Sunday, October 17, 2010

What are these?

These are a type of cucumbers popular in the coastal belt of Karnataka. What is unique about them is that they can be preserved for months when stored in this way. Looking at these at one of my relatives place recently brought back my memories of my grandfather's house on the western coast of Karnataka between Udupi and Kundapur. More about this some time later.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Getting Canon Lide 100 scanner to work with Fedora Linux

Recently I needed to use Canon Lide 100 scanner. When I plugged it into my Fedora laptop I realized that this scanner is not supported by Linux (sane or simple-scan). A bit of googling took me here. Looks like support for Canon Lide 100 is already in the git repos of sane (sane-backends package, specifically), but you have to do a bit of circus until your favourite distro starts shipping more recent version of sane.

I followed the instructions from there, but slightly customized it for my Fedora 13:

# yum install libusb-devel

# git clone git://git.debian.org/sane/sane-backends.git

# cd sane-backends/

# ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var

# make

# make install

Now edit /lib/udev/rules.d/65-libsane.rules to add these lines about the scanner:

# Canon CanoScan Lide 100
ATTRS{idVendor}=="04a9", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1904", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

# reboot

At this stage the scanner should have worked, but it did not :-( I took another look at the sources of sane-backend. It looked like the file backend/genesys/conf should have been copied to /etc/sane.d/genesys.conf, was somehow wasn't. I manually copied this file over:

# cp ./backend/genesys.conf /etc/sane.d/genesys.conf

Voila, Canon Lide 100 now works with my Fedora 13 using xsane.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Yeah, we are that bugged!


Did you ever sit near the entrance of the floor in your office and see all kinds of people stop by to ask you "Where does X sit?" or "Where is meeting room Y?"

Saturday, September 04, 2010

We also do this!


You might think we are too busy improving our search engine or churning out features for Android, but we also find time to run this internet surfing centre in Mysore.

Friday, August 20, 2010

This blog is now 5+ years old

I never thought this blog would live this long when I started this on 26th July 2005. It is now a bit more than 5 years old, which, in today's digital age, means it is one generation old! I have 241 blog posts on this blog, which translates to roughly a blog per week. Thanks to everyone who read this blog.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

End the day with net gains

The daily drive to the office begins. Today I am somehow more irritable than usual. I am driving through a fairly narrow stretch of the road, stuck behind a fully loaded tractor that is barely making 30kmph. There is a steady stream of traffic from the other side, making it impossible to overtake the tractor. My patience is running thin when I spot a momentary gap in the oncoming traffic, giving me just enough time to overtake. However, a guy on a motorcycle moves to the right of my car, doesn't move fast enough and prevents me from overtaking. My blood boils. I honk and move my car threateningly close to his bike. This infuriates the bike rider, who gives me a mouthful, receives some from me as well and moves along. Not the best start for the day.

By the time I reach Koramangala I have cooled down completely and am driving much more sensibly. At an intersection without traffic lights I am about to make a right turn, when I notice a motorcycle coming into the intersection at a very high speed from the road to my right. The guy sees my car and quickly realizes that he is in trouble as he isn't sure he can stop in time. I stop my car immediately and let him through. I notice that the guy has a smile on his face as he waves to me while passing through the junction.

Later in the day I am driving back home. One of the roads in BTM has a steady stream of traffic during these hours. The drivers are pretty aggressive and crossing the road at this time is not for the faint at heart. I notice an elderly gentleman, may be in his late seventees, trying to cross the road. He makes an attempt to cross ahead of a few cars in front of me, but the car driver blazes his horn and prevents the man from crossing. I quickly glance at my rear view mirror and notice a long chain of cars behind me. This man is not going to cross the road any time soon unless he risks his life or limbs. When the man is directly in front of me I stop my car and ask him to cross. The driver of Tata Sumo behind me goes mad with anger and blares his horn. I stay calm. The elderly man says a big "Thank you" after he crosses the road. I hear him trying to give some advice to the driver of Sumo as I pass.

Looks like I ended the day with a net positive: I did more right than wrong on the road.

Friday, August 06, 2010

A collapsed bridge

I am sure many would still remember the devastating floods that hit North Karnataka and Andhra last year. I had missed being in the middle of action (read 10 feet of water) by a short margin back then. One of the major impacts of the floods was collapsing of the bridge on the State Highway 13 that connects Mantralayam with Raichur. Recently I got a chance to visit this place and see the devastation for myself.



There is now a temporary bridge built by placing a few large pipes along the mighty Tungabhadra and filling up the remaining distance with mud. It is not easy to cross this bridge on cars more used to the city. This temporary bridge is sure to wash off if there is even a fraction of the rain that came down last year. I didn't see any activity of reconstructing the main bridge.


Update: The temporary bridge has already washed away.

Monday, August 02, 2010

Political correctness? What is that?

I hear that "Chronologically advanced" is more correct than "senior citizens"

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Victory is sweet

I walk into the store and find a number of sales people dressed in smart uniforms (jeans and t-shirt, but a uniform neverthless). It is one of the most famous mobile phone outlet chains in Bangalore. One of the sales persons greets me at the door and asks me what I need. My response, more specifically my meagre budget reduces his enthusiasm, but he still manages to smile and directs me to one of the counters.

I tell the sales guy the model I am looking for. He shows it to me and as I am looking at it he tells me "Sir, if you are looking to buy this mobile, why don't you buy that instead?" and shows me a comparable model from another brand. I know that they push the brand that gives them the most margins and I am usually not a sucker for this. However, I am somehow tempted to consider his suggestion and take a look at the other phone and ask him "How is this better?"

Now the sales guy knows I have bitten the lure, so he goes on to explain why the phone he suggested is the bestest, wonderfullest thing to have ever been invented, whereas the model I had originally asked for is just average. He quickly blurts out a list of impressive specs. Wireless FM, dolby stereo speaker, a battery that lasts forever, megapixel camera that gets wonderful photos, bigger display, the works. Now I am sceptical when a well known brand of mobile phone gives all this for the kind of price I am paying. I take a close look at the phone and it's box. It has wireless FM alright, it says so in big bold letters on it's front facade. The camera doesn't list the megapixels, so I suspect it is just a VGA camera. The box doesn't say anything about speakers being dolby or even stereo. The guy still insists that it is dolby speaker and megapixel camera. I suppose the phone manufacturers themselves did not know about these impressive specs or just plain forgot to mention them. By now he probably thinks I don't know anything about mobile phones and he can get away with pretty much anything. So he says "Sir, this is ion battery. Hence it surely lasts much more than other phones".

Now that ends my patience and I decide to give it back to him. It goes something like this:
"What do you mean by ion battery? Do you mean Lithim-ion?"
"Yes sir, it is the best technology...."
"Wait. Don't you know that every mobile phone in the last few years has come with a Lithim-ion battery? Can you show me a mobile phone in your store that does NOT have a Li-ion battery?"
"No sir, but this one is best quality..."
By now I am on the offensive.
"I know that the same company makes the battery for the two brands we are talking about and the same technology is used in both"
I don't know anything about this, but I know he won't contest this. He doesn't know what to say. I decide to pile it on. I had started the browser on my own phone when I started looking at this phone and started loading it's specs page. By now the webpage has loaded. I can now look at it and authoritatively tell him that the phone has a VGA camera, display is same size and type as other phones in it's class and a pretty ordinary mono speaker. The guy is speechless. I raise my voice a bit and tell him that it is not correct to misguide the customers this way and demand that I be served by someone who is more honest.

The owner of the store has now overheard some of this conversation and comes over and tries to calm me before other customers get to hear what is happening. He scolds the sales guy and sends him off. I know that the scolding is just a drama. In fact I guess that sales guy is the star performer of the store and the owner totally likes the way he sells. However, I have won this battle and will cherish this victory.

Monday, April 26, 2010

What good is a social network unless you login?

I have an account on most well known social networking websites. That doesn't mean I am active on any of these. The routine I follow with most of them is:
  1. I get notified of a friend request
  2. I login and process the friend request
  3. I log out.
  4. Do nothing until step 1 repeats.
I don't grow farms, nor do I join any groups. In most cases others have to discover me on these websites, I don't do it pro-actively. Considering this, it is not surprising that I never signed up on one very popular website: Twitter. I had assumed it is a passing fad and had hoped to hop on to the next one that comes along. By the time I realized I underestimated how big Twitter was going to get, everyone and their aunts were busy tweeting. After the Dalai Lama got on twitter and tweets played a role in bringing down a minister, I decided it was finally time for me to join.

There is one problem though. Now that I have signed up, I am treating it the way I treat my Facebook account... not log in unless someone nudges me to. So I have a twitter account to boast of, but not to use. I wonder how many people are my type of social networkers...

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Please let me help... myself!

There was a stranger at my door recently. I guessed this must be one of the numerous salespeople who visit our house regularly. I feel sorry for the salesperson who spends a few minutes trying to convince us to buy something because we have not bought a single thing from door-to-door sellers for more than a decade. However, this guy at my door wasn't going to speak to me. He was trying to find the person in my house who was recently knighted: "Saar ilva?" "Isn't sir at home?" I now assumed he must have some business with my father, but insisted on knowing who he was. His reply was the same. He would deal only with the saar. I then called out for my father. "Appa..." To my surprise, the stranger immediately left the scene. I stood puzzled for a while until the reason for his behaviour dawned on me. During the above conversation I was sitting next to my bike, trying to clean it's spark plug. The stranger must have assumed that I cannot be the owner of the house because I was doing the work of a mechanic! I looked again at what I was wearing and it looked alright to me... but then I am a guy, so I don't know much about dressing :-)

After building my house I realized that it is the house that really owns me, not the other way around. It is like a cranky little baby that demands constant supervision and feeding. There is always something to fix or improve. After having haggled with the plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc who either refuse to do any such 'minor' jobs or do a bad job of it, my father and I decided that self help is the only effective way to get things done. So we equipped our house with enough tools to carry out any repair and improvement jobs. We do most of the things like plumbing, electricals, painting, primitive carpentry, etc ourselves as far as possible. Since the last few years I am cleaning our overhead tank (Sintex) myself. However, a LOT of people just can't understand why we do these things ourselves. For example, while buying electric wires and pins, the store owner insists that he will send his electrician with me. He looks at me strangely when I say I'll do it myself. I have been asked various questions when people saw me painting our gate, trimming our plants and so on. Our neighbors are not an exception to this, though they are getting used to it now. I guess they think I am stingy or strange or both when I tell them I don't need any help. Thanks, but I'll happily soil my hands rather than go after the elusive repair guy.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Bandipur vs Bannerghatta

It is almost summer vacation time and a lot of people will be thinking of going to a National Park to see wildlife in it's 'natural' habitat. So typically people travel all the way to Bandipur or Nagarahole National Parks, book expensive resorts like Jungle Lodges and take expensive safari trips into the forest in the hope of finding some tigers or lions or godzillas in the forest. By the time their safari ends, they would have seen hundreds of deer and if they are really lucky some bears or gaur. However, tiger, which is the prize catch, remains elusive. Sometimes you wonder whether they are any tigers at all in this forest. If you ask the safari guides, they will tell you the last time anyone spotted a tiger in one of these safaris. You will then learn that your chances of seeing a tiger was as narrow as winning a lottery.

They don't tell you that you are unlikely to see tigers in these National Parks. You go there believing you will see at least 1000 of the 1411 tigers still left. However, if you want to be sure that you see tigers and lions, the place to visit is much closer home. Bannerghatta National Park, anyone?

Just take a Vayu Vajra Volvo bus to Bannerghatta National Park on a leisurely weekend. The bus drops you right at the gates of the park. Don't expect to see too much of jungles like Bandipur or Nagarahole. Remember, this National Park is closer to Bangalore than some of residential apartments :-) You need to buy tickets for lion-tiger safari and board the safari bus operated by the forest department. The safari is very similar in structure to the ones you see in Bandipur or Nagarahole, though there is less jungle all around and much more chance of seeing animals. The animals of Bannerghatta are not afraid of humans. They stride carelessly into the path of your safari vehicle. They might even give you a bright smile when you take a picture! The driver may sometimes need to honk and make way through the group of tigers who have assembled right in the path of the safari to hold a meeting or something. The safari lasts about 45 minutes.





Once back, take a stroll through the zoo (which is the inverse of safari, they are the ones in cages!) to see other animals. Then buy something to snack on in one of the numerous shops and head back to the bus stop. See, you didn't have to sweat even as much as you would to catch the greatest deals during a sale in your favourite mall and costed even less!

None of this is to say that it is not worth visiting the real serious National Parks elsewhere. Go there to experience closeness to nature without any expectation of seeing these animals so you won't be disappointed. When you want to be sure to see the animals, you know you won't have to go too far.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

ಈ ಜಾಹೀರಾತಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಹಿಂದಿ ಬೇಕೇ?


MOIA (ಮಿನಿಸ್ಟ್ರಿ ಆಫ್ ಒವೆರ್ಸೀಸ್ ಅಫೇರ್ಸ್) ನವರು ಕಳೆದ ವಾರ ಕನ್ನಡ ದಿನಪತ್ರಿಕೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಈ ಜಾಹೀರಾತು/ಸಂದೇಶವನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸಿದರು. ಇದರಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಹಿಂದಿ ಸಂದೇಶವನ್ನು ಕಂಡು ಕಂಡು ನನಗೆ ನಿಜಕ್ಕೂ ನಗು ಬಂತು. ಇದನ್ನು ವಿನ್ಯಾಸ ಮಾಡಿದವರಿಗೆ ಜಾಹೀರಾತುಗಳ ಮೂಲ ಉದ್ದೇಶವೇ ತಿಳಿದಿಲ್ಲ ಎನಿಸುತದೆ. ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಜನರಿಗೂ ತಿಳಿದಿರುವಂತೆ ಜಾಹೀರಾತುಗಳೇ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಉದ್ದೇಶ ತಮ್ಮ "target audience" ನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾದಷ್ಟೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಜನರನ್ನು ತಲುಪುವುದು. ಇದೇ ಉದ್ದೇಶದಿಂದ MOIA ನವರು ಲಕ್ಷಾಂತರ ರೂಪಾಯಿಗಳನ್ನು ಖರ್ಚು ಮಾಡಿ ಪ್ರಾದೇಶಿಕ ದಿನಪತ್ರಿಕೆಗಲ್ಲಿ ೧/೪ ಪುಟಗಳ ಜಾಹೀರಾತನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಆದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ದಿನಪತ್ರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಜಾಹೀರಾತನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸುವಾಗ ಆ ಸಂದೇಶ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿರುವುದೇ ಉತ್ತಮ ಎಂಬ ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಜ್ಞಾನವೂ ಇಲ್ಲದೆ ಹೋಯಿತೇ? ಈ ಸಂದೇಶವನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ತರ್ಜುಮೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು ಅಷ್ಟೊಂದು ಕಷ್ಟವೇ? ಅಥವಾ ಸೋಂಬೇರಿತನವೇ? ಅಥವಾ ಕೇಂದ್ರ ಸರ್ಕಾರದ ಜಾಹೀರಾತುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಹೇಗಾದರೂ ಹಿಂದಿಯನ್ನು ತುರುಕಲೇ ಬೇಕು ಎಂಬ ನಿಯಮವಿದೆಯೇ?

Update: ಫರ್ಜಿ ಏಜೆಂಟ ಅಂದರೆ ಏನು? ನಿಜಕ್ಕೂ ನನಗೆ ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Travel with salwar stitches

If you ever felt the urge to go on a 3.5 hour travel with unlikely companions like new salwar stitches, step right in. Beware, we may alter your travel in all kinds of ways.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Creating a KVM bootable Fedora system using febootstrap

febootstrap is a tool to create Fedora bootable systems. This is similar to the more popular debootstrap utility on Debian based systems. Most people use it to create a chroot-able environment to test something out. Another common use is to create a minimalistic Fedora system that you can boot through qemu/KVM. Here is how I went about setting such a system up for myself. Of course, this may not be the only way (or the best, for that matter) of doing it.

Preparation:
  • If febootstrap is not installed, install it:
yum install febootstrap
  • Ensure you have internet connection or access to a local Fedora repository.
  • Ensure you have at least 1GB of free disk space.
Steps:

1) Create a disk image: First, create a normal file on the disk by reading from /dev/zero. It's size is what the size of your guest is going to be. 1GB is plenty if you are doing a minimal install.

dd if=/dev/zero of=fedora-12-image bs=1G count=1

2) Create file system: Create a file system in that file:

mkfs.ext3 ./fedora-12-image

3) Loop mount: Loop mount the created file system:

mount -o loop ./fedora-12-image ./mnt

4) Install using febootstrap: Use febootstrap to populate the mount point with Fedora packages. By default febootstrap installs packages in the "Core" group of Fedora.

febootstrap fedora-12 ./mnt

If you have a local mirror of Fedora please provide that as the last argument. In the absense of that it pulls packages from public Fedora repos. This step installed 160 packages and took just a few minutes to complete for me.

Now you already have a chroot-able Fedora environment that you can use.

chroot /mnt

5) Install additional packages: As I mentioned above, febootstrap has only installed packages in the "Core" group. Hence some of the packages you need might not have been installed. You can install them now by doing this:

First, bind mount a few directories from the base system into this environment. This is essential to let yum succeed.

cd /mnt
sudo mount --bind /dev ./dev
sudo mount -t proc nodev ./proc
sudo mount --bind /etc ./etc

Now install the packages you need. Here, I installed "strace". febootstrap-run just runs the specified command in the chroot-ed environment.

febootstrap-run /mnt yum install strace

Now unmount the mounts:

umount /mnt/dev /mnt/etc /mnt/proc

6) Fix up: Copy /etc/fstab and /etc/resolv.conf from the base system. These wouldn't have been done by febootstrap.

cp /etc/fstab /mnt/etc
cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc

Edit the fstab in the installed system to fix things up. Specifically, edit the mount point of / and don't mount any other real disk partitions. My fstab looks like this:



/dev/vda specifies that I will be using virtio for disk IO. It could be /dev/sda or /dev/hda depending on your KVM setup.

7) Set root password for the installed system:

chroot /mnt
passwd
Now create another login, if you wish, using useradd

8) Unmount the loop mount.

umount /mnt

Now the system is ready to be booted through KVM. However, it does not have a kernel, initrd or grub. You will have to specify the kernel and initrd to use while starting the virtual machine. Here is what I use:

qemu-system-x86_64 -name f12-kvm -drive file=./fedora-12-image,if=virtio -m 512 -kernel /arch/x86/boot/bzImage -append "root=/dev/vda noapic selinux=0"

Notice the -kernel parameter being passed to specify the kernel to use. If you need to pass an initrd, use -initrd option. Additional options will be needed to configure network, etc.

Advantages of this approach:
  • Speed of booting. The system boots up in just a few seconds. (4-5 seconds for me).
  • Ease of changing the guest kernel. Just compile the kernel on the host, restart KVM pointing it to the new kernel. Hence this is excellent for testing your kernel modifications. You could also just point the guest to the kernel installed on the host.
  • Very small size of the guest. The base Fedora-12 system is less than 500MB in size. You can have one such image as your 'base' image, create additional images with various packages to use in different environments.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Read it out loud

"Hey, I'm putting up a notice. How do you spell drum?"
"d-u-r-m"
"Thanks!"

Sunday, January 31, 2010

What is our "national language"?

Recently the Gujarat High Court ruled that Hindi is NOT India's national language. This came as a rude shock to a majority of people, both Hindi speakers and non-Hindi speakers. Everyone assumes that Hindi is the official "national language" of India. However, the founding fathers of our nation had a good understanding of diversity of this nation and hence stopped short of declaring Hindi as the national language. Hence our constitution does not say this either. What it does however is it recognizes Hindi is the official language of the Union Government and a number of other central Government bodies. The Eighth Schedule of the Consitution recognizes a number of regional languages as 'official' languages.

Our country is unique in so many ways, the biggest of all is it's diversity. We don't have many things that are common across the country and we don't really have a "national language" either. We still stick together as a country and that is great. Would having a common language across the country improve our unity? I am not sure.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Google knows it all!

If I just enter an error message I see on my Linux box, can Google automatically find the phone number and (snail) mailing address of the maintainer of the package that is causing my problem? That would be Kewl!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Plight of coastal highways


I was standing right on one of the busiest National Highways anywhere in Karnataka. Normally the road has enough traffic to make it difficult to drive and dangerous to overtake, because it has just 2 lanes. However, on this day there was no sign of any vehicles on the road. Not even an occasional car. Just a few bicycles, a few 2-wheelers going to nearby places and pedestrians.

This is National Highway 17, one of the first 'coastal highway's of India, running along the western coast of India across all of Karnataka and most of Maharashtra and Kerala. The road offers glimpses of the Arabian Sea on the west and mountains on the eastern side, a number of bridges across numerous rivers joining the sea and a lot of greenery all around. When I was a kid I lived in extreme rural areas with hardly any roads. One of the incentives of visiting my native place was travelling on this beautiful and smooth tar surface. I used to sit right at the front of the bus, close to the driver, watching in awe how the bus devoured the distance.

Bus travel in South Canara and Udupi districts is very different from most other places. Private operators control all the routes in this area and they are known for providing one of the best timely services anywhere in the country. Let's consider buses leaving Udupi bus stand. There is an express bus to Manipal every 5 minutes, to Kundapur (38km) every 5 minutes, to Malpe every 5 minutes and to Mangalore (60km) every 3-4 minutes. They all have demand! So a bus driver on Udupi-Mangalore road knows that the next bus is only about 3 minutes behind him. Also, 'agents' at various bus stops along the way would have already issued tickets for his bus even before he arrives. Hence he can't ever afford to slow down and let the next bus overtake him. He can't go too fast either, because he can't overtake the earlier bus. So his time error margin is just 3 minutes or less over a 1 hour journey!

Traffic on this road was increasing steadily. Matters turned worse when the cost of iron ore increased by many folds in the international markets a few years ago. A number of trucks carrying iron ore started taking this road to the Mangalore port. Today's trucks typically carry 35-50 tonnes, whereas the highway was built long back when trucks carried only 10-15 tonnes. This led to the condition of the highway degrading rapidly. The road developed huge potholes, making it close to impossible to manouver for cars. The dust on the road made it very difficult for everyone to breathe. Private bus operators were forced to withdraw Volvo buses from their fleets. Accidents and breakdowns became very common. The Government meanwhile slept. Even the proposal to widen NH17 to 4 lanes has been eating dust for a number of years. Travelling on NH17, one of my favorite things to do from childhood days, is a trecherous ordeal now.

Meanwhile, another beautiful road NH48, that connects Bangalore to Mangalore, which passes through the famed Shiradi Ghats, was losing shape quickly. Government's answer for this road was also the same.

The people of the coastal districts held a number of protests and bundhs to let the Government know about their plight. A number of repair and restoration works were done on these roads, but because of the quality of the work, extreme weather conditions and the load on the roads, none of these lasted more than one rainy season.

The people from the three coastal districts, under the banner of "The Rashtreeya Heddari Ulisi Samithi" held a "Highway Bundh" on 23rd Jan to again highlight their plight to the powers in Government. This was one of the biggest protests in recent times. No vehicles, including even 2-wheelers were allowed to take the highways from early morning till around 3PM. This was also one of the most well organized protests I have ever seen. Not a single bus was stoned, no emergency vehicles were stopped, people taking smaller roads (not NH) were not troubled. The people from the coast lived up to their reputation as some of the most cultured and well behaved. To my unluck, I was on a trip to my native and I had to waste one day just sitting at home because of this bundh. Though this was a great inconvinience to me, I could readily understand the plight of people who need to take these roads every day. I hope the situation changes for the better soon.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

You can't wear any shorts while dining!

A better photo for my earlier post.


I don't know about you, but I would feel very shy and uncomfortable visiting the restaurant without wearing shorts. I had hoped I could make do with a Lungi, but they don't allow that either.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

There is a simpler (and correct) explanation for that

They say when there are 2 possible explanations for a particular event, the simpler of the two is usually correct. I got a first hand experience of that recently.

My trusted 4 year old Canon A520 all of a sudden started showing signs of old age. 4 years should not be too much. My first digicam, a 2.1 MP Kodak, which was the bleeding edge of gadgetry when I bought it, is still alive, though it is doesn't like to come out of the cupboard for the fear of being insulted by my cell phone camera.

I noticed 2 problems: The batteries started getting drained out too fast and the camera once in a while showed "Error E30" on it's display. Immediately the engineer in me started looking for a complex, grand explanation for this. Out came the multimeter and confirmed that the batteries had correct voltage. A torchlight confirmed that they had enough juice too. Canon says "Error E30" is related to SD card. I formatted the cards. I also read that the lens barrel could have some obstruction, which could result in the camera assuming that there was not enough power in the batteries to push the lens out. I wanted to disassemble the camera to clean the lens barrel and I found detailed instructions on a website to do this. However, I just could not get the outermost ring of the lens barrel out and hence I decided to take the camera to the service centre.

The service centre told me that my camera was alright, in spite of all that I had read. They said the batteries were indeed at fault. I did not believe this initially, but since they demonstrated with their batteries, I had to oblige. I bought some new Sony 2700mAh NiMH batteries and this solved all the problems with my camera. Now I know that there is neither a problem with the lens barrel, nor with the SD cards. The problem was that I had tried to save some money on my previous set of batteries by buying a not so well known brand. The problem was much simpler than I had expected! I later read in various forums that that bad batteries could indeed cause these problems. However, initially my mind was looking for a fancier problem, so I had ignored all this!