
5
Luxembourg (LU)
5
Puerto Rico (PR)
5
Morocco (MA)
5
Latvia (LV)
5
Bahrain (BH)
5
Peru (PE)
5
Lithuania (LT)
4
Nepal (NP)
4
Guatemala (GT)
3
Belarus (BY)
3
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY)
3
Ecuador (EC)
3
El Salvador (SV)
3
Georgia (GE)
3
Macedonia (MK)
3
Jordan (JO)
3
Trinidad and Tobago (TT)
2
Nigeria (NG)
2
Kenya (KE)
2
Sri Lanka (LK)
2
Moldova, Republic of (MD)
2
Hong Kong (HK)
2
Iceland (IS)
2
Lebanon (LB)
2
Qatar (QA)
2
Faroe Islands (FO)
1
Cote D'Ivoire (CI)
1
Guyana (GY)
1
Brunei Darussalam (BN)
1
Uruguay (UY)
1
Uganda (UG)
1
Fiji (FJ)
1
Paraguay (PY)
1
Maldives (MV)
1
Bolivia (BO)
1
Burkina Faso (BF)
1
Montenegro (ME)
1
Oman (OM)
1
Kazakstan (KZ)
1
Kuwait (KW)
1
Palestinian Territory (PS)
1
Bermuda (BM)
1
Albania (AL)
1
Jamaica (JM)
1
Saint Kitts and Nevis (KN)
1
Nicaragua (NI)
1
Grenada (GD)
1
Liechtenstein (LI)
1
Iraq (IQ)
1
Guadeloupe (GP)
1
Senegal (SN)
1
Panama (PA)
1

Dance with the universe

2008-12-16T04:07:00.003+05:30

Thanks to Sunil for this one

This is what I call a feel-good-factor song and dance sequence.

http://ycorpblog.com/2008/08/04/and-now-we-dance/ wherein all Yahoos including the CEO, President and many others dance with Matt Harding, to the tune of a lovely Bengali song called 'Praan' (meaning Life) composed by Garry Schyman and sung by 17 year old Palbasha Siddique.

Watch the video followed by the following vide's . Its an amazing set of videos which transcends the 4-5 minutes of actual video time. Makes you feel , you just need to travel the world , to admire its diversity and beauty !

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/dancing2006.html?height=360&width=430

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/dancing_outtakes.html?height=360&width=430

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/dancing2005.html?height=360&width=430

Matt has been roaming the world doin his jig with thousands of people worldwide.

Worldspace

2008-12-01T01:29:00.005+05:30

Sometime in June 08, An offer from SBI cards prompted me to buy a Worldspace Satellite Radio reciever . I bought a subscription and got the cabling done along with the Asiastar orientation of the pedal linear antenna .After keying in the subscription keys, I tuned into WorldSpace and boy , was I blown away or what !!!

The sound clarity is phenomenally awesome . The BPL Celeste MK II's reciever's built in 70watt speakers hardly does justice to worldspace ! I rigged up the reciever to the 5.1 sound system , turned up the volume and ...... aaah .. Bliss.

The subscription costs Rs.1800/- for a year . The only initial costs involved is the cost of the reciever. Though the recievers are not great enough to write home about , their primary objective is to unscramble the encrypted digital signals.

The Worldspace signals are broadcast via three Geo-stationary satellites : Asiastar , Afristar and Ameristar. India is covered by the Asiastar satellite , which has three beams which can carry 40 channels each , totalling 120 channels in all .India lies at an Azimuth-128 and Elevation-52 to the Asiastar satellite. India has a total of 36 audio channels at the moment.

If you are sick and tired of all the FM channels playing the same crap day in and day out , this is exactly what you need to go in for . Crystal clear audio , 24 hours a day and most importantly , No Ads !!!

If you are really inspired , here is some gyaan on the history of worldspace : http://worldspace.in/worldspace/overview-history.php

Cheers,

VSNL + Reliance = 70% of Internet backbone !

2008-11-12T01:15:00.006+05:30

I was pleasantly surprised today when Nandit from DataCraft mentioned today that Reliance and VSNL together own 70% of the internet backbone networks all over the world , including the Deep Sea Backbone networks )

These numbers are thanks to Reliance buying out FLAG sometime in 2004 , a US based telecom and fibre link provider . Flag's network includes the Flag Europe-Asia, which links the telecommunications markets of Western Europe and Japan through West Asia, India, Southeast Asia and China, through approximately 28,000 km of undersea fibre optic cables.
The Flag Atlantic-1 is a 14,500-km city-to-city service linking New York, London and Paris -- the world's first and only trans-oceanic loop system. The Flag North Asian Loop offers intra-regional, city-to-city connectivity between the high traffic centres of Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo and Taipei.

Just to give an idea of the DSN , here is the entire DSN network of TATA .

For the detailed Interactive view of the above network, Click Below : http://www.tatacommunications.com/map/intranet-map-application-v1.0.swf

( includes the satellites too :-) )

Absolutely Brilliant

2008-09-22T02:49:00.000+05:30

What would be the best way to get going on a monday morning? Coffee ? Naah . Better options automatically present themselves ! Look what we found at Hebbal , Bangalore while driving to work. 'Aaatuuuu' guys rock ! This 'Dude' thought he can drive through a barricade and didn't worry too much about the 'height' of the vehicle ! He just kept driving !

Picture courtesy : Vijay

A detailed step by step illustration follows :-)

Still can't stop laughing . Thanks for the hearty laugh , Auto Soori.

Speaking of auto's , I had come across this hugely hilarious(?) Kannada "Rap Song"(?) . I'm speechless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2473UPLtql4

Cisco is now M-Enabled !

2008-09-04T01:20:00.000+05:30

Thats right ! You can now access Cisco on your fingertips right away on your smart-phone ! Not a ground-breaking feature , but hey .. Hurray ! Here's the info I got on cisco's site :

Cisco Mobile Web

Mobile Web: Take Cisco with You.Mobile web allows you to stay connected to Cisco information, access the latest products, get support information, contact numbers, and news on the go, all from your smartphone.

NEW! Search for product or technical documentation, and receive content formatted for smartphone screens. Use your web-enabled phone to go to m.cisco.com.

Mobile Web FeaturesOptimized mobile web search function for Cisco products and technical documention.Click-to-dial pricing information, global contact numbers, and earnings releases.Network security alerts, new product details, and global event listings.

The following platforms are known to support Cisco Mobile Web. If yours is not listed, access may still be possible.Apple® iPhone Palm OS® (e.g., Treo™ 650, 700 p/w) Windows Mobile® smartphones (e.g., Motorola Q™) S60 built on Symbian OS™ (e.g., Nokia®) BlackBerry® smartphones (e.g., 7200 series)

Figure it out.

2008-07-01T23:55:00.000+05:30

The institute was established in November 1961 During its initial years, several prominent faculty formed part of its nucleus, including Paul Samuelson, Jagdish Sheth, J. K. Sengupta, among others

The foundation stone was laid by Sri Morarji Desai, the then Dy. Prime Minister of India on Dec 15, 1968. The Institute moved to its present campus in 1975. The institute is located in its own sprawling 135 acres campus , away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis.It has one of the most breath-takingly beautiful academic campuses in the country - spotted with scenic locales, seven lakes, exotic birds.

The institute’s Bidhan Chandra Roy library was started initially with a liberal Ford foundation grant, and over the last 36 years has grown into a major learning resource center in South Asia.There are seven lakes on the campus, every one of them larger than the previous. One always sees at least one lake irrespective of where he/she is in the campus.

One of the Institutes learning center is the crystallization of two decades of aspirations and effort to bring to the members of human organizations and institutions - in India and abroad - contemporary adaptations of the perennial corpus of Indian psycho-philosophical wisdom. It has taken up the mission of integrating the soft and subtle dimension of human values with the mainstream of skill-dominated management education.

You must be guessing: What am I talking about... and why? Well ...

In Flames

2008-05-21T00:47:00.000+05:30

The band that I'm now a big fan of is :In Flames . Thanks to Zac for lending his inflames collection! To quote , from Wikipedia :

In Flames is a band from Gothenburg , Sweden and is considered to be a pioneer of the melodic metal genre, along with Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates. In Flames was founded in 1990 as a side project of Jesper Strömblad who was at the time in a death metal band called Ceremonial Oath. Jesper formed In Flames with the purpose of writing songs with a more melodic musical direction, something which he was not allowed to do in Ceremonial Oath. In Flames' musical style is characterized by the constant use of harmonized lead guitar melodies. In early albums such as The Jester Race , In Flames would many times employ two harmonized lead guitars playing over a rhythm guitar . However, since the band only has two guitar players, they found it hard to reproduce those songs during live performances and ever since Reroute to Remain they have focused on writing songs with the intention of playing them live.

You just have to listen to : Cloud connected , Only for the weak, Trigger.

John Cage 4:33

2008-03-24T23:46:00.000+05:30

"I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" -- John Cage

John Cage's most famous musical composition is called 4'33".
It consists of the pianist going to the piano, and not hitting any keys for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. In other words, the entire piece consists of silences -- silences of different lengths, they say. On the one hand, as a musical piece, 4'33" leaves almost no room for the pianist's interpretation: as long as he watches the stopwatch, he can't play it too fast or too slow; he can't hit the wrong keys; he can't play it too loud, or too melodramatically, or too subduedly.
On the other hand, what you hear when you listen to 4'33" is more a matter of chance than with any other piece of music -- nothing of what you hear is anything the composer wrote ! He said : ``If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two... ``

You can check it out on youtube here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

some math:
4m,33S = 4X60+33=273
I feel its a tribute to -273 degrees Centigrade or 0 Kelvin (Absolute Zero) , at which , all the heat from the substance ceases to exist . It can be shown from the laws of thermodynamics that absolute zero can never be achieved artificially, though it is possible to reach temperatures close to it through the use of cryocoolers. This is the same principle that ensures no machine can be 100% efficient. At very low temperatures in the vicinity of absolute zero, matter exhibits many unusual properties including superconductivity, superfluidity , and Boser-Einstein condensation.

Mulayangiri - Bababudangiri

2008-02-27T23:34:00.001+05:30

Another day , another place , another trek .
This time , 'twas Mulayangiri and Bababudangiri in chikmagalur district of Karnataka, about 300 kms from Bangalore.

Catching the Sunrise...

Trek up the grasslands

The tower you see at the end is baba-budangiri. And this is just half the
distance . This shot was taken from midway between Mulayangiri and
bababudangiri. BB is now notorious for its communal violence.However , we didnt see any unrest while we were there .

Mystic Blue

Atop Mulayangiri

Peaked one more :-)

Its raining TRIPS , Hallelujah !

2007-12-02T00:26:00.000+05:30

Quite Literally , Its raining Trips , Hallelujah !

To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so

Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,

Back of old-storied spires and architraves

To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

There where the meadows waken in its rays,

Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,

And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,

Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.

Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell

Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged.

Before him tireless to applaud it surged

The sweet interminable spectacle.

Excerpts from The Wanderer , by Alan Seeger

The Past few months have been full of trips to many wonderful places . Bangalore is a centerally located place , where almost everything is just an overnight drive away . The sun , the surf , the ocean , the rivers , the mountains , the caves , the lakes . Nature at its Best !

Let me tell you the long list of the places I have recently been to :

1. Kumara Parvata - This is the second heighest mountain peak in Karnataka . Its considered the toughest trek in Karnataka . I tend to agree. About 19 of us from Cisco went on this really amazing,sweat-breaking,5-kilo-reducing, never-ending, picturesque,calf-muscle-screwing, tey beautiful trek. People say this is a one day trek . I feel its impossible to do it in one day ! And just in case , you plan to go here , you must remember "Bhattare Mane' " is a VERY essential pit stop. If not for this samaritan , who provides you with food and a place to sleep halfway up the ranges , you will be stranded in the middle of nowhere !

2. Yercaud+ yelagiri - This was way back, almost 3-4 months back. Narendra , Giri, Arjun , Vikas and me had driven to this place in Narendra's car. The most vivid memories of this place was the horrendous road from Yercaud to Yelagiri ! Second come the beautiful landscapes of yercaud. This was a 3 day trip and quite a roller coaster ride !

3. Sakleshpur Railway Track Trek

Aka the "green route" . A railway track crossing the western ghats was abandoned due to the high maintenance costs. However , the authorities realized that the track line route is too precious to abandon ! Restoration work started and the track is all set to become fully operational . Before that , we decided to trek the 19km long stretch between Donigal Railway station and Yedakumari station . The monsoon rains and heavy winds made us do otherwise !

Folks on the trek : Sapan , Chaitanya , Mj, Zac , Darshan , Myself.

It poured so much that day . We could not reach the second station . And even if we did , from Yedakumari , we would have had to cross a raging river[see pic above) , instead of a gentle brook which we would have had to cross on any normal day of the year ! We went half way to yedakumari and came back to Donigal . The entire journey shall be conquered on another bright sunny day !

4. Talakad

One fine autumn morning , Narendra decided to venture out on a road trip . I couldnt resist and tagged along . We covered Talakad and drove thru Shivasamudram.

Folks : Narendra , PB , Arjun , Gururaj , Myself

More details about the scintillating 12-day trip to kashmir in the next post ! Sstay tuned , i say !

Sir David Attanborough

2007-09-26T01:32:00.000+05:30

Today , I tuned into BBC and chanced upon this hugely captivating ,crisply photographed, fantastically narrated documentary titled " The Private Life of Plants".

It needed just 2 minutes of preview to keep me at the edge of my seat for one hour. The photography was brilliant . "Brilliant" is actually an understatement . Quite a few shots involved using "Time Lapse" videography . The camera exposures and timings were nothing short of perfect.

The Man behind this brilliance is Mike Salisbury and above all , Sir David Attenborough.Mike Salisbury is possibly the most experienced and respected wildlife filmmaker the BBC Natural History Unit has ever produced. Perhaps the most telling indicator of his reputation is the fact that Mike has often been entrusted with the BBC’s ‘crown jewels’ – the ever-excellent film series written and presented by Sir David Attenborough. It is no exaggeration to say that Mike has been responsible for some of wildlife television's most memorable moments.

I was so inspired by this documentary, that I have searched,googled and found that Sir David Attenborough is a legend in documenting nature. So inspired , that I plan to buy his complete life collections of 24 DVD's[ Yes , That's right , I'm planning to *buy* it , not *download* it from P2P networks! ]
A Few of his masterpieces that are included in his life works are:

I just cant wait to see all of his documentaries . Second only to Steve Irwin , Sir David Attenborough , you are a High Impact naturalist and you have found a new admirer...

TRIPPING !!!!

2007-09-03T01:22:00.000+05:30

Have been to quite a few places over the past few weeks ! Here are the places ive been to ! A quick recap .

1. White water rafting at Bheemeshwari , Cauvery
fishing resort ,
[ Jimmy was in town after one year at Raleigh . Jimmy is petrified of water . This was a perfect way to get him over it ! l-r : me , ajay,sathyan,sant,mj,jim, bigfoot]

All Set

In action in reiver Cauvery

Feeling the air through the hair on top of a jeep

The jeeptop that ferried us back to base camp after the rafting

2. Moonlight Cave Exploration at Antaragange

On a saturday night , Manhattan in association with Woody Adventures organized a Cave Exploration camp at Antaragange Caves in Karnataka . It was an awesome and enthralling experience . We jumped , climbed , slid , fell , skipped , wriggled , hopped , crawled, and did everything possible to get through the caves . The caves were in pristine condition and occasionaly only about 8- 9 inches wide for us to squeeze through ! Prasoon from office and Tarun from Infy and Avinash from Yahoo,RnD also joined in ! There were around 32 people for the entire expedition. The BEST PART was that this was all done from 10PM to 4AM !!

Find more photos : Here.

Glass House'd

2007-08-29T23:49:00.000+05:30

Here are some pics of the Glass House , Bangalore . I have been Glass House'd . Some angles that you wont generally see , because you are so engrossed in the flower shows !

Media Makes the Nation .

2007-08-05T15:36:00.000+05:30

10 days to go , for August 15, 2007 . 60 Years of independence . Has it been worth it ? In a progressive economy , a nation ought to portray positive ideas and thoughts to the country .

A look into the daily newspapers and you are filled with horrid stories of wars in Iraq , robberies in your adjacent colony , Inspectors getting caught for accepting bribe . Is this what we want to read ? For example , in todays Times of India , a reputed national daily , Pages 2 and 3 are filled with stories of crime . Not a single article , which induces positive feelings . It makes you feel terrible about the city you live in. It is the responsiblity of the media to propagate change . Are we still stuck in the past and dont want to move to the future? I'm not saying , paint a rosy picture and give the world that we are living in some utopia . All , im saying , is to know , when to draw the line , as to what to report in print media and stop printing war , death , misery. Moreover , The print media is politically influenced and biased .

If you Times of India folks are listening , Put a ray of hope on everyone's face , Dont let them dvelve on the misery of the past .

[Pic - Ray of Hope , Carolyn McPherson]

2007-07-10T00:32:00.000+05:30

#$%^#$%^#$%^#$%^#$!%$#!#$^!%&!%

That explains it all and thats all there is to it

What BS i say !

2007-05-15T23:48:00.000+05:30

The post below exemplifies what happens when i google for absolutely ridiculous terms in google like " philosophical junk" !!! Looks like lots of people ,apart from me , have loads of time to spare to come up with such articles !!!!

The paradox of expertise and interdisciplinarity in federal courts

2007-05-15T23:46:00.000+05:30

Random Early Americanist: "What are you working on now?" Me (with some hesitation): "Salem witchcraft" Early Americanist... : "But ... surely there's nothing new to say."2
Professor Norton, however, had become "progressively dissatisfied with [the] limited framework" in the leading study of the social mileau of 1692 Salem because of its insistence that gender is irrelevant to the story.3

We argue that the view proposed by many commentaries on Daubert that the Court vacillated between traditionalist and constructivist views of science - sets up an erroneous dichotomy that not only eclipses the diversity of positions in science studies but also misses entirely a third approach adopted by some federal courts in applying Daubert. This third approach is neither traditional nor constructivist. Rather, it is a pragmatic approach to scientific evidence we call "pragmatic constructivism," which "constructs a science for the case" and satisfies neither traditionalists nor constructivists. At first blush, it even appears that this pragmatic approach sidesteps altogether the complex philosophical questions about the nature of science and scientific progress.

For some, however, the scientific enterprise may function as a particularly stable source of insights for law, such that a judge's philosophical or ideological inclinations should not affect his or her evaluation (under Daubert) of scientific reliability.11 After all, the scientific method purports to be an objective standard outside of legal discourse. We will, however, demonstrate that a philosophical position on science is unavoidable and that judicial assessments of scientific reliability after Daubert can vary according to undisclosed philosophies of science. Specifically, the development of Daubert in subsequent federal court opinions subtly reveals three interpretive principles that implicitly reflect judicial philosophies of science. These principles function inconsistently to modify Daubert standards of admissibility. After illustrating the varied operations of the three principles, we show how more liberal approaches to admissibility are consistent with contemporary insights from the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, whereas the more restrictive or conservative approaches reflect an outdated vision of the scientific enterprise.

Trek de Skandagiri

2007-03-27T03:16:00.001+05:30

Trek de skandagiri

< The title for this blog is verbatim from Prashanth's blog. I hope you dont sue me for IPR :) >

Everybody has heard about this in the same way . An email . The Email. The mindblowing email. The pcitures you thought were as close to heaven as you could possibly get .

Pictures from the original email can be found here & here ( once again , source= prashanth's blog) . Now , after seeing these photos , would'nt everyone want to go there ?!

It is the stairway to Heaven !

This place is 65kms from Bangalore . 3 kms to the left of chikballapur. Take the left turn adjacent to the chikballapur temple on NH7 ( hyderabad highway) and a left and a right turn later , you reach papagni mutt . Park your vehicles here and start your night trek here .

[ Pic- All set to embark on the trek at 2am - Sandeep , Phani ,karthik,prashant,sapan , chaitanya , abhinav, manja , swagath , deepak ]

Ive never been on a night trek before . The very thought of it hit somewhere deep down and it was a sense of euphoria and exhilaration. Me along with 12 friends and colleugues set out on this long night trek . Everyone had torches , backpacks with essentials , 4 litres of water ( coz there is no water on the way or on top) , Sleeping bags , tents and loads of enthusiasm !

We left bangalore city limits at about 10pm . A dinner stopover at a dhaba near jakkur air field and two hours later , we were cruising along the 6 lane highway towards chikballapur . We reached Chikballapur at 1AM. Not a soul in sight . A couple of phone calls and an enquiry with the local mamu ( read cop-watching-southafrica-australia-worldcup-match-at-1AM ) , and we reached papagni mutt .

We took a guide for Rs 100/- ( good decision , considering it was pitch dark ) and set off . we had to take many breaks during our climb . The climb was pretty tasking. But the cool breeze and the air-through-the-hair made it simpler to climb. All that was seen was a trail of 13 torches wandering about in the wilderness !

[ Pic- Enroute]

The stary skies above our head ,
the lofty mountains beneath our feet,
13 comrades wander about ,
In search of bliss.

We finally reached the top at 4-45 am . Out came the sleeping bags and the tents that we had so paintstakingly lugged along ! Everyone was knocked out . Every minute of the climb was an experience by itslelf . You have to experience it to believe it .

[Pic- Chaitanya and Phani in their tents ]

45 minutes later , the first signs of daybreak, and all the shutterbugs came alive . I brought out my tripod and camera and started clicking.

[Pic - Daybreak , Living on the edge]

The shock came, when we realised how much we had trekked in a few hours ! If finally dawned upon us ( Quite literally ! ) We could'nt believe we have trekked such a huge mountain ! We started our descent at 8am . We were back at base camp at 9am . Surprising how the descent takes one thirds of the time compared to the ascent .

[Pic- Look there ! ]

[Pic- First Rays hit the ruins ]

[ Pic: Trek back]

Back in bangalore at 10-30 am

More Photos here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhinavrm/tags/skandagiri/

and at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhinavrm/tags/nighttrek/

Rocking & Cricketing weekend !

2007-03-19T00:13:00.000+05:30

Saturday was a hectic day !

Cisco Sportstunity is conducting their sports draws in various events like : Cricket , TT , badminton , chess , carroms , football , volleyball. The entire company is divided into 4 groups based on the Business units . I belong to group 4.

Our teams first cricket match was on saturday . The match was played with a leather ball with all the cricket gear at NRA cricket grounds in palace grounds !!! The match started at about 11-15 with our team losing the toss and fielding first . The team consisted of Rajeev , Subbaiyah , Gopal , Arun , Ajay , Chandrashekar , Anjan , Suri , Sudhir , Prashant and Yours truly.

The match was 15 overs a side .The bowling started with Suri and Sudhir who bowled 2 overs each . They bowled with great accuracy and intimidation , restricting the scoring to about 5-6 runs an over and giving away absolutely Nil extra's . Then came first change bowling of Anjan and myself . I managed to pick up the first wicket , but gave away 3 wides, the over ultimately costing 7 runs . A break was taken after 8 overs when the opponent team was at 67 for 1. After the break , Rajeev came onto bowl , and with his accurate bowling , picked up two wickets. After 15overs , the team has mustered 106runs . A rule said that if a manager is in the playing 11, the team gets 10 runs bonus ( ??!?!?!?!) . So the team totalled 116 . These 10 runs turned out to be the critical deciding factor for the outcome of the match.

After a break of cold buttermilk which everyone drank by the litres and some fresh watermelons later ( with salt and pepper ) , we started batting . 117 to chase in 15 overs at a run rate of 7.8 runs per over . Getting the runs was easy , provided we stayed at the wicket which was easy to score of . Me and Subbaiyah went opening . The first ball of the innings was a disaster . I hit the ball to long on , and set off for a run , only to realise the fielder from short midwicket pouncing and running out Subbaiyah ! Aargh . I felt a lump in my throat . Subbaiyah was run out without even facing a single ball .Score 0/1 .Sorry for that Subbaiyah. Gopal came in and played a few strokes . Next over , the bowler was bowling way outside offstump. I cut twice and got two boundaries of consequetive balls . a few strokes down the ground and a couple of doubles. Score 19/1 after two overs . Third over , ball two , i got bowled , to a delivery pitched on off and virtually went rolling to the stumps . Didnt bounce much. Few balls later Gopal got bowled followed by prashant . The wickets were tumbling like tenpins ! Arun went in and was out LBW to a ball going down leg . Score about 30/5 . Then chandra and Sudhir went in . The left and right combination got a few runs and some extra's too :) It all seemed going along nicely when chandra got out . Suri and anjan , sudhir took the total close to 85. we needed 30 runs from about 23 balls . very gettable considering sudhir and suri were in great touch and getting lots of boundaries .Sudhir was hit on his forearm by a snorter. Not disturbed , he marched on and was unbeaten at the end . Unfortunately , two more wickets fell and we fell short of the total . We were all out for 99 .

The runs were gettable , but the regular loss of wickets did us in .Maybe , we shud have practiced with a leather ball atleast once before the match . We were only practicing with a tennis ball . However , it was a great match and im sure we will be there next year ! Other teams , watch out !

The Cricket Team

We took a few photos , signed on the memento -a miniature bat, which i got one day before the match . I headed home to pick up the maiden ticket and head back to palace grounds for the concert !

Kanteerva in all its glory !

2007-03-16T01:20:00.000+05:30

Here is the Kanteerva Outdoor Stadium , Bangalore in all its glory on a chilly winter evening

This Photo at Flickr : Clik here

Maiden's maiden concert in the subcontinent !

2007-03-16T01:11:00.000+05:30

Iron Maiden - India - Bangalore - 17th march - maiden's maiden tour - Tickets in the pocket - Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaow !!!!

Cascading Reflections

2007-03-04T03:56:00.000+05:30

Here is a picture shot of the reflection of a few trees in a swimming pool . The crests and troughs of the water surface give the reflections a cascading look . The overall effect is accentuated by the brightly coloured tiles of the swimming pool and the crystal clear water.

Camera : Canon Powershot A60

New Widgets

2007-02-26T00:28:00.000+05:30

All right , Now most of the widgets that i have added are doing their rounds on blogs across the globe . Thanks to a few ppl like Bhaskar, Sunil , Sharath, Sabarish who update their blogs ,ever so religiously , and keep adding new widgets , that i always think . "Hey . thats cool . I should have it too!!! "

So here is a list of all the widgets on my blog :

1) About me - Duh , wouldnt be too much of a help having a blog if this wasnt there !
2) Clustrmaps - Look who's been reading my blog on a globe
3) CBox - Start typing and send messages on the live message board .
4) Time - A Cute looking penguin showing the time , Open source style !
5) Technorati - Back links to my blog !

Some great stuff .

<>

Broke the prison !!!

2007-02-25T23:53:00.000+05:30

PRISON BREAK

One hellova TV series being aired in US right now . Scheduled to be aired in india March onwards . It reminds me of Shawshank Redemption !

The story of Prison Break is like this :

Convinced that his wayward brother LINCOLN BURROWS was wrongly convicted of the sensational murder of the Vice President’s brother, which landed him on Fox River State Penitentiary’s death row, a desperate MICHAEL SCOFIELD attempted a daring bank robbery in order to get himself incarcerated in Fox River with Lincoln. Michael, an engineer with access to the prison’s structural design, then masterminded an elaborate plan to free Lincoln by pulling off the ultimate PRISON BREAK.

Aided by an intricate tattoo of the prison’s blueprints covering his upper body, Michael aligned himself with his cellmates . Overcoming many setbacks, the brothers and six other inmates ultimately escaped from Fox River.

Outside the prison walls, the escape truly begins as the convicts race for their lives – and the hidden cash( 5m$ hidden by DB Cooper) –while trying to avoid capture by the authorities. The pursuers are led by vengeful prison guard Captain who, driven by a personal vendetta, will stop at nothing until the escapees are captured or killed.

PRISON BREAK is executive-produced by Brett Ratner (“X Men: The Last Stand,” “Rush Hour”), Paul Scheuring, Matt Olmstead, Marty Adelstein, Dawn Parouse and Neal Moritz.

Production Companies : 20th Century Fox Television

Executive Producers : Paul Scheuring, Matt Olmstead, Dawn Parouse, Marty Adelstein, Neal Moritz, Brett Ratner.

Ive been watching this series , four to five episodes at a time and its a real thriller .You just cant stop watching it !

Vinton Cerf - The guru was here !

2007-02-25T23:14:00.000+05:30

Im back in business ! Yes . After a small break , im back , decided to update the blog with some posts !

The first thing that comes to my mind is the Vinton Cerf Seminar organised by Google.

He's a Genius . The father of the internet . He along with Robert Kahn , made the TCP/IP protocol. A part of the ARPANET team. I was in the same hall as he was ! a truly humbling experience . The first thing that hits you is the simplicity of this person . A simple and unassuming personality . He spoke on the past and future of the internet , his experiences . What really caught my attention is the amount of stress for IPN ( Interplanetary Networks ) .

YES ! That was the topic of my interest in 8th sem and i almost did my proj in that. He spoke of the DSN - the Deep Space Networks ( read more about it here ) . Very neat ! All in all , it was a great talk and its a part of the google talk series scheduled to be held every 3 months . Watch out for the talk on "Page Ranking algo" !!

Watch out for more !

Welcome to the Human Network

2006-11-27T01:37:00.000+05:30

The Bridge between the Old and the New

Mention the name CISCO and several word association images are conjured . The Classic 1950s Western Television Series starring Duncan Renaldo, CISCO and Leo Carrillo, Pancho. The other association, WAR , a Prominent Funk Rock Band of the 1970s and 1980s with their Gut-Wrenching, Booming-Bass, Soul-Stirring hit CISCO KID which was a staple in my musical diet for many years.

This is not about the legendary television series nor funk rock hit records. Rather the corporation CISCO SYSTEMS, which established itself as the manufacturer of equipment used to create Internet networks and phone systems — routers and switches that make up 60 percent of the company's $28 billion in revenue

CISCO's Identity has undergone several incarnations throughout the years. The previous Identity (bridge enclosed in a box) was created in-house. Gary McCavitt, Creative Director, Worldwide Brand Strategy and Identity initiated the Identity and Brand Development for the current project. He had the support of CEO John Chambers who wanted some of the DNA of the bridge incorporated in the new Identity. This project is part of a new marketing campaign:

"Welcome to the Human Network".

The new redesigned CISCO Identity is the result of two old hands, Masters of Identity Practice Joe "Phenom" Finocchiaro and Jerry "The King" Kuyper. They first met in the early 70s, when they were in school at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule, The Basel School of Design. Later in their careers they collaborated at several of the First Tier Identity Consultancies.
Joe had already been working with Bob Jones, Senior Art Director at Cisco, to develop a corporate serif and sans serif font family. When Joe received the call to redesign the Identity for Cisco, Joe immediately contacted his friend Jerry Kuyper, currently an independent identity consultant.

The former bridge in a box Identity presented multiple problems to me: It was confining, limited in visual meaning and scope. Furthermore, always reminded me of the bars in a graphic equalizer or bar chart.

The new Identity is streamlined, it adequately addresses the goals and aspirations of management's vision of how it sees itself, what it has become and where it wants to go. Joe Phenom and The King breathed life into an otherwise visually cluttered Identity.Brevity, Clarity and Verve were incorporated to Support Management Vision. Identities need to Accurately Reflect Corporate Mission, Voice, Image and Culture. In that Respect, The New Cisco Identity is a Success. This Identity should last Cisco a Couple of Decades without Revitalization even through Merger and Acquisition.

All ill say is "welcome to the human network" !
CHK IT OUT [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60pWzJvb9Q ]

Caught in a booby trap

2006-09-14T23:19:00.000+05:30

A Recent Psychological test by Abhijit really caught my attention. The test consisted of a simple change of Birthday in his orkut(a social networking site) homepage . http://www.orkut.com/ usually sends out birthday reminders.It just went to show that people blindly follow information on the virtual world ( Yes , it did turn out pretty distant from reality ! )

What I'm trying to highlight here is the overdependence of modern day netizens on seemingly helpful gadgets ! How many of you would remember off-hand, the phone numbers of 5 of your most called friends/collegues ? how many of you would remember the birthdays of 10 of your friends [pun intended] ? How many of you remember your to-do list without the help of ur digital assistant like Outlook or Notes ? None ? Join the club ! Your answer speaks for itself .

The supporting factor being that it didnt occur to me to get up and look at the wall mounted birthday calendar just 3.5 feet away and verify abhijit's b'day before i fell for his booby trap and wished him 11days in advance !Why ? coz his b'day was listed online ! And besides , when i can click-and-know , why go for the other option ?!

Gadgets have permeated into the lives of all of us to such a large extent that it is impossible to live without it . At the same time , its not always WYSIWYG !!!!! So , watch out and hail paper calendars !

Capturing the moods of the evening sky

2006-09-08T01:10:00.000+05:30

This is a first attempt to a photo blog.
I set out with my camera on the rooftop and here's what i managed to click. Camera= Canon Powershot A60.

Capturing the moods of the evening sky.

I dont quite know a simple way to capture the exif info . If someone can enlighten me on this , it would be great !

The Lean Mean Machine !

2006-08-03T03:41:00.000+05:30

Finally , after 5 months of using this device , I'm writing about it !

The Man : Abhinav
The Machine : Olympus M-robe 500i
The Tyre ( oops Size ) : 20gb

The photo :

The stylish m:robe 500i is a 20GB music player and photo viewer with a convenience 1.2MP digital camera. Or is it a portable photo viewer with a camera and convenience music player? Huge 3.7 inch screen is VGA resolution and text is very readable. Camera adjusts well to widely varying light conditions. Audio is exceptionally clean. Stable, good-looking TV output.
Touch screen is a bit fussy, and doesn't work in TV-out mode. Pictures are snapshot-quality only.

The best part of it all : 20gb ..I've got all the music ill need for a lifetime on this player !
New feature : Quote from Olympus : REMIX MUSIC AND PHOTOS. Listen to music and view and share photos like never before. Watch your photos jam to the beat with transitions and templates as you turn any song and group of photos into its own music video for you and others to view right on the 3.7" color LCD, or on a TV. Then save your "videos" for future viewing or select a new song and new photos for entirely new remixes.

All in all , a great player , especially considering the great deal that i got it for !

Update : Did i forget to mention the million cords and cradles and
connectors used for charging and for operation . I almost have to carry a
suitcase for the player and its accessories every time i need to take it on
excursions !

Butter Gulkhand !

2006-07-25T13:41:00.000+05:30

As you cross Malleshwaram 4th cross and await the signal to turn green at Malleshwaram Circle , you usually find a large bunch of people surrounding a small shop , eating from a small paper plate . You peek-a-boo and discover why . Its the most famous *Butter Gulkhand* stall . When I used to stay in malleshwaram , i always wondered how one can eat butter along with gulkhand , a seemingly deadly and potentially stomach upsetting combo ! Not to be . One taste of it and i was hooked onto it !

The Bhagyalaxmi Butter and Gulkand Store, in Malleswaram, has been a favourite haunt for gulkand lovers for more than 50 years. The owner says that he got the basic formula for his famous gulkand from a chemist ! Gradually, with trial and error, he innovated and introduced tempting varieties. The ordinary butter gulkand here costs Rs. 8 per plate. The store offers its "special" — with banana salad and tutti-frutti — at Rs. 10. Another exclusive to the store is the dry fruit gulkand, which has cashew, raisins, badam, pista, and dates, priced at Rs. 12. The shop also offers a particularly soothing butter gulkand with ice-cream for Rs. 15 !

An awesome place . A rosy treat !

I recommend you all to stop by and try it out !

Its Been a While

2006-06-17T01:07:00.000+05:30

Its Been a while ,
Its Been a while !
- Staind'

Yes , its been a while since i've entered the realms of Blogger.com ! a *Lot* of things have hapenned since my last post.

In reverse chronological order :

[ i will write it in points . As is customary in every vtu exam and i also hope that my evaluator will read this and give me good marks , at least in the 8th sem ! ]

1) I Survived VTU - Its true ! Pinch me ! Its finally over . I use the word *Survived* coz it was nothing less than that ! It was one helluva roller coaster ride [ highly cliched' stmt , but ill still say it ]

2) Completed my Project at Supercomputing Education Research Center [SERC] , Indian Institute of Science [IISc] , Bangalore ! my project was "Improving performance of Wimax by enhancing the 802.16 MAC throughput for a pervasive computing environment". It was a great project which involved optimizing the contention resolution process for BWR messages with a new paradigm of circularity for Broadband wireless systems. It was a great project and hats off to my team for a fantastic experience [ mj and aj ] ( Did i forget to mention our now legendary duel on WHO is going to do the boring report !!! heheh)

3) Have been missing from the MS chimp program. All fellow chimps , I'm Back !

4) Havent had a hair cut in ages . I look like a 1940 bollywood hero with long flowing hair. I dedicate this link to "Mere lambe kaale ghane sundar bal ka raaz , dabur amla kesh tel" !har har har :) [ guys at dabur , u getting some free publicity here , payments can be made in cash !!! ]

5) Got a 160 gig Hard disk

6) Installed FC5 ( fedora core 5 )

7) Installed Suse 10.1

8) Installed FC5 Again

9) Reached a 1000 in orkut !!!

10) Got a 20GB Olympus M:Robe 500i MP3 player ! ( more details on this in the next post )

11) Went on a few trips .

Hmm. That sums up what i've been upto in the past few months !

Until the M:robe's in-depth-analysis , adios

I got tagged !!!

2006-03-16T00:19:00.000+05:30

I got tagged by Sunil almost 3 weeks back and i had completely forgotten about it !

The tag was Here

A tag - What it is ?!

A tag is when a friend sends you some questions that you need to answer in your blog and then pass on the tag.

The tag that I got has the following instructions as mentioned in his blog -

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the person.
3. Tag 8 (or as many as possible) victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

Now , Sunil got me really good here . In partial fulfilment of the passing on the tag , i shall enumerate my points (i'm sounding a lot like a vtu project report, but then again , this is what happens when too much time is spent on projects !)

Here u go :

Gender: female
Qualities: ( im keeping them short and simple )

Intelligent
bright
clever
quick-witted
sharp
smart
well-informed
scholarly
rational
forthcoming
attractive
entertaining
sympathetic
thoughtful
sensitive
intriguing
logical-thinker
responsive

Ok , so i have crossed the limit of 8 ! And dont reach out to that dictionary yet :)

People i'm tagging !

Sharath M S
Deepthi Rao
Karthik P
Sandhya S
Bhaskar Mitra
Shreenath
Krishna
Lakshmi S
Siva

[ the reason i have tagged nine people is that i think at least one of you must have been tagged before . So keeping that in mind , u r tagged . There's no escaping me :) ]

Party on ! and keep taggin !

Live Windows !

2006-03-04T21:42:00.000+05:30

Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE)
Bootable live windows CD/DVD

Thanks a lot to Krishna for this info .

I found this a great product . After getting addicted to LIVE distro's of linux like Knoppix , Krishna helped me find BART Pe

What is BartPE and PE Builder?

Bart's PE Builder helps you build a "BartPE" (Bart Preinstalled Environment) bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.

It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.
This will replace any Dos bootdisk in no time!

You can Download it >>Here<<

Getting started

This page will help you create your very first BartPE CD. It assumes that you are using Windows XP.

Make sure that your system has about 500MB of free disk space!

Download the latest PE Builder version (self-installing package) and install it.

Start PE Builder (pebuilder.exe). When you start PE Builder for the first time it will ask if you agree with the license agreement.

Now PE Builder will ask to search for windows installation files. If you don't have your windows XP setup/installation files on your system you must insert the original Microsoft Windows XP installation/setup CD at this point.
The files you have at c:\windows are not installation files. They are your already installed files!
Click "yes" to start searching. PE Builder will now search all fixed- and CD-Rom drives for Windows installation files. This will take some time. When more than one valid location is found, a dialog will appear where you can select which location you want to use.

At the main PE Builder dialog, select the "Burn to CD/DVD" option. When you are using an erasable medium, make sure that the "AutoErase RW" option is enabled. The "burn using" option should be set to "StarBurn". Select your CD writer device from the Device list.

Hit the "build" button. PE Builder will now ask you to create a BartPE directory, answer with "yes".

The license for your Microsoft Windows XP product is shown. Read it and agree to it to continue.

PE Builder will now start building BartPE. This will take a few minutes.
You will see a lot of files getting copied and/or decompressed, the ISO image build and the data recorded to your CD/DVD writer.
If the data verify was correct and there where no errors reported you can boot the CD/DVD!

Another alternative to Bart pe is the Windows PE . Its a command prompt interface though

The battle begins !

2006-03-02T02:19:00.000+05:30

Since i have decided to read the LOTR , i thought ill give a daily update of how many pages ive done and decide for myself whether i can finish it in one week or not ! The read-it-in-one-week funda began long back when BigFoot challenged Maunkey that he cant finish it in one week . At that time , i thought , a thousand pages in a week ? HA ! a cakewalk !

Time shall tell ....

Keep watching as the saga unfolds !

Update 1 : End of Day 1 : Slow start .only done abt 40 pages :( Well what do you expect , i started reading at 2am!

Update 2 : 140 pages and counting !

Update 3 : im stuck with 210 odd pages , and i have figured out after about 2 weeks of haphazard reading , i shall give no more updates and this book is gonna take one hellova lot of time to read !

Stay tuned for more updates

Happy days are here again

2006-03-02T02:03:00.000+05:30

Its Spring time ! As the trees don a new brilliant green , i feel elated and ecstatic . This was my mood today. Heard some awesome songs, had a nice sumptuous dinner , and after a stroll on the terrace in the cool evening breeze , settled down and read LOTR ! Bliss ! I dont know whether it was the food or the music or the weather, its been a great day !

Its Been a While

2006-02-27T00:44:00.000+05:30

Its been a while since i wrote anything on this page. Since i have been listening to a lot of music lately [ since i finally got loads and loads of time to catch up with all those casettes and cd's which were lying around , gathering dust !]

So , i thought ill compile my all time Fav list of songs .! here you go .

Linkin Park - Crawling

Cradle of filth - Hallowed be thy name

Creed-With arms wide open

Moby - Porcelain

Dire straits- Money for Nothing

Fools Garden - Lemon Tree

Metallica - Nothing else Matters

Ozzy Osbourne - Dreamer

Guns n Roses - November Rain , Estranged

John Denver - Country Roads

Goo goo Dolls - Iris

Gladiator - Theme

Guns n Roses - Sweet child o' mine

Led zep - Straiway to heaven

3 doors down - Loser

Bob Dylan - Like a rolling stone

Hammerfall - The fallen one

Metallica - Fade to Black

Blur - Wu-hoo

Queen - I want to break free

Def leppard - From the inside

Eric Clapton - Tears in heaven

Deep purple - Smoke on the water , hush

A - Nothing

Deep forest - World Mix

U2- ELevation

Albert Hammond - Im a train

Cranberries - Zombie

Beatles - Let it Be

Pantera - To live is to die

Quarashi - Stick em' up

Distrubed - Stupify

Bob Dylan - Blowing in the wind

AC-DC - Highway to hell

Blid Melon - No rain

Aerosmith - Janie's got a gun

StainD & Fred durst - Outside

Phew , Quite a list !

Radio City mein jhoom jao

2006-02-17T02:48:00.000+05:30

All of you must have heard the new radio city jingle .[ Doesnt necessarily mean i listen to it]

To listen to Radio City FM 91 new Anthem (Signature Tune) composed by Shankar-Esaan-Loy and sung by Shaan, click here.

I must admit that the song is pretty catchy !
enjoy

Been reading a bit

2006-02-15T14:06:00.000+05:30

After much deliberation and much ado , i finally read some books .
The obvious choice was Chetan bhagat and his 2 awesome books

These two books [ Five Point someone & One Night at the Call Center ] are a MUST READ for all college students !

Next on the list : LOTR !!!
i plan to finish the book in ONE week flat . An arduous task though. Any sugesstions ?

4 days of sheer fun !

2006-02-01T14:33:00.000+05:30

A spark.

An idea.

Jobless people with nothing to do .

Holidays.

loads of time .

All the above form a perfect combination! A perfect combination to get away . Far from the monotony . What a lovely time we had . In case you still cant figure it out , me and 6 other college pals went on a great trip .

Places covered = Jog , Gokarna , Karwar, GOA !
People = Yours truly, bigfoot (pimpy) , Caveman zac, KG (ammarolla), narendra, pachpan tikli, sant .
Duration = quite a long trip

After the customary "planning" meetings at pachpan tikli's place , all was set . A qualis was booked . The dates decided . Itenary finalised and one special day at abt 10-30 PM , we set out on our journey .

First destination:jog falls . I have never seen jog falls so empty! all we could see was a small trickle of water from one of the falls ( dont know which of the raja,rocket,rani,rover it was) . I feel there are TWO times when we should visit water falls - either when its oozing with water in monsoons or when the water is in a trickle . During monsoons, you can just watch and admire the sheer volume and force of the water and during dry season ,you can stand right below the water falls and laugh and say --"Ha ha , i am standing under the jog falls " which would never have been possible during normal times . So there we were , trekking down all the way till we were standing right under the waterfall . Imagine water falling from a height of 900ft right onto your body [btw, the water was COLD ] ! Amazing ! The small reservoir into which the water falls was pristine blue-green, the color one would associate with Utopia . The trek back to the top was the most arduous task i must have done in quite a while now !

Next destination was gokarna .I must tell you that the beaches in gokarna(not the main beach) WERE better than any other beach that i have seen in india. OM beach , KUDLE beach and paradise beach were really neat and clean and not crowded at all . We could walk into the sea for about 100-150 meters and still be only waist deep in water . So , ample oppurtunities to fool around !

Next destination was karwar.Absolutely Nothing to do in this place .Just a few people on the beach parasailing and a few riding water scooters ( a big rip-off considering the price!) . Drove through the town and saw the project sea bird and a few ship docks and clicked a few photos in restricted defence area ! after that Adios Karwar , Guetentag GOA !

We finally entered the zone. The much spoken about, goa. Our base was Panaji. Went to old goa and visited the Church of St Xaviers ( i think) .This person was laid to rest in this very church and after the photo clicks , moved onto the ASI museum and the church adjoining it. These Churches were truly Majestic ! a treat to the eyes. The Grandeur and the sheer size of them were intimidating. Another thing that amazed me was that the old building were still standing and have not given way to some moron trying to make fast money by building apartments. The old colonial architechture is still seen in the entire city .The place has a definite aura about it.

[ AT THIS POINT MY COMP RESTARTED WITHOUT A REASON AND I LOST ABOUT 5 PARAS OF TEXT THAT I HAD WRITTEN. I HAD TO GO THROUGH THE TROUBLE OF RECOLLECTING ALL MY THOUGHTS AND RETYPE THE WHOLE THING.Aaaaargh...i tried a "recover post" , but that didnt work either]

Then off to the fort where a local guy said "dil chahta hai was shot in this fort".Its an awesome sight from there. About 270 degrees and hills and the clean blue sea. what a sight! Not to forget the fort itself .

Then the beaches! We Visited so many of the beaches around and i dare say that the beaches in gokarna were cleaner!You name it, we did it Played in the water, splashed around ,swam, played football, slept, just sat there admiring the sea, ogled, ate ,so on and so forth and other things better left unsaid .Basically had a ball .

The trip = brilliant!

ADIOS

chk out the photos at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhinavrm/sets/72057594059160465/

Ork - Ork

2006-01-25T01:19:00.000+05:30

A few days back , i was flooded with requests to join a gazillion networking sites . Orkut , Hi5 , Sms.ac , Tickle and what not . The first place that all these mails went to, was the trash can. I even created a mail filter to junk these mails . Those clever people always found a way to bypass my filter rules . Then came one day when the number of requests were too many to ignore . And lo and behold , i signed up for Orkut .

I was amazed ! Truly . The number of people out there .Seems like the whole world is on orkut ! I found lots and lots of old friends, school buddies , PU college guys , seniors , juniors , tom , dick , harry and so on . I was finally "networked" . Then the fun began . "scrapping " was supossed to be the most fun part . And so it was ! [ hurray i reached 100 scraps ..hehe]

It all finally came together when we had a NPS get-together @ forum one fine day . People whom i had not met for 6 years , were all on orkut and the like ! We were all there , chatting away to glory , joblessly wandering about Transit . About 16 of us finally made it to the get-together. The day never came to an end . Caught a movie 'In her Shoes' (Cameron Diaz) . An ok movie which had traces of bollywood bundle masala . After that a customary trip to CCD and the customary shots of coffee.

orkut and the like Justified ? I would agree .

WUHOOO

2006-01-24T03:30:00.000+05:30

Heehaw !
Finally , after lots of chopping and changing and experimenting and changes , I present you "Blogically Mine" in a Brand New avatar ! Its got more jaz, more spice , more color , and above all more blog-posts !!!

Comments/brickbats most welcome !
And yes , the blog will be updated more often and with more mirch-masala .

Hurray ! Kudos !

Mathurs in the NEWS !

2006-01-19T01:08:00.000+05:30

For the record : I am Abhinav Raj 'Mathur'.

Hyderabadi Mathur Kayastha's in the print media.

The Week, January 15th issue, page 55

We, the Mathurs of Hyderabad are a great bunch of people. And im proud to say so . The article truly reflects the lives of mathurs. DAKSHIN , the weekly feature article in THE WEEK , features the legacy of mathurs.

Here is the Article :( I really recommend you to read the whole thing.My comments will follow after the article)

Dakshin
Kinetic community

Kayasthas in Hyderabad are proud inheritors of a noble lineage.

By Lalita Iyer

They say if you get invited to a Kayastha home for dinner, you better have a snack ahead of the trip. For, though the Kayasthas love their food and are happy to serve it, too, the cook is sent out to the grocer only after the guests have arrived. Ask a Kayastha about this and he would burst into laughter in agreement. Quick on the uptake, easy with the laugh, the Kayastha community is known to embrace life with an unmistakable passion.

"We are a fun-loving community with intellectual pursuits," says Sashi Saxena, lecturer in English at Rhoda Mistry College of Social Work. "After sunset, our liking for food and enjoyment takes precedence," she adds. That is surprising though, because the community is otherwise into the more serious business of civil administration.

Delving into the history of the Kayasthas, Dr Bhaskar Raj Saxena (in pic with wife) says: "Our association with the Mughals left a mark on our customs. It was a mutual exchange of culture.... Though the Dum ki Biryani is attributed to the Hyderabad Nizams, I would say that they learnt it from us." According to him, biryani was earlier known as maas bhaat. When it moved to Hyderabad and got embellished with dry fruits and spices, the present name came about.
Legend has it that the Kayasthas are descendants of the mythological Chitragupta, who was born with a pen in one hand and a sword in the other, and is supposed to have emerged from the navel of Vishnu. As such, pen and sword are worshipped in Kayastha households during the festival of Dusserah. Chitragupta had two wives—the elder being Shobavati (also known as Iravati) and the second one, Nandini (also known as Dakshini). Shobavati had eight sons—Mathur, Bhatnagar, Saxena, Gour, Nigam, Ambisht, Karna and Kulshetra, while Nandini had four—Srivastav, Sukhdwaj, Valmiki and Asthana. Their descendants brought about 12 sub-castes among the Kayasthas.

"While 11 of these brothers are one family and have no issues, the Mathurs, the eldest, consider themselves superior," says Raj Saxena. Bansi Raja, forefather of the Saxenas, was recognised for his talent in poetry. He explained the principles of Yog Vasishta—an ancient text in Sanskrit attributed to Guru Vasishta—which is a dialogue between Rama and Vasishta, in 55 stories, which have further been depicted in 110 miniature paintings. Raj Saxena has the originals of these carefully stored in his house.

The Kayasthas, owing to their diplomatic skills and proximity to the throne, acquired the reputation of being the eyes and ears of the Asaf Jahi rulers in Hyderabad. According to Jagdish Mohanlal, a Mathur, the Mughals adopted a lot from the Hindus including "modes of dressing, food habits and jewellery". And, the Kayasthas, who had migrated from Uttar Pradesh, and had been in the good books of the Mughals, were profoundly influenced by the Mughals, too. Sherwanis and churidar-pyjamas, the traditional Kayastha attires, began to be worn by the courtiers of the Nizam. For the Kayasthas, sherwani remains the dress of the bridegroom even today. The Kayasthas’ daily wear during the Mughal period was reflective of the amalgamation of Hindu-Muslim culture taking place on all fronts. You could never catch a Mathur without his headgear.

The Mughals adopted a lot from the Hindus including modes of dressing, jewellery and food habits.Jagdish Mohanlal

The Kayasthas held important positions in the Mughal administration. The ancestor of the Malwala Mathurs of Hyderabad was Shri Raghunath, a vazir of Aurangzeb. Later, when the Mughal empire spread towards southern India, Kayastha families, mostly Mathurs and Saxenas—earlier known as Sukhsenas, as most of their men were happily employed in army—accompanied the Mughal army and migrated from Delhi to Aurangabad. The Kayasthas have their ninth generation in Hyderabad now. Several Kayasthas who laid down their lives fighting for the Mughals had been rewarded with jagirs and mansabs.

The Malwala family is considered the ‘founding family of the Mathurs’. They wielded power as the hereditary custodians of the ‘daftar-e-mal’, revenue records office for the Telengana. Hence the name ‘Malwala’. The Malwalas held the position of daftardar and seristedar.

The Mathurs of Hyderabad were a close-knit cultural entity settled in Chowk Maidan Khan, a locality to the east of Charminar. The Malwala Palace, constructed in the 19th century, was the most impressive residence in the area. It was equipped with a library and a wedding hall. The Malwala property consisted of 252 jagirs. The Kayasthas had their own court and police. The court and the police barracks were located in today’s Ameerpet. Though the Malwala men were in high positions, the women remained in the purdah for a long time. "The Kayastha women went behind the purdah following the Muslim tradition. Still, there was a sense of gender equality within the community," says Raj Saxena.

During the Nizam’s time the Malwalas were permitted to distil alcohol. They would extract liquor from rose petals, jasmine flowers and anise seeds. The liquors were so strong that they had to be diluted. Later, Bansi Raja, too, got a licence to distil liquor but soon the distillation stopped. "Some families might still have a bottle or two of the old liquor, but nowadays we also drink what others drink," says Raj Saxena.

Picture of Raj Saxena's grandfather's wedding

In the Nizam’s dining room, the Hindus would sit at a different table where fruits and dry fruits would be served. In fact, there was someone who would get Gangajal from his home and sprinkle it over the fruits to purify them. And when the Muslims came visiting the Kayastha homestead, they would have a separate daawat. "This was because the Hindus were very devout," says Raj Saxena. "Also till 1948, at a Mathur wedding, only the Mathur biradari was invited." The Kayastha family would eat kachi rasoi with biradari and paki rasoi (fried items) with everyone. Of course, the Kayasthas are famous for their biryani as well as the 75 types of kebabs.

Even today the Mathurs remember the splendour of the ‘Silangans’ during Dusshera, which were attended by Resident Sir Arthur Lozan, Nawab of Chattari and the then prime minister. It was because of the high esteem Raja Dharam Karan enjoyed that the Nizam of Hyderabad Usman Ali Khan attended the marriages of Raja Ram Karan, Dr Harish Chandra and Prem Chand. On this occasion, select Mathurs had the honour of offering nazarana to the Nizam. The Kayasthas recognised the importance of community living very early.

The practice has been revived in recent times in the form of Hyderabad Mathur Kayasthas Educational and Welfare Society. They also plan to come out with an all-Kayastha telephone directory.

Noted Kayasthas:The posts of the President of India and the Prime Minister were held by Kayasthas—Dr Rajendra Prasad and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Governors from the community include Girish Saxena, Govind Sahai and General S.K. Sinha. While Sampurnanand and Satya Narayan Sinha were chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, there were civil administrators like Pamalal ICS, and members of the viceroy’s cabinet such as Lord Sinha and J.P. Srivastava.
In the glam world of the day, there are Amitabh Bachchan (though born a Srivastava, the title ‘Bachchan’ was conferred on his father Harivanshrai later) and Shatrughan Sinha. Swami Vivekananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi belonged to the community as also Birbal and Raja Todar Mal, who were among the Navaratnas in Akbar’s court .

The actual articles printed are as follows.You can click them for a larger view.[The text is same as above]

WHATEVER ! (for the lack of a better Title)

2006-01-18T05:08:00.000+05:30

Hi !
The Fiasco is over .The silence after the storm. The exams conquered . Life goes on .
As i recover from the trauma , the holiday mood sets in . Lots of things planned up .

1) Get a new blog template . Have been doing some RnD for some good templates . The search is on . ( i think ill have to refresh my Photoshop skills here !)

2) Write the 4 -5 blog posts that i have been planning to write in the past month ( they have just been sitting in deck 3 of my brain , waiting to surface on the top ...(oh and btw, the upper decks were being used by loads and loads of BS ......client server computing, Engineering technology and Mgmt, Object oriented something something and so on ))

3) SLEEP ( not that i was sleeping any less during the exams. What i meant here is SLEEP MORE)

4) Watch a gazillion movies ( already made a huge list )

5) Do some video editing and make/burn that ever elusive DVD that i have been trying to author for a month now . ( ok some details abt it : I have a panasonic DVD camcorder that writes onto DVD-RAM media [it also supports dvd-r too] . I have transferred the video files onto the comp and all i need to do is join those many frames/shots into one huge scene and then write them as a DVD . Bhoy ! am i having a wonderful time trying to do this or what . 23 days and counting and i still havent been able to find a good s/w that is a one stop shop for all my video editing and authoring needs. I am ending up downloading tonnes of software and tonnes of cracks/patches/keygens . Fine . so i finally got a bunch of s/w that do what i need to do ...But lo and behold , it takes eons to render the files and burn them . I finally wrote one dvd and im impressed with the quality)

Take a look at this . this must be about 30 mins (aprox 2.4gb) of video and its taking 5 hours to join the video! Working with high-res video sure is tough.
[Tools used : Ultra Video converter, Ultra Mpeg to DVD burner1.3.3, Ulead DVD Movie Factory Deluxe suite 3.5 ,Ulead Video Studio 8.0 SE .]

6) Am i missing something here ? Oh yeah, i believe there's something called a final year project ! I think my memory is failing me .let me check the dictionary and see what it means .

Until next time
Adios amigo's

[ hopefully see you next time with a new template ]

Exams

2005-12-31T15:59:00.000+05:30

click---Me---deep trouble---havent studied---1.5 days to go---SOS---over---click

Bangalore Chennai-ed

2005-12-20T00:08:00.000+05:30

There is a saying : when the going gets easy , the Stupid get going !
Precisely the case with the jobless administration authorities of bangalore(Oops, should i say bangaluru ?) I mean , what is the necessity to rename an entire city.Besides huge paperwork,migration costs,its such a big pain.At a time when India is looking to attain global tech mileage , why would people want to rename their city ,just because it rhymes with the local lingo ?! As sunil rightly pointed out , the local authorities should concentrate more on improving the infrastructure of Bangalore City ( the news about the pathetic infrastructure,traffic congestion,potholes etc has already spread all over the country. )

Get ready to roll your tongues . Bangaluru,Mangaluru ,Mysuru ...What next ,Mr CM ?

Update :Browser Wars

2005-12-15T12:57:00.000+05:30

Two Web-Browsers come out tops - Opera and Avant .
Yes , mozilla does not fare very highly in my ranking due to the relative lack of features compared to Avant and opera !
more specifics later [ after i conquer my lab exams !]

Breaking News ? Give me a break

2005-12-14T00:23:00.000+05:30

This is a recent trend amongst television news channels these days.
" BREAKING NEWS "

I'm shocked to see the news production teams use this without any discretion.Is it just another publiclity stunt to gain TRP points ? Since when did "Dada included in test team" become breaking news ?! Or for that matter "some MLA of [some obscure town] not feeling well" gain such high priority that it had to take 25% of my TV screen. Gone are the days when "Breaking News "actually meant that something big has hapenned. Looks like when nothing is hapenning in town, these Channels manufacture news in their backyard!

TuxHeroes

2005-12-06T13:40:00.000+05:30

Bro got a LFY dec issue . It includes Ubuntu 5.10 [ a LIVE linux distro that boots and runs directly from the CD and saves you the hassle of installing linux on your PC ]

[ LFY has a great subscription offer going on.Check the mag for details ]

Ubuntu-Linux for Human Beings
"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.
Great Distro .Other LIVE distro's include Knoppix (my favourite).

Some funda's behind "Why 5.10" and such similarly named Linux distro's :
Most linux distro's are named based on the Month and Year of their release. So ,a flavour released in Oct 2005 would be named 5.10 . Similarly,if itwas released in Mar 2006 , it would have been 6.03 . Some Gyaan there !

Another revelation:
I was always wondering how to persist my knoppix 3.2 configurations and personal settings everytime i try booting through the knoppix CD. The darn thing always resets back to the default settings .
presenting "Puppy Linux"
A 60MB distro that can load from literally anywhere :USB, Zip,CD, hard drive . Added to its small size , all the files that you create /modify can be transferred onto the CD/Flash drive and your own personal OS is portable and you can take it anywhere you want to! Just connect the media and boot ! Cool eh ?

You can download the ISO image from here and get going in no time at all.

Im also doing a little comparison on all the available web-browsers in the market today. So many to choose from [ IE, Opera, Firefox, Netscape, Avant ,SlimBrowser,......and so on] Stay tuned for my verdict . Get prepared to be surprised!

Geeky Superhereos

2005-12-01T14:01:00.000+05:30

Superhero

Springs up from the bed with a crossword in his head,
A shiver shakes his spine thinking what the boss said,
Feeling like a mouse in the tiger’s den (ah right)
Missed the bus again, runs all the way to work,
Prays to all his Gods, even Captain Kirk,
Hoping he can make it in time for the bumpy ride.

(Pre-chorus)
Opens all the windows, as he shuts the door,
As the magic begins to flow, out to the fore

(Chorus)
He’s no less than a super herocan’t make him fall
Ones and zeroes, threes and fours
But not that bad a guy after all

Afternoon comes when everyone eats,
Staring down at lines on his L.C.D screen,
Cracking up the code, faster than the speed of light.

Evening bells ringing, had to meet his date,
Digits on his hand will have to make her wait,
Smiles at his phone, then tosses it aside.

(Pre-chorus)
Opens all the windows, as he shuts the door,
As the magic begins to flow, out to the fore

(Chorus)
He’s no less than a super hero
Can’t make him fall
Ones and zeroes, threes and fours
But not that bad a guy after all.

Download the song from Here . By Parikrama

Google Web APIs

2005-11-27T00:51:00.000+05:30

Google Web API 's

With the Google Web APIs service, software developers can query billions of web pages directly from their own computer programs. Google uses the SOAP and WSDL standards so a developer can program in his or her favorite environment - such as Java, Perl, or Visual Studio .NET.

1. What are Google Web APIs?
The Google Web APIs service is a beta web program that enables developers to easily find and manipulate information on the web.

2. Who are Google Web APIs for
Google Web APIs are for developers and researchers interested in using Google as a resource in their applications.

3. How does the Google Web APIs service work?
Developers write software programs that connect remotely to the Google Web APIs service. Communication is performed via the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), an XML-based mechanism for exchanging typed information.

4. What applications can I create using Google Web APIs?
That's totally up to you and your creative genius. Some possibilities might include:

1.Issuing regularly scheduled search requests to monitor the web for new information on a subject.
2.Performing market research by analyzing differences in the amount of information available on different subjects over time.
3.Searching via non-HTML interfaces, such as the command line, pagers, or visualization applications.
4.Creating innovative games that play with information on the web.

More info at : http://www.google.com/apis

Google Maps API
The Google Maps API lets you embed Google Maps in your own web pages.The Google Maps API lets developers embed Google Maps in their own web pages with JavaScript. You can add overlays to the map (including markers and polylines) and display shadowed "info windows" just like Google Maps .

More info at : http://maps.google.com/apis/

Chk out this example that i created at : My Google API test

Dotnetworks !

2005-11-22T02:24:00.000+05:30

After a few weeks of trying to get a Dotnetwork(http://groups.msn.com/dotnetwork) session organised , it finally hapenned.Thanks a lot to my college rules for making me do so much of running around and tonnes of paper-work , just to book the seminar hall!

Anyway,Dotnetwork is MSRIT's .net student user group. Quite a hapenning place! Yeah ,so v finally had the session on 17th nov at MSRIT. T'was an introductory session, to initiate the new learners of .net. Good response. Santosh Yalawar gave the intro to .net session followed by me , who gave a few demo's.More sessions coming up in the upcoming weeks.

Apart from that , Bill gates is coming to Bangalore,India to launch Visual Studio 2005 and SQL server 2005!

Im also trying to get my blogrolling work .Not so fortunate as yet .The darn thing just does not work.

Blogger for Word

2005-11-22T01:54:00.000+05:30

Now you can use Blogger from within Microsoft® Word with the free Blogger for Word add-on. Just download and install the Blogger for Word add-in and a Blogger toolbar will be added to Word allowing you to:

1.Publish to your blog
2.Save drafts
3.Edit posts

I am uploading this post from the word plug-in ! makes life much simpler ...
You can download it Here : http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html

Ramble On

2005-11-14T02:28:00.000+05:30

Blogically Mine : LAST UPDATED Sept 17 2005

The above line says it all . I have not stepped into the blogosphere for some time . 2 months have gone by. The world has changed. The lawns are now greener, thanks to the never-ending rains .

My broadband connection has been giving me pleasant shocks . Check this out !

Data trasnfer rate = 150.7 Kilo Bytes per second !!!! 220MB in 24 minutes flat . cool . Who said broadband in india is slow ? I aint complaining .

Meanwhile , took another trip to Hyderabad. Drove 600 kms on NH7 . Barring some bad back-breaking patches, the drive is awesome . Good road and greenery all around. With the power and inspiration from Mr Tux ( the friendly neighbourhood open source penguin) , managed to touch 130 0n a rainy day . Great !

While in hyd , had a blast . Treated myself to some exotic hyderabadi cuisine . (special mention to Biryani's ,Haleem and Qubani ka meetha (apricot pudding)).Since i was there during diwali and Id season , Its just the right time to visit ......Charminar . Have u ever been shopping at 3 am ?!!!! I was witness to this shopping bonanza and frenzy . What do you do when you and your cousins are jobless at 11PM ? Head out to charminar ! On the eve of Id , the whole place turns into a mega shopping festival . Its a riot of people . People by the thousands . All this , all through the night . The atmophere is electric !

After 4 hours of soaking in the atmosphere and after feeling the pulse of the city , at 3-30 AM , its time for ...ice cream. A quick stop over at the VISIT-THIS-JOINT-ON-EVERY-TRIP ice-cream joint called "famous ice creams". Absolutely fantastic fresh, seasonal, Hand-made ice creams . Back home by 4-30AM ! I love this city .

hmmmmm.

Google earth

2005-08-29T23:39:00.000+05:30

Two links that i would like to share with you .

1) Google Earth . http://earth.google.com
If you want to spend a few hours watching satellite imaging at its best , this is your chance . Get to view any part of the earth right on your desktop .
"Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more."

Very Neat indeed .

2) Online Drive . http://www.megaupload.com
Days of my search for an online drive comes to an end. This website offers free web storage of your files (upto 250MB) and they even send u a little email to notify you and others you choose to notify .

Check them out !

The day that was ....

2005-08-18T22:40:00.000+05:30

Two days back , I attained Salvation ! how ? well, i finally , finally got my broadband connection . The story hasnt really been a fairy tale . Getting my connection was like scaling Mt. K2 . I waited for about 47 days with a certain company called Ta*a Indic*m for my connection to arrive after making full payments against connection and plan charges. But it was'nt to be . I had to cancel my connection and apply for another broadband ISP (lets call these guys Si*y) . Story remaining the same . Finally , after running behind them everyday and after enormous number of calls , time and energy , the connection arrived . What an ordeal . Nevertheless, its a great connection and the bandwidth is dedicated and very steady . If only , the connection process was a lot easier !

What would you do on a lazy saturday morning ? Sleep ? Naaah .....Head out for an excursion ! thats precisely what i did . The place was decided , cousins and relatives joined in and we headed for Shivasamudra falls. 120km , 2.5 hours drive and an awesome sight of the river kaveri in all its fury post monsoons. A fantastic place to visit and whole lot of fun !

Oh and by the way , we did venture into high waters , even though the Board on the fence said -'Donot Cross This Fence '!!!

11days , 3 movies , 2 trips & an SMPS blowout later....

2005-08-08T01:01:00.000+05:30

The day we dread , the day we all hope never comes , the day the PC crashes . It was a normal , cool , cloudy friday afternoon . Oblivious to its "supreme being" pedestal , I powered up my computer . Little did i know , my ever faithful PC would leave me in total dismay . Yes, u guessed it right , It was throwing a fit. One hour and ten minutes later , after employing some hardware debugging funda's , the problem was isolated to His Higness " The SMPS" . Phew. The power supply was replaced and Mr PC was back in action . What a day .

Yes , it has been 11 days since my first blog and bhoy , did i have loads to do in this time . I caught up with some movies that i had been waiting for. I paid a visit to the land of the minars(Now , dont u know which city im talking about , thanks to The Great Indian Laughter Challenge) and also to the Lord of the Seven Hills .
One fine day , not so long ago , all of us StudentChamps from bangalore, decided to go karting. It was time to set the tarmac on fire. It was great fun . Sharath MS aka Schumi timed the fastest lap and i came a close second. Apart from that , im finally underway writing my 19th program in VB.Net. A grand gala event awaits all of you when i finish my program(now code named Timbaktu19) .

Thats it for this edition of my blog . watch out for more . May the force be with Team India and may them win at least one Cricket championship series this year-Indianoil cup !

The Story So Far ...

2005-07-28T12:53:00.000+05:30

Hi , As i enter a new world of blogging . A space for me to go yakety-yak about everything-under-the-sun you can think of . With this web arena , i intend to reach out , truly , into "The vastness of the Unknown ".(thats all the philosophy u will ever get on this blog for a decade now ) .

My story so far has been rather trivial to elaborate too much on it . However, to consume some precious time of yours and to make my first blog longer , i will make an attempt . Ahem . Im Abhinav raj mathur , currently in this wonderful place called bangalore . My interests lie in games like cricket, basketball, football , listening to acoustic and fusion music , programming , reading non-fiction books and the telephone directory (The best way to get sleep!) Im currently doing my engineering in bangalore and currently in my final year . I will leave my engg experiences and insights for a later blog post .

If you still have'nt closed this window and are reading these words , you can take a look at my outdated website !(click here)

Thats all for this first edition . Stay aboard and Enjoy and keep checking back ..."blogically mine" !