Trip to Karwar - planning

My dear friend Sridhar sent an email sometime in 3rd week of December proposing for a trip for year end or 1st week of Jan. At the same time even Sowmya and I were thinking to get out somewhere. It so happened that none of the other friends could make it. So it turned out to be both our families.

We both started to plan things out, starting from place, mode of transport, itenary, things to pack, thinks to buy and what not,  Sri created a planning document on google drive and we started to update then in collaboration. In coupe of days things got frozen on place, ie Karwar and we decided to take bus. The date was initially year end 29th to 31st. But wet didn't get accommodation anywhere. And even bus fare was exuberant. So we decided to move date by one week. Our new date was 5th to 7th. We decided to take leave on Monday. We wanted to take it cool as little ones would be there. Adya and Swaraj both are of almost same age.

Sridhar got bus booked and I got 2 rooms in a resort called Tarang booked. Bus was around 600 per person one way. It was sleeper coach. He got Sugama for on going and SRS for return journey. Tarang resort is in little remote place off karwar town. Around 7 km near Sadashiva ghad. But the review and photos were good on trip advisor and we decided to book that. It costed per room 1.8k per day. Which was good enough for us. The previous week the same was around 2.5k. Only concern was, as it was away from town our committing to places would be tough. Other options for us were, devbghag jungle resorts, estuary resorts, the lotus resort. Out of which jungle resorts we did not get booking, Lotus was way  too expensive and estuary response was not that great. Later we realized it was good that wet din't get there :) as the approach road was horrible

We started logging our expenses in the google drive which was designed to automatically calculates and shares the amount and tells how much should one pay to another at the end of trip.

Ladies at home started to pack things and we supported them.

Kalyani, my mom, my guru, my mentor

Amma, the word is as powerful as she is. She not only gave birth to me, she dedicated her entire life for mine and that of my sisters and our families.

She went through tough times on her childhood, she started to work for family at the age of 16. She started to teach, which is her favourite job. Unfortunately she could not continue her education due to family reasons.

She became teacher in one of the good schools and was enjoying her profession, till she left her job again because of family reasons.  She had married by then with kids.

She studied on her own and graduated as Hindi visharada. She also learnt astrology and had passed  examination. 
Tough time continued even later. She had to teach students at home, prepare home made food items and sold, she had to cut and stitch clothes of others for leading life.

She took providing good education for all 3 of us as challenge as she wanted us to become independent financially, socially and in all other means. She also wanted us to live in own house and so she struggled to make new home just by the time my dad retired, and she did it.

She had to get both my sisters married to good families and she struggled for that as well and completed that responsibility as well without any pointed fingers.

By the time I could take care of her she was already tired and diabetic had already weakened her. By that time she had already lost my dad as well. She was alone.

Then she got me a great wife. She knew how to handle things. She started giving me and Sowmya responsibility one after the other but still she was committed and dedicated for family. Without her advise and blessings I could not do anything, she encouraged me to build Madilu, without her I would have sold the plot. After Adya's advent, she started to enjoy life. She used to play with her. Adya loved her ajji too. Daily she used to ask whether or not she took her tablets.

By pulling heavy cart of family on rough roads she never forgot her social responsibility. She taught many of her students many of spiritual works. She wrote a book on Lalitha sahasra nama. All the books got sold out and still more requirements. As an astrologer she helped many people in their lives. As a counsellor she helped many demotivated souls, many came to her to discuss their problem.

On the festival day of her beloved Godess, Lalitha parameshwari she decided to take a leave. The leave that one cannot imagine, in front of all her beloved students, in front of all her children, in front of her beloved Goddess Lalitha. The leave that took place, 5 min before which the entire home was in celebrating mood.

I know Amma, you were tired. But we still need you, I know you will always be  within us and helping us in each step we keep. Every moment we think, that if Amma was there what she would have done , what she would have suggested. Your memory is our life now, your life is guide for us.

Amma, you did not give any chance for us to pay back, until the last breath you ran  show on your own. Please give us the courage of leading life with such bravery, kindness, tolerance, intellect and thoughtfulness, that you adopted in your life. 

Leveraging Android - Part 3 - What's the meaning of Rooting the phone

Prequel posts  Part1   Part2

What's the meaning of Rooting phone

I am not an Android developer per say, but I understand the concept in layman terms. When you say rooting phone, you are getting more powers on your device. Powers!! yes you read it right. More powers. So what you mean by more powers.

To understand it better we need to understand Security concept a little bit. Android is Linux based operating system. Linux is much more controlled environment. Role based permissions can be set for different actions on the operating system. Its like, at your office, who can enter which area of the office. Not everyone have access to server rooms and neither to finance departments etc. 

In similar way within Linux you can fix up the permissions. So in Android. Having root access makes you the BOSS of your device. All the applications (apps) can be considered as your folks reporting to you. Any app wants to have any special permission to read/ write in system folders, or any "not-normal" thing, Android will intimate BOSS, that is you, saying so-and-so app wants to do so-and-so, you want to allow. How cool is it. You can say yes, no, remember this selection and always allow him to do that job etc. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Rooting your phone

Positivies

• As you have already read, above, it allows you do more things than you could have done on a non rooted phone
• It makes you the BOSS
• More control on your device. You can overclock and undervolt your CPU (Will explain in future posts)
• Some cool and important Apps like Titanium Backup need root access.
• You can browse entire system file systems. Usually you can only browse anything in /sdcard and /external_sd only. Once rooted apps allow to browse started from "/". which is called root folder. 
• You can play around and Tweak CPU (Central Processor), GPU (Graphic Processor), Touch sensitivity  and many other hardware related entities
• You can install some cool custom ROMs (I will explain about ROMs in later posts) example: CyanogenMod

Negatives

• It might void your manufacture warranty 
• Once you are made BOSS Android expects you to take care of vulnerable risks. So you need to be more careful
• Apps can actually do anything and everything. They can influence the hardware as well. So risk of damaging your phone might be there

How to Mitigate risk

You can always unroot your phone. So that you reduce the impact and root it back, when needed :) 

How to root your Phone

There are multiple ways to do it and depends on your device. Mine is Samsung Galaxy S2 and I followed the steps explained in following thread . Other devices should have similar way. Please search in google or in XDA.

XDA Thread


~~~

Leveraging Android - Part 2 - Apps

My favourites

Games
1. Hot pursuit, need for speed
2. Temple run
3. Sprinkle
4. Triple town
5. Cut the rope

Media
1. Power amp. Love the features, lock screen controls etc
2. Far burst cam - wow, lovely
3. Pic say- handy tool for quick edits
4. Fish bowl gallery - nice tool for slide show
5. MX player. What a lovely video player
6. Skifta. Amazing tool for dlna streaming
7. Screen cast. Screen video capture tool

Powerful tools
1. Tasker - what can I say about it. My most fav tool too control entire phone based on various situations. I will write separate post for this
2. Titanium backup - excellent backup tool
3. OS monitor - gives OS level details
4. ES explorer - powerful explorer and editor
5. Aldiko - fav book reader
6. Dropbox -.need any explanation?
7. Evernote. Amazing note taking app with cloud backup with PC tool and Web based support as well.

Socializing
1. Facebook - app is horrible, do I use FB Light
2. Google plus
3. Flip board. What an amazing magazine like social app. Integrates almost everything
4. Google chat
5. Skype
6. Whatsapp
7. Viber
8. Tapatalk - forum based discussions

Network tools
1. ANDftp - my fav ftp client
2. Folder sync - folder syncing with phone local with remote folder. Love this tool
3. 2X client- remote desktop connection
4. Blogger - using this tool to write blog posts

Office stuffs
1. Touch down email client for outlook mails and calendar
2. Lync for Microsoft 360 chats
3. Polaris for office documents

Note:
Some of the above apps are paid apps
Some of the above apps need root access (Explain in future posts)

Leveraging Android - Part 1

Background

After my successful series of "Build and Make" which talks about building and making your home, now let me write something on Technology side. It's about Smart phones and more specifically on Android. I will try to share my experience, knowledge and interesting links in this brand new series called "Leveraging Android"

Enormous Growth

Smart phones have now really grown into big banyan tree. We have seen Android growing almost from no where to what we have now. The open source community have contributed  much more for this catalytic growth. It has almost beaten the Apple in such a short span of time. We have seen many Android vs iPhone comparison articles, videos(Link) and what not. But at the end, smart phone users are at receiving end. Technology have grown so big that you can think of anything you have it on your hand, literally. :)


My Experience

My first Android experience started from my beloved Samsung Galaxy 5. Very small phone on hand and running on Froyo. I was mesmerized with Android OS and immediately had fallen love with it.

I had it for 18 months and sold it, before I bought my current fascination Samsung Galaxy S2 (post). Before I sold, I had put my hands into deeper and had tried rooting, flashing and upgraded my OS to Gingerbread. I was so happy the day I had Gingerbread on my Galaxy 5 phone. I could tether my 3G to my laptop. That was the coolest feature I had ever seen.

Oh! are you murmuring! "Wait a minute,step back, don't talk Greek and Latin?" What are these jargons - Rooting, Flashing, Tethering etc ? Even I did not know them. I started reading XDA Forums and learnt about each of them slowly. That's when I realized how many tech geeks and maniacs out there.

Apps and Widgets

Anyone who starts to use the smart phone (of course little more than making and receiving calls) would know what apps and widgets are. App is acronym for application. Widgets are live elements on your screen which provides more details without you launching the app.

Apps make the world of Android so much interesting and happening. I will have separate post on my favorite apps

Usually widgets are part of apps.
Examples: 

• Weather Widget will provide the current weather in specified location 
• Clock widget will show the time in specified time zone
• Photo frame widget displays a bunch of photos one after the other

Let me wind my first post now and continue later.. Thanks for reading

Samsung galaxy S2

( This is old news, but had not blogged on it.. which I think is very important )

Sowmya's another memorable gift to my birthday, Samsung galaxy S2. There was already news about S3 but I did not see 10K more worth than S2. So decided to stick onto S2.

The moment I got phone on my hand, I just fell in love with that. The slimness, the appearance wow. Great!!
I got it with ICS 4.0.3 stock ROM. Pretty decent.

Thanks Thimmach for a lovely gift. Will put more posts on all the exploration I have been doing on my S2.

More details

I bought S2 on 19th May 2012 from Planet M -Uttarahalli Main road. The guy was good and deal was closed for 26.5 K. No one was quoting anything less than 28K at that time.

S2 Features: (GSM Arena)
1.2 GHz, 1GB Ram, 4.3 inch 480x800 pixel AMOLED display, with corning gorilla glass.
16 GB internal memory with expandable external memory till 32 GB.
8MP main camera and 2 MP front camera


Regards,
Karthik

Pondy day 3

Previous posts

Plan, plan contd
Day 1
Day 2

Early morning walk and disaster
Morning I got up early and wanted to go for a walk with my camera D40, along the sea shore. Fisher men were fishing. Captured few good shots and while coming back there was a boat was in my way, instead of waiting with some Patience I took route little deep into the sea, there was a big wave came in and I fell down along with my camera. That was the last moment of my camera. I lost it :(
Immediately I took off the battery and kept out in sun for few hours.

After coming back to Bangalore have to Nikon but no use., also gave it to 3 rd party repairer, but still no use :(

Adya first swimming
After break fast, we all decided to jump into water in the swimming pool. I took Adya into water, it was sunny day and just three of us in the pool. Wow couldn't believe our eyes, Adya enjoyed and started swimming reflexes. We all loved the moment

Started from there at about 12 after quick lunch. On the way back home, we visited auroville. Evening snacks at Vellore. Reached home by 11.

Great trip but with a loss of my favourite buddy and lovely gift by my love Sowmya

Pondy day 2

Second day we started after break fast. Plan was to visit Aurobindo ashram. Chaco la, MG road and other site seeing places. But the time we started it self was late and reached ashram during lunch time. It was closed. Saw it from outside.

Paradise island and Chunnambar boating
Later we went to an island called paradise island. To reach there one need to go through boating from Chunnambar.It was so nice place that I can't explain using words. Just loved the place, one side sea and the  other side sweet water

Came back  from island by 3 and had lunch and went to mg road. As it was Sunday, there were so many vendors had come from many places. Nice shopping we did.

At last we visited a Ganesha temple near by and headed back to resort.

Navigation
For all the navigation, I had taken my Samsung galaxy tab. It was so useful with GPS on

Trip to Pondy - Day 1

Trip Planning

Day 1
We  started on 24th Mar 2012 from home very early 5:30 AM and took the below route.

Route URL

Route on Map

Reached Vellore by 8:30 AM. Had breakfast and visited golden temple. It was very calm and no rush at all as it was Saturday. You need to walk a lot to reach main temple. But once your reach, the ambiance is awesome. Temple is amidst of water. Very nice.

Started from Vellore towards Pondy by 10 AM and reached pondy by 1PM.

St James Court Beach resort was easy to locate on the ECR road. Checked in and had good lunch. Food quality was not that great. But could manage.

My review on this resort on Tripadvisor

Evening, we went to beach, which is just walk down form the resort. Adya and Sowmya enjoyed beach a lot

Headed back to room ordered some dinner. They took very long time to prepare. But it was 

Trip to Pondy -Planning-Part1

The plan started sometime in Jan2012. We wanted to go somewhere after Adya's birthday. Sowmya always wanted to visit Pondy. We decided the destination as Pondy. Did some research on trip advisor and found st James beach resort seemed to be good. A booked there on the month of Feb.

Unfortunately Adya fell ill few days before we should have started. I called and requested them to postpone the booking by a month. The manager told it would cost 10% of night's rent. I tried to explain the situation and at last she agreed to postpone without any extra. I had called her almost a week back.

I had booked for 2 nights

Car and route

We had decided to go in Jukka's car. Had already requested the vehicle.

Shortest Route from Bangalore to Pondy is thorough Tiruvannamalai. However roads near Tiruvannamalaiis horrible. So as per suggestion in team bhp I decided to take following route.

Bangalore-Krishnagiri-Vellore-Vandavasi-Tindivanam-Pondy

Even though this route is 50 km more, I thought it was better to take good roads keeping in mind that I am taking small kid.

Places in Pondy
After quick research following the places we wanted to cover

1. As it was beach resort, I had planed to spend good amount of time in beach near resort itself. I had read Pondy city beach was horrible.
2. Pondy shopping at MG road.
3. Aurobindo ashram
4. Central park
5. Auroville

Will write more soon

Trip to Pondy

Plan
A wanted to go travel desperately. We had never gone anywhere as Adya was still very small. We are planning since Jan. But it materialised only in the month of march. We had planned in Feb but Adya feel ill few days back out travel. So we moved the schedule by a month
Few days of research on trip advisor I found st James beach resort to be good for accommodation. We had decided to drive. To save some sum, I requested Jukka for her car. Indica was the car. She happily agreed do that her car runs few miles.

What's up folks

It's been quite a while that I have posted. Caught up with many things. Many things to share. Following are the topics I will write on, in few days

1. Trip to Pondy
2. S2 gift
3. Trip to ooty, Mysore
4. Exploiting S2
5. Sedan research
6. Of course Adya updates

Ok guys catch you soon

Hirekayi bajji

Kadalebele, uddin bele huridu kolluvudu, 1 cup each

Put following to mixer
1. Hurida belegalu
2. around 10 green chillies
3. 2 cut hirekayi
4. Turida Kaayi
5. Hunase hannu, small unde
6. Uppu
7. Small piece of jaggery
8. Swalpa arishina
9. Jeerige

Put it to a bowl and cook for 10-15 min.

Why and How to Showcase your photographic work

Have you realised that garnished food, presented in an attractive manner tastes much better or maybe you feel more like eating it, compared to much tastier food which is not well presented! Well, We like things which are presented better. We consume and adore things which look good.

 

The key is "Presentation".

 

Why not presenting your own photographic work. Photo Exhibitions don't confine to only professional photographers. Upcoming, hobby, part time photographers can also do it. Here are few points WHY you should show case your pictures and HOW to do it in much easier and economical way

 

 

Why to showcase:

 

1. Awareness of your capabilities:

By showcasing your photos many of your friends, relatives and guests would start  associating you with photography and they will have an awareness of your strengths.

It also works as an advertising strategy. You can have a signature in all your images which builds a brand of your own. This might be one of your steps in marketing.

 

2. Get motivating energy to sail forward:

When people appreciate your photographs, you get inspired to work towards bigger journey. A Pat on the back is always needed

 

3. Promotes improvements:

When presented  to the world, you can see how others perceive at your pictures.

Haven't you got some shots which you feel very good, but others don’t feel so. Also you might have average pictures as per you which many others like a lot. This generates new ideas which you can use for further creations.

 

4. It decorates walls:

It may be your walls or others, your photographs can decorate them. Think about it !

 

5. Making money:

Of course when you exhibit, there may be few people who would love to buy them or may give an opportunities to work for their creative needs.

 

 

How to Showcase - Easy way:

 

Its good to have Big exhibitions, Photo magazines etc, but those might not be for hobby and semi professional photographers. So here are few points how you can showcase your photographs easily and  in a  much economical way!

 

Online is good, faster and easy way to showcase your pictures. Photo-blogs, Online portfolios and Web sites, photography clubs surely will help to do so. And most of us are also doing it.

However I feel printing your photographs gives completely a different and better approach. People see your photos and feel them better when printed than on screen. Following are few ideas which you can adopt.

 

1. Hang them on your own walls:

* First be proud of your photographs and decorate your own walls with them. Frame your own photos and display all over your home and office. Your guests and colleagues might ask for few prints or look for your service.

 

*   Setup a pin board to showcase your best photographs. Print them on paper and collage them on to the board. It is not expensive, yet gives a great impact. Show them to your friends and visitors 

 

2. Gift your photographs:

You would have occasions where you have to gift something to your dear ones. Why buy from shops, you can gift your pictures. I am sure they will like it.

 

3. Create a portfolio:

Create a printed portfolio album in bigger size and keep it in your magazine stand. Let your guests and friends have a look at it in leisure.

You can also keep an album of your best shots in your car and let you co-passenger view at it while driving.

 

4. Make few free photo shoots:

Why not offering few friends a free photo shoot. What you need from them is their time. Give them beautiful pictures, frame few best shots and I am sure they will show case it further on your behalf.

 

5. Another way showcase is to print your pictures on T-shirts, Tea mug  and  what not.

 

 

Note: These are some of the ideas I personally thought. These are not the only ideas for showcasing your work.

Psychological evolution

Few days back, my niece, Gowri and I had a discussion on human psychological evolution over period of time. She had to prepare some contents around that subject. That was the topic for her mini research. Physical evolution of human - we call know Darvin's theory. Survival of fittest etc. But they also believe that there is psychological evolution as well.  My sister, jukka was also involved in the discussion.


Gowri's point was we are evolved psychologically  to a very high level. But I had another thought. Even though we have technologically advanced we have not evolved psychologically. Let's see different areas of life:


1. Social Life: I think we have actually regressed in social life. We have stopped meeting people and without meeting people I dont think we can have emotional attachment with them. So definitely with the age of Facebook, G+ etc, we have not evolved Psychologically. 


2. Family Life: We have started to live in more and more divided families rather than joint families. I think that is a regress in family life

3. Education: Gurukul system was the best and was enabling students in various skills. Now a days kids are so much dependent and not multi skilled. They go to school to pass exam and to get good marks and forget their leanings later. This is surely not an evolution.

There were so many other points we discussed. Please share your thoughts..

Regards,
Karthik

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Very funny statement

This morning I read a news article which says: congress thinks that international powers are involved behind Anna's movement. They have asked to investigate more on that. They think US is involved. Congress thinks Anna being such a weak individual without even an organization could have not pulled these much people support.

This is very hilarious. Congress should at least understand Anna is not a terrorist, but a social reformer. Indian aam aadmi always supports for good cause and we don't need US or any other international powers for us to push.

Or even if they support anna its only for his intentions. Congress instead of working towards anti corruption acts, they are just making non-sense statements and getting into traps.

Dear congress targetting Anna will always come back to you as boomerang. Beware of any actions you take.

Regards,
bhrateeya aam aadmi

A chocolate story

This morning, on the way to office, I was waiting in one of the trafffic signals. A six-to-seven-year boy came to my window and knocked car window pane. He was hanging some God's photo to his neck. His faciapl expression was very pittyful. He begged with his empty bowl. I felt very sad that this boy is begging at the time when he should be going to school and playing with mates. I took few moment to decide whether give some pennies or not. After few seconds he knocked my window again raising his bowl. I usually don't encourage beggars unless I am convinced that the person is really deserving.
This boy seemed to me as a deserving and instead giving money, I gave a chocolate I had. He took it with sad face and went to the car behind mine. I just observed with curiosity. For my surprise the six-year chap took chocolate from his bowl and with out eve seeing what it is, threw that under the car and went ahead begging
I don't understand what made him to throw the chocolate ! What you think ?

HDD crash

I got a new Windows 7 laptop last month from office. Dell laptop with 4 GB ram and 250GB HDD and 2.8 GHz intel duo processor. Hi-fi config. Loved it.

For some reason last week, I got a weird sound while HDD was accessed. The next day it just hung. When re-booted, I got an error saying no boot device found. Alas, my HDD is gone. I lost data of almost 40 days. Some are project related and some are adya's pics. I used take back up every week with old laptop. But as this was new I had not yet started to take back up yet. Never expected such an early mess up.

Anyway, HDD has been given for data recovery, hoping I get back all lost data.

Please pray for me so that I get all Adya's pigs

Called 100

Have you ever called 100 number in your life. I recently called 100, the police number.

It was a love saturday evening, we were coming from Shopper's stop bannerghatta road towards our house on JP nagar ring road. After crossword the traffic had piled up. I thought, it was normal traffic. It was around 8 PM. After 5 - 10 min we realized that we had actually stuck in very bad traffci jam. It took around 45 min to reach 6th avenue junction. Initially we though there could have been an accident or some heavy vehicle stuck in mid road. Later we realized there was no such problem. At 6th avenue junction there a major chaos. Vehicles were stuck in deadlock positions. Only reason was that there was no police constable to control the traffic.

I came out of horrible maze, which was still a chaos. This time I wanted to do something for this. I called up 100 and informed about this. The lady on the other side acknowledged the issue and immediately floated the info to police walky talky. I could here response from concerned inspector as well saying he will send someone. I was so happy.

I felt happy that I could work towards a solution, instead of just cursing police guys.

Regards,
Karthik

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You can use this as a step by step guide to create Adobe interactive form from SAP ABAP Webdynpro