Wishing a happy Janmashthami.

Happy Birthday Singapore

It is a belated birthday. But then sometimes we are late.

Flag
Size	700 Sq Km
Population	4.86 Million (48.6 lakhs)
Merlion
Esplanade

 

PS.

Mumbai has an area of 640 Sq Km and a Population of 19 Million.

Rajmata Gayatri Devi Passes at 90

Rajmata has been one of the most beautiful women in her times. None of the Indian Bollywood starlets could come anywhere close to her.

In her later years she looked like this.

Read more here.

Passing of a Legend. Gangubai Hangal.

At the age of 97, today morning, Gangubai Hangal left for the heavenly abode. I remember her seeing on Doordarshan National channel during my school days. It was after 9 pm there used to be Classical Sangeet program.

We will surely miss you.

Hasya Kavi.

Hope you enjoy it. It is in Hindi.

Synchronizing

With too much of data, we all have USB storage. So there is a need to synchronize this data. One way is to copy the data. But with sizes increasing to GB, it is not meaningful to do full copy every week.

I found two products on the web. Both have both a free version and a paid version. I want to share this information. Please do use them. Save time and use the saved time to watch you tube videos. :)

1. GoodSync.
2. Allway Sync.

Ghost of MJ

I read this story in the Straits times.

Went to the youtube to search. And yes it shows something. A faint black figure moving. God only know what is it. Is it MJ's ghost or something else.

See the video here and if you are in a hurry move to 8:20 place.

Google OS

Google announced yesterday that it is serious on launching an OS by the middle of next year. It will be called Chrome OS. By the way some facts.

- Chrome is a browser from Google. Available since feb this year.

- Google already has Android, an OS running on Handhelds. But they claim there will no overlapping.

In my opinion, though it looks like a small piece of IT news, but there will be lot of shake up. Seeing GMail, Google Earth, we all know that Google is capable of delivering lightweight, efficient piece of software. To be honest, I am waiting for the OS.

Read more here.

Bandra-Worli Sea Link

Now that is a good news. The much awaited Bandra Worli Sea link is ready and has got inaugurated. For those of us from Mumbai, and who have traveled towards the city via Mahim Causeway, know that this bridge is a blessing.

Some Quick Facts.

Length is 5.6km, Cost at 1600 Crore Indian Rupees. (Divide by 50 to get USD).  Some photos.

Photo from  http://indiabuzz.ne8.in/?pid=1987

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

Sad to read today that Jacko is not there anymore in flesh and body with us. I am no big fan of him, but during my school and college days it was a craze to dance like him. Every year in the school there used to be someone who used to do dance like him.

Anyway he was too young and on second round of reviving his career. This news was really a shock.

T20 World Cup

T20 is over and Pakistan has won, with Sri Lanka as the runners up. I tried asking myself, did we lack in practice, or did we lack in number of players or did we lack in strategy.  We played plenty of cricket in IPL. We also had so many players in the IPL.  That meant we had everything, right from choice of players, strategy as well as experience. Compared to us, the other countries just had handful of players, of-course for Australia.

So after lot of thinking I came to the conclusion that we should not relate IPL to world cup. IPL is IPL and World Cup is World Cup. Just because we have IPL should not give us the comfort of thinking that we have any advantage. So averages of IPL should not be used to determine winning edge in World Cup. IPL has its own merits, ICL has its own merits and so on.

Hope that we win the next T20.

T20 Loss to England

We are over-rated. And all of the team thought that no one could possibly defeat us. The first loss to West Indies should have been an eye opener. It is true that we have played more T20 games than anyone in the world, but slowly the world is catching up.

I think this loss to England is a reminder that we should not be overconfident. Too much of cricket and lack of strategy and we paid the price. Dhoni is similarly overrated, just like when Azhar, Saurav Ganguly or Dravid were winning, we equated them to Cricket greats.

Sometimes it feels that cricketers want to make all the money by playing as much as they can in as short time as possible.

Tennis had burnouts, looks like cricket will soon have the same.

Microsoft Small Basic

There are some fans of BASIC language out there (like me), here is some good news for you. Microsoft has a .Net based small basic.

The syntax is like the BASIC earlier but it is object oriented. Learning is fun. Hobby Programming.

Comes with the interpreter plus IDE.

Visit this site, download, get the docx/pdf learning guide and have fun this summer.

High Availability Manager

In Storage world, data is the driver. The purpose of storage vendors is to keep the data safe. Then innovations started. At the most basic level, RAID was offered to keep the disks (or LUN’s)  assigned to host (OS or clusters) safe. Then came the issue of availability, So there was dual pathing. But then the entire box could be a single point of failure. Here enters High Availability Manager from Hitachi Data Systems (HDS). So if for what ever reason either due to regular maintenance, or disaster or disaster testing or any other reason for that matter, if we need a failover from one USPV to other, there is a solution now. Failover always could have been done on the Storage Box, but for hosts to failover, it had to be done manually. Now even this is automated.

So you let the second USPV takeover from the first, all at the back end, front end, everything runs the way it was. I think this is not just an incremental jump. Good news for customers. Better sleep.

Read more here.

My first youtube video.

My daughter is featured here.

Bollywood Movies

This year 2009 till now (Jan-April) almost 70 movies have got released. My numbers are based on the site here. But yet we don’t see a single movie that has become hit.

Have the directors lost the formula for success? Or Are the movies not released well? No advertisement or no pre release promos etc. What ever it does not sound good for viewers.

Probably we need some magic to work in movies. Last year by this time we already had Jodha Akbar declared a major success.

Hindi TV Serials

Just like all of us have identity crisis in our lives some times, so is Hindi TV Serials having now a days. If you watch the serials and compare them to what we had on Doordarshan 20 years back, it makes us sad. Some points.

• even after 20 years the TV industry has failed to reach a maturity in making serials. It is a shame.
• Years back serials used to be made on stories picked from Hindi literature. Today they are written with absolute zero literary value.
• There are so many (hundreds to thousands) so called actors churned from so called acting schools, who don’t mind acting in any role. Commercial interest is the only driver.
• None of the private channels have any time slot for education or programs for children. Just soaps with women fighting with women wearing expensive jewellery, livng in palatial houses and wearing makeup 25 hours a day.
• Sad that we don’t even have original songs. Remix Remix Remix.

Have we reached the pit or is the quality going to fall further. I have no answers. But seems like TV has lost quality. Other than making money nothing seems to work anyone. And reality shows, better to be silent.

Feroz Khan.

Feroz Khan passed Monday early morning in Bangalore.

I remember him for three of his movies. During my school days he came in Safar (with Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore). He had a song there “Jo Tumko Ho Pasand Vahi Baat Kahenge”.

The next movie where I like both the movie and the character he played was Qurbani.

And then for a long time I did not watch any of his movies. Lately saw Welcome and reminded of him again.

A total entertainer.

Rajnigandha

That was the movie that I saw yesterday. It is based on the story by Mannu Bhanari. "Yehi Sach Hai".

 

You can read the story here.

The story is very much valid today. The songs are very melodious. You should go and listen them on you tube.

Main Characters.

Amol Palekar
Vidya Sinha
Dinesh Thakur
Rajnigandha

 

For the un-initiated people, Rajnigandha is a flower.

To see more read here or see the movie.

Songs Lyrics are by Yogesh. More about Yogesh Later.

Kai Baar Yun hi dekha hai (Mukesh)

Rajnigandha Phool Tumhari (Lata Mangeshkar)

Music is by Salil Chaudhary, A genius.

Disks->Tapes and Backup

Backups are integral for the survival of a company. There are times when backups have saved companies. But just like failed relationships are never highlighted during marriages, similarly companies never highlight that they came so close to "close", just that a good backup saved them.

But I think that the amount of data backed up and the proportion of it used actually should be fraction of 1%. So is there any other solution. Should we device technologies that can deliver the safety of a backup but avoid the capacity of storage backups.

 

The volumes of disks, tapes containing backups surpasses the amount of data that we generate for business operations.

IBM305 RAMAC

IBM 305 Ramac (Random Access Method of Accounting and control) was the first computer that had a disk drive. It was released in 1956. A long time back. Its success defined the IT industry that we see today. In all these years, the computers have become an industry and a pillar of cultural change.

There are two schools of thought. One who see a computer as a miracle piece of hardware. Its components and what can make it faster, reliable, secure and long lasting. The others see only the software aspect. The way software has revolutionized the way we do business. The software people also look at reliability, security and long lasting feature, but more of their software. Both are correct and both are wrong.

The non IT people who have no idea on how this computers work either at the hardware or the software level (the end users) see it differently. Some see it as a source of power, some as a threat, some as a friend and companion, some as a research place, some see it as a time pass, some see it as a source of money. Have I left any other categories.

Virtual Box

Innotek created the VirtualBox. It is a virtualization engine. Acquired by Sun, it has gone through a lot of changes. I have installed it on Windows XP and am running Solaris, Ubuntu and Fedora on it. Virtualization that was a distant dream a decade back, has now become a standard. How come?

Thanks to Virtualization instructions now within the CPU, things have simplified. So where are we going now from here? Already we have yesterday's OS becoming Guest OS of today. Will that become a standard for home based PC's and laptops?

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Computer Data Communication.

Since early times effort was put to ensure transmission of data. We all know that the first successful demonstration was by Samuel Morse. He invented the telegraph, and the Morse Code. It was the first time data was transmitted using electric power. This was 1844 when Morse did the first transmission from Washington DC to Baltimore (around 60 Kms).

But all successful models are based on earlier models that were proposed but somehow were not viable. In 1753 there was a proposal printed in a Scottish Magazine. The idea was to have 26 wires (one for each alphabet) run from town to town. A prototype was built. But somehow it never proved to be economical or more clearly, a business model could not be developed.

Scotland has been the land of so many firsts. We have Scots who have had numerous achievements like

- Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations" was a Scot.

- Sir Arthur Conan Dyle, "Sherlock Holmes"

- Robert Louis Stevenson, "Treasure Island"

and now Sir Alex Ferguson of "Manchester United" are just a few names on the top of my head.

So moral of the story is IT Data Communication is not a 30-40 year thing. The ideas have been coming since 400 years.

Windows 7

Yesterday the beta of windows 7 has been released. This has generated lots of interest, gossip, expectations and of course predictions. Since XP, Windows OS are moving seriously. The previous versions whether Me, 98, 95 etc have DOS Kernel based.

10 years back, the requirement of users was not that tough. Computers and OS were still evolving. Today we need everything in the OS, including a coffee maker and microwave. And so are the OS become obese.

Lets us good sense prevails and users become more matured.

Games 2008

A few games that I follow.

In the English Premier League, 2008 ended with Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United (in 1-2-3) places. The league is not yet over. But still it is safe to say that the top 5 will roughly remain same, except a rearrangement in the final stages of the league.

 

In Reliance ICC Ratings for both test matches and one dayers, Australia, India and South Africa share the top three. Australia is on the top on both versions of the game. India is 2nd on Test matches, but South Africa is second on One Dayers. Likely chance that this year end, Australia might be replaced as the world champions. But still too early to say.

In Formula One, Ferrari and Mc Laren Mercedes share the 1-2 position.

In the Beijing Olympic Games (2008), USA led in the total medal tally, followed by China and Russian Federation. But compared to Gold Medals, China stood first, followed by US and Russian Federation.

In 2009 there are no big sporting events.

Next Olympics are in 2012 - Britain.

Next Commonwealth Games are in 2010 - India

Next FIFA world cup is in 2010 - South Africa.

Next Winter Olympics are in 2010 - Canada

Next World Cup Field Hockey will be in 2010 - India

So 2009 will be an year where all countries and teams will be in the full preparation mode. India will be hosting Hockey and Commonwealth Games in 2010.

Welcome 2009

2009 is welcome. Wishing all of you a happy new year.

And a new year with Tom and Jerry. Let us be Jerry this year.

Popularity or Talent shows: The new confusion.

On the Indian TV there are a lot of TV shows that linked with SMS and voting. There used to be one or two shows earlier, but now there are plenty. But somehow the Indian Audience, the TV industry etc is totally confused about the pattern.

There are two aspects of such shows. An actor or a couple performs. The Judges give some marks and comments. The public votes. Both don't match. Somehow based on the votes the candidate gets eliminated who gets less votes. So how to get back people who are eliminated. The magic wand is "wild card". 

Earlier days there used to be number of votes declared. Now a days that too is not there. So you really don't know whether number of votes were in hundreds, thousands or millions.

Overall something does not look correct in this format. First of all, if you are a judge in these shows, what are you judging? You see the same comments repeating. So why not have 5-6 points and show the marking. Secondly is assume there are 5-6 dances or songs on each episode. And a show runs for 20 weeks, 3 times a week, you are seeing 300 performances. Is there a learning coming out of this?

If you are a participant, it becomes do some dance and start the vote asking. Dial this number, or sms this number etc. What happened to the old winners. Were they able to launch their careers?

As audience it the most difficult part. You see one episode, miss a couple, see something here and there, and once in a while vote. Is it honest to the performer.

So then who votes? During the first Indian Idol, I voted a couple of times. After that never.

So this is total confusion. But then our TV shows rather than showing something meaningful, keep the audience involved in such shows. Will we get an Indian Playhouse disney, Cartoon network, Discover, History channel etc. Does not look like till my grand children become grand fathers.

What do you see?

Sometimes we have to lose focus to see things. In the 3d image below, you will have to lose focus. Don't focus your eyes but keep seeing the photo, and you will see a funnel. You may have to save this picture on your desktop and then see it.

चलॊ हम हिन्दी मै ब्लोग करे.

हमारी यह कोशिश रही बडे दिनो से कि कोइ ऐसा तरीका निकाले जिससे हिन्दी मै लिखा जाये. आखिर तरीका मिल ही गया.

सुरेश कुमार

Mouse.

We had the keyboard discussed now let us see the mouse. Mouse can be classified based on a few ways.

Connectivity.

Mouse can be connected to a PC using either COM (Serial), PS2, USB, Bluetooth, Infrared, Wireless. The famous ones are USB, as they are cheap and affordable. For me anything that is equivalent to a lunch cost is affordable. I have seen some Mouse which are priced $50 and above. Sheer waste of money, unless your application genuinely needs that dpi.

Keys.

Mouse can have anything from 1 key to 10 keys. One to four mouse wheels. But to be useful to 90% of the productive community worldwide the two button + one wheel is good enough, unless you are of the Apple type.

Size and Color.

Mouse use to come roughly the size of a squeezed tennis ball. With white as the only color. But today I have seen mouse the size of a small lemon to the large ones as big as a PDA. In fact they look more like a cat than a mouse. There are all colors and designs. It is a fashion statement.

Technology.

Mouse can be wheel type or laser type. The wheel type  were prevalent a lot during older days (a decade back). During my teaching days that time, a regular topic discussed in the meeting was how to save the mouse balls. :) The laser mouse is simple, efficient, accurate, and solved our meeting problem.

But then mouse was invented in 1968 by Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute

So are you old or is the mouse older. For me I was born after the mouse was invented.

The Solitary Reaper : William Wordsworth

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
  Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
  Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
  And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
  As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
  And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

History of Keyboards (layouts)

While lots has changed in the PC's and are still changing, the keyboard and its layout have remained the same for more than 100 years (and we hear that technology changes).

There are three keyboard layouts that are accepted universally, ofcourse the first being on almost all PC's

1. QWERTY layout.

2. DVORAK layout

3. MALT keyboard.

QWERTY layout was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873. DVORAK layout was invented by August Dvorak in the 1930, whereas MALT keyboard was devised by Lillian Malt.

QWERTY

DVORAK

MALT

Switching from QWERTY to DVORAK is a matter of going to control panel->keyboard->changing layout, for MALT keyboards you will need additional hardware. It is more "ergonomical".

Shakuntala Devi

This is one of her books I read many many years ago. She is a Mathematical Genius. Then for many years I did not hear anything from her. I thought she has migrated to some other country or is busy in some other projects. She was in Singapore some days back and had a seminar. My daughter told me that she had visited her school. Old memories flashed. I had bought her book from Higginbothams. The stall was on Vijayawada Railway Station.

Some of her photos of past and present. She looks just the same.

Then

Now

Relates Sites.

http://www.shakuntaladevi.in

Watches

In my school days there were very few of the students who used to wear watches. My dad had gone to US in those days and he had got one electronic watch. I was one of the firsts to wear an electronic watch in the school. I was searching of the important things that happened in the history of watches.

1500s=The first pocket watch was invented in Germany

1884=GMT recognized as the basis of time zones in England.

1956=Rolex has the first day-date display in the watch.

1962=First Quartz watch (Swiss made). Battery Operated.

1972=LCD. Liquid Crystal Display (Electronic) Watches.

Since then we have variation in the models. Essentially there are mechanical watches, automatic watches, quartz watches, Kinetic and electronic watches (battery operated and solar). Some extra features like FM/AM Radio, Temperature, GPS, Bluetooth, MP3 Player, Remote control, USB connected watches have been launched. I have yet to see any watches with integrated mobile phone. Watches in Phone are so prevalent, but phone in watches not yet. Or is it that I don't know?

How can we discuss watches without talking about HMT and Titan. My father is still a HMT fan and wears an HMT, I on the other hand wear a Titan.

Guru Nanak Jayanti and Children's Day

Optical Illusions

In many email chain letters and many presentations, I have seen these two pictures/

How many people you see, How much time you took to find out, where are they etc etc.

Do you see an old woman or a young woman and what did you see first, and seeing front or seeing back etc etc. I think thousands of presentations had the speaker impressing the crowd with these photos.

Basically all this means that the presenter itself had been disillusioned with these images. And he or she used these images to understand more. Next time you see these images in emails or presentations, ask the sender/presenter. What did these images bring a change to their lives? And you will be surprised on listening to their stories. I use this a gauge to judge presenters.