New Indian team

As I am writing this India is thrashing SL for their 4th consecutive victory and 9th in a row. Somehow this new India which arose from worst worldcup defeat seems very confident, ruthless and fighting. Something good to watch during the depressed times. Mahendra Singh Dhoni who was considered as a hardhitter when he first participated in the pakistan tour is playing totally different role as captain with his focus more on rotating the strikes and keeping the innings alive. Either of openers are playing pretty good and there is always some one supporting the previous efforts. No bowler is world number one, but they all bowl for the ultimate goal. Looks like a strong bonded team. Something similar to my work place. Everyone is thirsty of success, each one helps in others success.
Couple of weeks back I saw an interview of TamilNadu cricketers on Coffee with Anu in Star Vijay. What I saw was a different picture there. Even though the pool consisted of speciality batsmen, speciality bowlers and all rounders none of Jelled together. For a given question, no body seemed to be approving or even listening to other's answers, shocking. For whatever sake, guys next when you come on a 30 minutes enjoy the moment and serve the purpose the interview rather than trying to win the show. if you server the purpose you will win it as what those folks in the ultimate place do. Look at Sachin, i have never seen him smile and be so jovial like this..

Nokia 5800 Xpress music - my impressions

Since my ROKR E6 is getting old and had slipped at average rate of once a day for the past one week I was tempted to look at future alternatives. Sicne I was used to touch interface on my ROKR E6 and ipod touch at home, I am almost decided that my next phone should have a touch interface.
Obviously my budget does not allow me to choose an iPhone which is being sold unlocked in India or other winmo devices such as omnia and HTC. Nokia has been doing lots of campaign on their new touch interface and I know that the device is priced below 20k. I was googling around for reviews when the device was launched outside of India. But method of "valuation" for a mobile is different between India and other places. So I wanted to check out this with any owners. Fortunately I had a chance to enter a cave called CMH road this Sunday I decided to stop by the Nokia store to checkout the highly hyped 5800 Xpress music phone.
The shop was less crowded and I asked for demo of 5800 Xpress music. The person in the store pulled a completely loaded version(with SIM, lots of songs, movies etc) of 5800 and handed it to me to do my own hands ON. I kind of did not expect this as usually stores will display only a toy model of the phone a word demo itself is only a distant dream in Bangalore. But anyway the guy at the store was kind and he did give me a working model for me to play with. I did use it for 10 minutes. Ironically I did everything except making a call to checkout a cellphone. My impressions are

1)First things which struck me was build of the phone. For a phone which cocsts Rs19900, I did not expect a build which always felt like they missed to tighten a screw.
2)Screen was simple and was not crowded with multiple icons but the touch response is slow (not too slow) and the latency of response was getting worse with apps started running.
3)I streamed videos from net using Wifi and I was impressed. Audio quality is also good for music
4)Browser experience still has to catch upto an year old Ipod touch/iphone. There are may be adition S/W support compared to Apple segment, but this one is slower from an experience perspective.
5) There was maps and it showed the location of mine exactly. It comes with maps loaded for 8 cities which is a good thing.
5)it comes with 8GB add on card and can be expanded to 16GB.

If I purchase 5800 improvements that I will enjoy is a Wifi browsing (same browsing interface experience as my E6 though), maps(definitely great) and large screen(not a must have for a cell phone where the Wifi is not so common).

5800 Express music was hyped as iPhone killer, but it is not even closer to be called iPhone killer. Nokia is just trying to say that music, wifi and large screens does not cost much, but with lessened experience.

I decided not to spend 20k to get the maps and I would rather keep my current E6 for somemore time.

Answer to the beginning of the civilization

Found something interesting over the net.A brewing specialist and prefessor has spoken about possible beginning of civilization. Crux is that, people started building houses, villages and towns and civilation when they were waiting for beer to brew.

More here

Software power Vs Electrical power

I got a chance to fiddle with windows Vista's graphical prowess. When I just enabled keeping a movie as dynamic desktop b/g I found that CPU utilization stood at 80% to 90% constantly. Which means lesser chances to enter CPU idle states and peak power consumption. If we speak in raw terms it is like always pushing the accelarator at the max. It is going to suck lot of power, and today's laptops will certainly find it hard breath and loose their life pretty soon.
So surely, Intel or AMD has a long way to go in power savings. Time for power optimized compilers?
Meanwhile I also heard a rumour that apple's iphone is stuck into same kind of issue, that it is not withstanding the battery of the phone and loosing life pretty soon. It will be really interesting to see, how apple manages power Vs performance.

Count down for iPhone is coming close..

Low voltage internet

There is a dial up connection, DSL, cable modem but there is something different available at Bangalore today. It is low voltage internet. Voltage at home has dropped so much that flourouscent lamps are not glowing, fans are runing at 25% of speed. No risk of switching on TVs. But internet is just as fast as ever. There is a water scarcity in the city, there is power shortage now, but Internet just works. True silicon (only) valley! excitiiiiiiiiing!

The drive to Chickpete

I was trying to buy all the electrical items for the new house. We had received a quote from a shop near by our apartment. But the geyser price he quoted was 300Rs higher than what I had purchased in Thippasandra. So I decided to check few other places. Looking at the yellow pages, I realized that there are lots and lots of shops in BVK Iyengar road in chickpet. One of my friend incidentally visited chickpet on the same day for something else. He also suggested to me give a visit there.

BVK Iyengar road is 30mins from drive from Indiranagar and 20 mins from MG Road. It is before KG bus stand on the KG road and nobody can miss it. I imaginged that this will be more like the TNagar of Bangalore and was sure that my M800 can beat the crowd.
There is a sign board at the junction of KG Road and BVK iyengar road without any cine actor or local politican's face. So that made my life easier. The moment I entered BVK Iyengar road I realised what kind of test my driving skills are going to face that day. I decided to move back to KG Road but any effort of trying to take a U turn will end up in blocking the whole road, so I decided to continue on the road in my car.
once in 50m I could spot a no parking board and one way board for the side roads(?). Only bikes can enter the side ways and ofcourse our Batsha's ratham. My heart started to beat at higher rates when the travel on the road continued with me unable to find a place to stop the vehicle. When I crossed a small crossing, all of a sudden I heard the famous sound on the Bangalore roads "Oyeeeeeeeee" and there the man on the white uniform arrived like the spiderman. He stopped the whole traffic on the road and scolded me nicely and then let me go since there is no other options possible for him there.
I reached the end of the road and found a right turn beneath a over bridge. I took a U turn and decided to come back home. When I took the turn, I was shocked to see two bullock carts coming opposite to me in the wrong lane. I have faced bicycles, bikes, autorickshaws, car, trucks and buses coming the wrong lanes in Bangalore. But never a bullock cart. Oh God, thank you!
When I took the U turn, I found some parking signs. Unfortunately many people have parked their vehicle permanently. Looks like someone has gone for short term trip abroad and parked his or her car there. Some cars should have been left there atleast for months. There was some emptry space infront of a transformer to park 2 to 3 cars. being a responsible citizen I left some space between the transformer and my car for people to do their duties(hehe) and parked.
Checked the price of fans and lights in the shops around there and came back to the car to see a shocker. My car was surrounded by 4 auto rickshaws, one load vehicle and a car. Mine was nicely standing in the middle and there is not space around it in any angle. One pedestrian helped me to push an auto aside and helped me to take a car out.
Ok all the drive experiences apart, there are some best things there in Chickpet.
1)All the household goods such as all type of fans, geyzers, lights, light fittings are really cheaper there compared to what you get in other parts of the city.
2)Price differs depending on the item. Racold geyzer we were looking for costed 6900 in the place closer to my apartment but it was 6450 in chickpet. Fans are cheaper by 20 to 30%.
3)Variety is also too good.
4)Light fittings are can be bought at bargain price.
5)All the brands are available in one area.

How to reach there?

Take a bus. Surely you can find a volvo going there. If you do not want to wait for the bus, take an autorickshaw. Auto is the best. No auto driver will say no to go to Chickpet. Never try to go by car or even motorbike is not advisable.

What to buy there?

Except TVs, Cell phones, music systems, or gadgets. All the other household items. Fans, lights, grinder, mixers, light fittings, geyzers.

Cloths?
Yes, esp Sarees are lot cheaper and collections are huge.

What to speak?
It is a market by local people. So do not expect people to speak fluent English. Hindhi also can be managed. If you know kannada , then that is the best.

What day to go?
Generally shops are MOn to Saturday. On Sunday most of them work half day. SO Sunday morning is better if you know exactly what to buy.

Happy Shopping!

Mourning - BOB WOOLMER

BOB WOOLMER a great figure in the international cricket and one among the men who were passionate about cricket. He was murdered in WI for unknown reasons. Personally I had a great regard for him. I am shocked that he is no more. There certainly was some stress in his cricket life in Pakistan. But nobody imagined that it will take his life in the end. he will certainly be missed by the cricket world.

BOB

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