January 21, 2009 by pranav
I took a trip to Chitrakot between October 2nd and October 5th 2008. Took a train from Hyderabad to Vizag and from Vizag to Jagdalpur. Was intense travelling for almost 24 hours in the train. The waterfalls were worth all the trouble. Will update more about the trip.
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December 15, 2008 by pranav
Thoughts, ideas and secrets. There is a constant classification happening in my head. The attempt is to make as many things public as I can so that I dont have to worry about the privacy as I have already accepted it to be public. But there is a difference between not-private and public info. What I post here on this blog is public and I dont care if my employers hire psycho-analysts to establish patterns from these posts. There is some info that I dont care if you know about me when you see me but I dont want it on the internet. In other words I dont want it archived online forever and become associated with me. One of the reasons why I was not comfortable reviewing music and movies.
Some facts that are scaring the hell out of people:
It is very easily possible that all of the above could happen to anybody and then freak the hell out of someone. We want to share stuff online but at the same time keep it private. No point assuming that I am a nobody on the internet and even if I post everything online who is going to discover me.
Category blog | Tags: privacy,public vs private | 1 Comment
December 5, 2008 by pranav
The channel is doing a show on blogs and is covering www.IndiaDailyPhoto.com and I have this opportunity to promote the photoblog on TV. Our 2 minutes of fame. Afrin is also here and speaking about her blog . And I am gonna hit the Publish button while its recording live in about a min.
Category blog, Blogging, Photographs | Tags: afrin,Blogging,india daily photo,tv,tv show | 1 Comment
December 3, 2008 by pranav
I have used quite a few ISPs, from Airtel, Hathway, Tata Indicom, BSNL, Reliance and of course the local cable internet providers…
Everyone has their positives and negatives. I’ll use the following parameters:
Availablity: Airtel EDGE is available in the major cities and it automatically reverts to slow GPRS in case you are in a rural area. The GPRS, is still sufficient to chat via eBuddy, Google Maps and use mobile websites. Anywhere in the country if your phone is showing Airtel network coverage, your handset should mostly revert to GPRS.
Stability: Since it is wireless, there is never the fear of a cable getting cut. The downtime of the Airtel servers has been zero. Whenever I have tried to connect, I have easily connected and stayed connected. The only time it drops is when I am moving and go out of coverage area.
Speed & Use: EDGE gives an effective speed of about 100-150. Torrents and direct downloads happen at anything from 15-20 kbps. I have tried using it overnight as well. I left my phone plugged in to the charger, left the bluetooth on, on the phone and my laptop and left some legal Jamendo torrents running. In the morning I had easily downloaded about 6 albums and they were all seeding happily. Surfing on the laptop is a breeze even on VPN. During peak hours, the speeds do tend to be slower. Say around 64 kbps.
On the phone, I use apps like Nokia Email, ngpay, Opera Mini, Google Maps, eBuddy, etc. and they all work smoothly. I have not bothered running torrents or ssh’ing via the phone, although it is supported. The only difference between EDGE & GPRS would be that with EDGE, you can use Google Maps, eBuddy & Opera Mini all at the same time, and with GPRS only one of the 3.
Pricing: The connection costs me about Rs.660 per month with taxes included. I may get faster connections at that rate, but it is perhaps the mobility at this price and speed and wide coverage, that makes this a very good deal. Using tools like ngPay in remote areas while in a moving train, or using Google Maps, Ebuddy, etc. on the phone make this connection worth it. I travel almost every other weekend, and using the phone to go online, easily saves me approximately 100 rupees of cyber cafe costs in other towns/villages every month.
Customer Support: You will need minimal customer support if your handset is supported by Airtel and Airtel is supported by your handset manufacturer. I use a Nokia E61 and it turns out the software on my laptop is preconfigured for Airtel and the configuration settings sent by Airtel are perfect for my phone. I have never called the Tech Support. Billing Support is very standard and there isn’t much they can offer you. They have just 1 EDGE plan that you can choose.
Mobile vs Residential: Yes, at home I can have a great deal on a connection that will be fairly stable. But, every ISP I have used in the last 7 years or so, has provided me with sufficient downtime due to multiple reasons and left me stranded. Also, the mobility factor for me overrides the unlimited downloads factor. I can do the same downloads at perhaps a slightly slower speed. But in 2003 I paid BSNL about 5000 rupees as I had downloaded about 10 GB data over a dial-up connection. In comparison, I can download a lot more if i really was paranoid enough to do it and will cost me only 660. I am not taking away any of the benefits of the fixed cable line connection, but as a personal choice I would prefer Airtel EDGE if I had to pick one.
If you live in a major city in India and use a smartphone, I dont think Vodafone, Reliance, Idea, Tata, Virgin, BSNL or any other provider has anything better than this connection to offer. The only desirable is that the EDGE coverage should spread to as many regions as possible and they should definitely make GPRS faster. The only thing better would be when BSNL launches 3G services.
PS: I wish Airtel would pay me something for being nice to them in this post. Even free usage of their service for a couple of years would do.
PPS: If you can suggest something better, please let me know. This is not the perfect service but better than the other offerings.
Category blog | Tags: airtel,broadband,internet connection,isp | 1 Comment
December 2, 2008 by pranav
VT Station, St. Xavier’s College & Metro, Cafe Mondegar & Leopold’s at Colaba, Taj Mahal at Gateway of India, Oberoi next to the Air India building at Nariman Point, etc. is usually there on the must-see places I would suggest a visitor to Bombay. My Bombay.
Today, the same landmarks are in the news for the wrong reasons. About 15 months before the recent attack I had blogged about the blasts in Hyderabad and the blasts in Bangalore. The events got replicated again and magnified in their gore but I have almost the same views even today.
Added pain, added insecurity, added unhappiness and added disappointment. This time an old school friend was taken hostage and I felt first hand the pain of sensing the danger and the anxiousness and the helplessness and then the tearful relief of knowing that somehow the friend managed to escape. It hurts and leaves me numb thinking searching for an answer and a solution that doesn’t seem to exist.
All the usual mindless activities that happen after a disaster have begun … the email forwards, the petitions, the photographs, the annoying politicians and Bollywood people, the trivia, the conspiracy theory, the official count of the dead, the actual estimates, the welfare amount for the families of the dead, etc. etc.
Don’t give me any of those. Give me peace.
Category blog | Tags: bomb blasts,bombay,heart,pain,terrorist attacks | 2 Comments