tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-115648552024-02-19T11:49:25.242+05:30M G HarishOften, one has to choose between what is right and what is easyHarisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-25788921093290553322011-09-12T01:27:00.001+05:302011-09-12T02:59:06.589+05:30INDIA and US<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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First of all, congratulations to USA for completing 10 years without any further attack after the terror attack on 9/11 of 2001. You have shown what are the measures to be taken against terrorism in order to curb it. People and politicians didn't call it just another "Black Tuesday". Politicians didn't give statements on televisions saying they condemn this attack strongly. What the then President, George Bush, said was <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Statement_by_the_President_in_his_Address_to_the_Nation,_September_11,_2001">this</a>:</div>
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<i>The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. </i></blockquote>
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<i>I appreciate so very much the members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance.</i></blockquote>
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<i>This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.</i></blockquote>
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At the same time, In India, we hear such statements as "<i>We strongly condemn this cowardly act</i>", "<i>Government is announcing Rs. 2 lakhs each for the killed</i>", "<i>We will find the culprits soon and take strong actions against them</i>" from the responsible people in the top. Also, we find the ministers telling "<i>No terrorist group has claimed the responsibility of the attacks</i>". Arrey morons! Why do you wait for them to come and surrender? Can't you put all your intelligence agencies and police forces on full swing and find them? </div>
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And we hear the opposition parties blaming the government telling "<i>This government is useless</i>". Aren't you the part of the Parliament which is responsible to make laws? Is it not your responsibility to make sure that the government does what is in the best interest of the people? Opposition party leaders, open your your eyes.. Don't confuse "watch-dog of Constitution", the explanation of the Opposition party, as "barking-dogs".</div>
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The list of terror attacks that have taken place itself is frightening.</div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_India">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_India</a></div>
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Shame on the Indian government for having given these many opportunities to the terrorist organisations to attack Indian places time and again. During the recent movement against corruption, all politicians unanimously said Parliament was supreme. But, isn't it a disgrace to leave the person responsible for the attacks on the Parliament for almost 10 years without capital punishment? The US hunted down Osama bin Laden around the Earth and killed him. India is feeding that moron Afzal Guru on public's money. And shame on us, the people of India, for getting used to such conditions. If two or three persons are killed in some attacks, we call it minor attack. </div>
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Ask anyone in US when was the terror attack, and he will tell it was 9/11. But ask the same question to anyone in India and you won't get any day. We can't list out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bombay_bombings">12/3</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_August_2003_Mumbai_bombings">25/8</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_July_2006_Mumbai_train_bombings">11/7</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Indian_Parliament_attack">13/12</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2008_Mumbai_attacks">26/11</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pune_bombing">13/2</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/29_October_2005_Delhi_bombings">29/10</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Delhi_bombing">7/9</a> and so on. And we don't remember most of them. We are used to it. We call the attack days as Black Friday, Black Wednesday etc. In fact, we have all days blacked out! We have Black Sundays to Black Saturdays.<br />
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I can just hope that we, the people of India, awake and be aware of what should be done instead of just playing the blame-game. The future of the country is in the government's hands, and the future of the government is in our hands.</div>
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<li>Restart the browser to enable AdBlock.</li>
<li>You will see a red icon with <b>ABP</b> on the right hand side of the search box in Firefox.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6JqdXTAJFIi_KP-fjK5HeiaCexjI5_4IlVCDOtT7g-xkuMdOXhKVqPvheg2u03bs6T0Tdes-QW_Y_EteVYvRsCcNYU46B8Dy9Bk4GjFc7mOSukCd8QqY3wmte0wg9KsOsbLZH/s1600/AdBlockPlus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6JqdXTAJFIi_KP-fjK5HeiaCexjI5_4IlVCDOtT7g-xkuMdOXhKVqPvheg2u03bs6T0Tdes-QW_Y_EteVYvRsCcNYU46B8Dy9Bk4GjFc7mOSukCd8QqY3wmte0wg9KsOsbLZH/s1600/AdBlockPlus.png" /></a></div></li>
<li>Click on that, and select <b>Preferences</b>.</li>
<li>Click <b>Add Filter</b> and enter <b>*tptools.org/*.</b></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now you can safely open orkut.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You may have to remove yourself from the communities added by the worm, such as saadzin, meu miguxinho, O vírus que contagia, Eu tenho um grande AMOR, Juizo eu TENHO, só não USO!, Dino ♥ etc.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Note: </b>The "Old Orkut" users are not affected by this worm, and are safe.<br />
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If you are not using Firefox, then you can follow the following steps:<br />
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<b>Update</b>: The website tptools.org is down now. Orkut is beautiful, again :-)<br />
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<a name="other-browsers"></a><br />
If you have a browser other than firefox, or to ensure that site won't get accessed by any other way, you can edit <b>hosts</b> file and adding the following lines:<br />
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<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><b>127.0.0.1 tptools.org<br />
127.0.0.1 www.tptools.org</b></div><br />
<b>hosts</b> file is found in:<br />
<ul><li>C:\Windows\ - Windows 95, 98, Me </li>
<li>C:\WinNT\system32\drivers\etc\ - Windows NT, 2000, XP Pro </li>
<li>C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\ - Windows XP Home, Vista, 7</li>
<li>/etc/ - Linux</li>
</ul></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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Brain in all essence, acts as the central processing unit (CPU) of the body. It can perform calculations, control various organs of the body, process the inputs from different organs. However, the question is, can it handle multiple tasks at the same time?<br />
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To quote the examples given in the debates that are mentioned in that article, brain can perform multiple tasks like debugging a program and listening to music at the same time. Similarly, one can chop vegetables while talking on phone. But, once the brain finds some task to be crucial, it starts ignoring the other tasks, as a result of which, one has to stop the less-important activity, such as listening to music or chopping vegetables.<br />
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The debate, seems equally poised. But in reality, I believe, our brain can still handle multiple tasks and all it needs as prerequisite is some training. In both the situations explained, the secondary activity was stopped just to avoid the disturbance created by it on the primary activity. It doesn't mean that the mind had become uni-tasking.<br />
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Remember the time when you started to learn car driving. When you concentrated on the direction, you forgot to remove pressure on the accelerator; when you concentrated on applying the brakes, you forgot to change the gears; and when you concentrated on changing the gears, the direction of motion became wayward. How did all this happen? Is it because of the brain's inablility to handle multitasking?<br />
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Also, remember the good old time when you started learning bicycle. You couldn't do it the first time - why? Because you were too busy concentrating on pedalling that you forgot to control the handle; or you were more concerned about the road ahead that you forgot to turn the handle to balance. But eventually, after a fair amount of practice, you learnt to ride; didn't you?<br />
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While driving, you watch the road, you turn the direction, you press the clutch and you change the gear. And if the vehicle is a bike, you also need to balance it properly. Can you think of these being done 'one by one' at any given time? Not quite possible.<br />
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I believe all the tasks that the brain performs are controlled by mind - either conscious or subconscious. Conscious mind asks for active interacion of the brain, while the subconscious mind can do the 'routine job' without much interaction with brain.<br />
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When you started learning to drive or ride, all tasks were getting executed through conscious mind, and it failed miserably. You did a lot of practice, which means you trained the subconscious mind to do all these activities. Now conscious mind is free to do any other job: you can talk or listen to music when you drive.<br />
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Conscious mind can handle only one task at a time. But subconscious mind can handle virtually infinite number of tasks. The beauty lies in the fact that one can instruct the subconscious mind to do the things conscious mind is doing. That's what we call practice. Once the subconscious mind has 'learnt' to execute the tasks of conscious mind, you can transfer the task for the subconscious mind, relieve the conscious mind from that task.<br />
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If you are very much used to listening music without getting disturbed, you can debug the program easily with music on. If you are deft in chopping vegetables, you can still continue to talk on phone without cutting your fingers. <b>Practice</b>, indeed, <b>makes man perfect!</b></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-67591089818165151982008-12-03T18:48:00.010+05:302008-12-14T20:49:52.829+05:30Code for Factorial, without Recursion<div style="text-align: justify;">After having been declared to be an impregnable procrastinator by all my close-circle friends, after being connoted to update it by those who I didn't even know were reading my blog and after being told "Enough is enough, now update it buddy" by a few friends, I am in the same situation as the Indian government after the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2008_Mumbai_attacks">Mumbai attacks</a>. I have no other go than updating it, at least for the sake of hushing them up till the next terror attack near my house. So here I go...<br /><br />As you might already be knowing, I prefer calling programming an art to calling it a process. That's the reason I enjoy it.<br /><br />Coming to the point, my friend cum colleague was trying to write a program for generating <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_triangle">Pascal Triangle</a>. I decided to play along and wrote a code. In the process, I wrote a function to calculate factorial for a number in an unusual way, without recursion.<br /><br />Generally an incremental loop is used from 2 to N. But I used decrementing loop and here is the outcome (Code written in C programming language):<br /><br /><blockquote>unsigned int fact(unsigned int n)<br />{<br /><blockquote>unsigned int f=n;<br /><br />while(n---2)<br /><blockquote>f*=n;</blockquote>return f;</blockquote>}</blockquote><br />Main thing I wanted to convey in this code is the while loop, which uses the unusual "--" & "-" operator pair.<br /><br />It works similar to this loop:<br /><br /><blockquote>for(f=n;n>=2;n--)<br /><blockquote>f=f*n;</blockquote></blockquote><br />Not a great piece of code, but I found it to be a little interesting. Hence the post.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-48775876640256045212008-09-21T20:40:00.009+05:302008-12-02T19:05:00.363+05:30Reviews - A Wednesday and Rock On!!<div style="text-align: justify;">I never thought I would be writing a movie review in my blog. But after watching these two movies, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_On%21%21_%282008_film%29" title="Rock On!! (2008 film)" rel="wikipedia">Rock On!!</a></span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wednesday">A Wednesday</a></span>, (particularly the latter) I can't refrain myself from commenting on them. They are so good that you would regret if you don't watch them.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Rock_on_poster.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 160px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Rock_on_poster.jpg" alt="Rock On" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br />Rock On!! is all about a music band called Magik. Four men with a common aim join their hands together to realize their dreams. But, being amiss on a small issue, they depart. How they reunite and how one can lose his felicity is the gist of the story. It reflects everyone's life because of its flash-backs which push everyone to his vernal days.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/A_Wednesday_Poster.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 160px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/A_Wednesday_Poster.JPG" alt="A wednesday" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br />A wednesday, on the other side, is completely different. No hero, no heroine and no songs. Not a typical bollywood movie at all. However, it catches attention right from first scene to the last with its tight storyline and outstanding acting by every single artist. Naseeruddin Shah steals the show with his natural performance. This terrorism-based story revolves around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naseeruddin_Shah">Naseeruddin Shah</a>, who calls <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anupam_Kher">Anupam Kher</a> (police officer) with specific demands. It's a small movie (by bollywood standards, with only a runtime of around 95 minutes) but with a big impact. It reflects the minds of the Indians and despises the corrupted Indian administration system.<br /><br />I don't want to spoil your interest by telling more about these movies. On a scale of 5, I would provide a rating of 3.5 to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rock On!! </span>and 4.5 to <span style="font-weight: bold;">A wednesday</span>.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-21759728253303580722008-09-09T21:59:00.009+05:302008-09-10T01:16:17.269+05:30Face Recognition - Ultimate feature of PicasaA picture speaks thousand words. The internet is becoming full of images. <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/google" title="Google" rel="crunchbase">Google</a> seems to have found future in the cutting edge <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_recognition_system" title="Facial recognition system" rel="wikipedia">face recognition</a> for the images. It has introduced face recognition for the photos uploaded by the users. If you have not explored this feature, I say, the right time is NOW! I am balled over in the first attempt itself!!<br /><ol><li>Select <span style="font-weight: bold;">New Features</span> at the top right.<br /></li><li>Select <span style="font-weight: bold;">See name tags in action</span>.</li><li>Click <span style="font-weight: bold;">Get started with name tags</span>.</li><li>Click <span style="font-weight: bold;">Try It</span> in the right pane.<br /></li><li>Click <span style="font-weight: bold;">Start Processing photos</span>.</li></ol>Wait for some time. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/" title="Picasa">Picasa</a> will scan all your photos and index all the faces found. It starts asking you the name of the person in the photos. The best thing is that it selects a bunch of photos, and all of them will be of the same person and its Suggestion is just marvellous. Most of the times, you don't even have to think before selecting the first suggestion. I can't explain the greatness of this feature in words here. Just use it and experience!!<br /><br />PS: Google has already rolled out a hidden feature of face recognition in its image search. When you search for an image, say <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sachin</span>, the url of the image will be something like <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=sachin"><span style="font-style: italic;">http://images.google.com/images?q=sachin</span></a>. You can add <span style="font-weight: bold;">&imgtype=face<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span>at the end of the URL, i.e., <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=sachin&imgtype=face">http://images.google.com/images?q=sachin&imgtype=face</a> </span>to find only images containing face.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-75426019708763065842008-05-24T22:25:00.003+05:302008-12-09T13:01:04.767+05:30Top reason to adopt Firefox<div style="text-align: justify;">We have been hearing, right from its introduction, that <a href="http://www.getfirefox.com/" title="Mozilla Firefox">Firefox</a> is the most secure <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser" title="Web browser">browser</a>. But many of us haven't bothered to know why is is deemed so. I am not going to explain about all those features which make it safer than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers" title="List of Web browsers">other browsers</a>, say <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx" title="Internet Explorer">Internet Explorer</a>. I just thought I would share an experience which happened today, which can be considered to be the <span style="font-weight: bold;">top reason to adopt Mozilla Firefox</span>.<br /><br />I got a mail from an unknown email id, pointing me to a blog. When I clicked that link, it redirected me to another site, <span style="font-weight: bold;">http://www.posokei.com</span> and to my surprise, a message popped up from the address bar, with title <span style="font-weight: bold;">Suspecting Web Forgery</span>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho4517dXkD6sMhHKZWhatoBDCHbxWhsQgEMNpLmBAxz4hvpHEoqvnhlZPUahyphenhyphen_nk1p9PuifcdeXnO_kO4K43ELI4K0Ox0pUbt5isMoUmnglaZhR1WwfSTqQoSxn0pRiudTgQ2c/s1600-h/ff.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho4517dXkD6sMhHKZWhatoBDCHbxWhsQgEMNpLmBAxz4hvpHEoqvnhlZPUahyphenhyphen_nk1p9PuifcdeXnO_kO4K43ELI4K0Ox0pUbt5isMoUmnglaZhR1WwfSTqQoSxn0pRiudTgQ2c/s400/ff.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5203987958029814546" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br />It also provided a brief detail about the site and why that site has been classified as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing" title="Phishing">phishing</a> site. This means that the user is made fully aware of the site before he proceeds to browse it. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Prevention is better than cure</span>. Is it not be best reason to use firefox?<br /><br />You can <a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/phishing-protection/">read about <span style="font-weight:bold;">phishing protection in Firefox</span> here</a><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-9385019888783910712008-05-06T11:53:00.003+05:302008-05-06T13:19:27.363+05:30Google introduces Hindi translationIt has was a long wait, but well deserved. So far we were not able to dynamically translate text to any Indian language. <span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.google.com/translate_t">Google</a> has finally done it by introducing translation for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi">Hindi</a></span>. You can now <span style="font-weight: bold;">translate any text or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_page" title="Web page">web page</a> from <a href="http://www.google.com/translate_t?langpair=en%7Chi" title="Indian English">English</a><a href="http://www.google.com/translate_t?langpair=en%7Chi"> to Hindi</a> or from <a href="http://www.google.com/translate_t?langpair=hi%7Cen">Hindi to English</a></span>. We can expect translation to and from other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India" title="Languages of India">Indian languages</a> also soon.<br /><br />Although it is not perfect, I'm sure it will improve quickly. Be sure to improve the translation if you find a better word/sentence when you are using it!<br /><br />Earlier introduced <a href="http://google.com/transliterate/indic/">transliteration tool</a>, which supported dynamic transliteration to Indian languages like <a href="http://google.com/transliterate/indic/Hindi">Hindi</a>, <a href="http://google.com/transliterate/indic/Kannada">Kannada</a>, <a href="http://google.com/transliterate/indic/Tamil">Tamil</a>, <a href="http://google.com/transliterate/indic/Telugu">Telugu</a> and <a href="http://google.com/transliterate/indic/Malayalam">Malayalam</a>, which reduced the popularity of software based transliteration tools like <a href="http://www.baraha.com/">Baraha</a>.<br /><br />I hope to see the translation expanded to include other languages also.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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Probably when he badly needs some help and no one around is ready to assist. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.airtel.in/">Airtel</a> Customer Care</span> is one such call centre which is determined enough to put you in such a hopeless situation.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl_R4s-RVoQ96yaw8zrdmLlGyySOpMs6MyfOV_D113hbHwNuhVCltxx1d3qhpJqIudSEjngpx7qkF6MvNPPfUhXZBxhuXhclM-br1FIHqZ3-kY_lS7F5f0PO-wHvOo46CZt-05/s1600-h/airtel-customer-care.bmp"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl_R4s-RVoQ96yaw8zrdmLlGyySOpMs6MyfOV_D113hbHwNuhVCltxx1d3qhpJqIudSEjngpx7qkF6MvNPPfUhXZBxhuXhclM-br1FIHqZ3-kY_lS7F5f0PO-wHvOo46CZt-05/s400/airtel-customer-care.bmp" alt="airtel depress yourself customer care" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182659486371146770" border="0" /></a><br /></div>I do have reason to be spilling my anguish here about Airtel's customer care service. There are many incidents which clearly indicate that Airtel is much interested in cheating its customers.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Incident #1: Connection not deactivated</span><br />My friend, who had an Airtel corporate connection in Bangalore, got transferred to Hyderabad. Since he didn't need this postpaid connection any more, he filled an application to cancel the connection and asked me get it deactivated. I went to their office (none of their executives, who come running to give you a new connection, would come to take the disconnection form) around January 20th and gave the application form. They took the application along with the outstanding amount and stated that the connection will be deactivated within two working days. However, after about 20 days, a bill was sent for that connection. When I called the customer care, they told that the application itself hasn't been received! So I gave the bill number of the outstanding amount which I had payed and also told details about the office where I had given the application. They also gave a complaint number and assured the same thing: <span style="font-style: italic;">the connection will be deactivated within two working days</span>. Then again, as usual, I got the bill for the month of February in March. I called the customer care again and censured them about the issue. Again the ready reply came: <span style="font-style: italic;">it will surely be deactivated within 48 hours</span>. I am still waiting for the disconnection of that SIM.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Incident #2: Security Deposit not returned</span><br />Another colleague of my friend, who was also transferred to Hyderabad, had given an application to deactivate. But the Airtel people didn't deactivate it and in the next month, they deducted security deposit of Rs. 300/- and deactivated. As he is not insane to come to Bangalore by spending more than Rs. 300/- to get Rs. 300/- back, the money will permanently be with Airtel.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Incident #3: SIM Deactivated because of failed address verification</span><br />Airtel address verifiers are not Pizza boys to always find the correct address within half an hour. But don't be under the impression that they will try their level best to find the place. Airtel will simply deactivate your SIM giving failed address verification as the reason. If you call customer care you'll get the ready answer again: <span style="font-style: italic;">Sorry for inconvenience sir. Our person will come today evening and verify your address</span>. This happened with my colleague just three days back and after calling customer care and getting the before said answer every day, today the concerned person came to our office, and gave the report as house address is verified. He told that the SIM will be reactivated by today evening, but you know, I have my doubts!<br /><br />This is not the end of the list. There are many more similar experiences. <a href="http://coai.in/archives_statistics_2008_q1.htm">According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)</a>, Airtel is having <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharti_Airtel#Subscriber_Base">maximum subscriber base in Karnataka</a>. If it's customer care service is so useless here itself, I can't help but feel sorry for the Airtel customers in other places.<br /><br />One more point to be noted is, it is not only Airtel which follows such a nasty purview with the customers. Apparently <a href="http://iduvejeevana.blogspot.com/2006/12/hello-this-is-customer-care.html">Hutch</a> (now Vodafone) and other operators also do the same thing. Sometimes I feel as though having a mobile phone itself is a sin. What is the need of these helplines if they can't even resolve even simplest of the requests raised by the user, let alone extreme technical issues. In my opinion, such call centres should be referred as <span style="font-weight: bold;">Customer Don't Cares</span> instead of Customer Cares. They seem to know that <a href="http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2008/03/27/the-best-service-is-no-service-mobile-industry-take-note/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">the best service is no service</span></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">. </span>What do you think?<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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Situated at a distance of 22 km from Bengalooru and covering about 25,000 acres of hilly region, <a href="http://www.indiawildliferesorts.com/national-parks/bannerghatta-national-park.html">Bannerghatta National Park</a> is an important National Park in India one must not fail to visit if you visit Karnataka.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.maps-india.com/karnataka/karnataka-map/karnataka-national-park.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.maps-india.com/karnataka/karnataka-map/karnataka-national-park.gif" alt="Bannerghatta, Karnataka" border="0" /></a></div><br />Deciding to go to Bannerghatta, we aggregated some information about it. We learnt that Bannerghtta National Park remains closed on Tuesday. One can go either by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore_Metropolitan_Transport_Corporation">BMTC</a> buses or by private vehicle. Since there are a lot of buses at regular intervals to Bannerghatta from Majestic, BMTC is preferable. On a fine Saturday morning of 24th November 2007, we left home at 8 in the morning and reached Bannerghatta at about 10:15. We had to stand in a queue to get tickets for the safari and the zoo. Since we had gone during weekends, we had to pay a little extra for the tickets.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR6TrippZsR84aSDK6Y-PuAUr-kswDC2kTF-6MoOEJfhntC9uuaoAERalbGdx8rXDHaoABo-jVpkxxBZ426rAcR0ZIxpC8wsx-MVf3p3Qu4P2w__AH3QmsRWJpSNE04OnWZjrR/s1600-h/bannerghatta.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR6TrippZsR84aSDK6Y-PuAUr-kswDC2kTF-6MoOEJfhntC9uuaoAERalbGdx8rXDHaoABo-jVpkxxBZ426rAcR0ZIxpC8wsx-MVf3p3Qu4P2w__AH3QmsRWJpSNE04OnWZjrR/s400/bannerghatta.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta National Park" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177477840251096322" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />We started off with the safari. Meshed vehicles of the forest department do a good job of taking you to various parts of the <a href="http://www.wildlife-tour-india.com/wildlife-in-india/bannerghatta-national-park.html">Bannerghatta Biological Park</a> (BBP) amidst a myriad of wild animals like lions, tigers etc. roaming freely in the dense forest terrain. You might even get a feeling of being inside a bone in zoo and all the animals coming and visiting you from outside. Those 45 minutes were truly memorable!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsJs4Tjmeaahgd5ovSz6RH8PTiTjuHXrkwv9cPVkOpsnpnQMCPbxnxQvwYTI0DpSv0zD12gPaD2uCNT72vLjgDhFn_7tpXFriMHr7v-yUR43nIPB342QoZc-JwjVWsWLZzq1W6/s1600-h/bannerghatta-white-tiger.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsJs4Tjmeaahgd5ovSz6RH8PTiTjuHXrkwv9cPVkOpsnpnQMCPbxnxQvwYTI0DpSv0zD12gPaD2uCNT72vLjgDhFn_7tpXFriMHr7v-yUR43nIPB342QoZc-JwjVWsWLZzq1W6/s400/bannerghatta-white-tiger.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta White Tiger" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177467489379912866" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi_SkmcF7UnCMTWl0JeOlFa3jP40Zqp1ccZfJOslmJpaRZhtByX5irPHC5W-Dz9hfW0XxAnO_qYomaKVWeHV6Fxzw15bAGi1jNXtCH2hL8lRIzSKjxLW3S41Yw3lG2dZXY3Xo5/s1600-h/bannerghatta-lion-lioness.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi_SkmcF7UnCMTWl0JeOlFa3jP40Zqp1ccZfJOslmJpaRZhtByX5irPHC5W-Dz9hfW0XxAnO_qYomaKVWeHV6Fxzw15bAGi1jNXtCH2hL8lRIzSKjxLW3S41Yw3lG2dZXY3Xo5/s400/bannerghatta-lion-lioness.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Lion" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177467704128277682" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zN34Tw2FVDi6iYCsvSNyM94XeYR_P102A4sXTeNTyll8QC5xkXyKFsGIvVyQuiTIyJS13-RZHhhzP5ixf2EuorVXdycCTYRXaatmt-NeObNhnAVX3dwezPzd6oAuklT4_MHG/s1600-h/bannerghatta-elephants.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zN34Tw2FVDi6iYCsvSNyM94XeYR_P102A4sXTeNTyll8QC5xkXyKFsGIvVyQuiTIyJS13-RZHhhzP5ixf2EuorVXdycCTYRXaatmt-NeObNhnAVX3dwezPzd6oAuklT4_MHG/s400/bannerghatta-elephants.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Elephants" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177476556055874802" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />After finishing our safari, we proceeded to the zoo where many other not-so-wild animals and birds are kept. It was an exhaustive collection. Later we moved to aquarium. Maintenance of the aquarium is good. Delighted by the diverse and colourful birds and fishes, we went ahead to the Reptile Park.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHfIKRgAhfnAV2uXp7N1xkdGxEbNAw6EgY3J7Qmu8QmudOfbmFHKcl3UJES4CGkJdw8u-lwCncLBdts_S-e4Pc0_nhxTd-78vlKJ-XCroHL9P2l06pVdbeGC8-4xyV_yeOPqil/s1600-h/bannerghatta-bird.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHfIKRgAhfnAV2uXp7N1xkdGxEbNAw6EgY3J7Qmu8QmudOfbmFHKcl3UJES4CGkJdw8u-lwCncLBdts_S-e4Pc0_nhxTd-78vlKJ-XCroHL9P2l06pVdbeGC8-4xyV_yeOPqil/s400/bannerghatta-bird.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Bird" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177478145193774354" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWdaDNcfXaZ5NO1KNtxiRVIjOWVma5edzzxTRImVxfzjCNA0hEAMUDwkfp5sfB0jlZ1Ryd3ynsgUUGqlI6v1XKGU6wondCoIQWdVM2VMLlzRbegcHR9YIzZnZ2G_jSuswp911/s1600-h/bannerghatta-white-peacock.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWdaDNcfXaZ5NO1KNtxiRVIjOWVma5edzzxTRImVxfzjCNA0hEAMUDwkfp5sfB0jlZ1Ryd3ynsgUUGqlI6v1XKGU6wondCoIQWdVM2VMLlzRbegcHR9YIzZnZ2G_jSuswp911/s400/bannerghatta-white-peacock.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta White Peacock" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177478458726386978" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxM5V3irAR7PCWjDJlJkeUWIGHSzSH1eoXAecZWniXNACvPmov51r_RM6UcykbFnQqbf-GsY9IwYtCmQFjrRd0Wih_JKfmtR1qLMDdVa5lfIsKMwX3ZmmNSU1OtiqB9E4aUII/s1600-h/bannerghatta-aquarium-2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxM5V3irAR7PCWjDJlJkeUWIGHSzSH1eoXAecZWniXNACvPmov51r_RM6UcykbFnQqbf-GsY9IwYtCmQFjrRd0Wih_JKfmtR1qLMDdVa5lfIsKMwX3ZmmNSU1OtiqB9E4aUII/s400/bannerghatta-aquarium-2.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Aquarium Fish" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177465633954040882" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTzgSYoU8fgjY4ZArUMiXkrtgJ70w_rKDHuMhz34wYcEUejn3t8NTPkCCvQUCZFC4-emYHPOSybmJtd8LRrApNpwDe-_a1QMjSatW2ubi6MvPOQrxhiVWcZ9AL96hyK1enJfx/s1600-h/bannerghatta-aquarium.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTzgSYoU8fgjY4ZArUMiXkrtgJ70w_rKDHuMhz34wYcEUejn3t8NTPkCCvQUCZFC4-emYHPOSybmJtd8LRrApNpwDe-_a1QMjSatW2ubi6MvPOQrxhiVWcZ9AL96hyK1enJfx/s400/bannerghatta-aquarium.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Aquarium Fish" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177466097810508882" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDjmTL8W1ihowdtPf8H4ILoxpKcCM2JTj6zDCQCgKWrtomkgVuhUI7y9TP9Mi_hqm7S2T_14hP6eoujZEVL9Esdt7PBJO1HOGb62fhqButY6Jx0XDLxMVvsKDa7F8fCtSzrfaY/s1600-h/bannerghatta-aquarium-3.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDjmTL8W1ihowdtPf8H4ILoxpKcCM2JTj6zDCQCgKWrtomkgVuhUI7y9TP9Mi_hqm7S2T_14hP6eoujZEVL9Esdt7PBJO1HOGb62fhqButY6Jx0XDLxMVvsKDa7F8fCtSzrfaY/s400/bannerghatta-aquarium-3.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Aquarium Fish" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177475873156074706" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />We had no idea that there are so many types of reptiles! I didn't know the names of most of the reptiles except snakes and crocodiles etc. We came to know why Bannerghatta is so famous for its Reptile Park. We literally got exhausted by the end of it.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-KJVZi6NFNJW75WRXkb-_Ek4AkQ9ELhNvXNJXAK7B1LgSmw0TfJKHX8ZlnzfJ6n0HSXY6geJA7jhYHzOc8nKBsu88ODaYUDsmsYj0h50go6z0s5iNwAla8ZzOXGtxwKGbHEH/s1600-h/bannerghatta-reptile.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw-KJVZi6NFNJW75WRXkb-_Ek4AkQ9ELhNvXNJXAK7B1LgSmw0TfJKHX8ZlnzfJ6n0HSXY6geJA7jhYHzOc8nKBsu88ODaYUDsmsYj0h50go6z0s5iNwAla8ZzOXGtxwKGbHEH/s400/bannerghatta-reptile.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Reptile" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177467897401806018" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sahajcq7LK_GmLgrjRCVlkR-QPBrcoxCNhC0dAmd8X58H3QcROfgbn87VWtKIJSMSn708E-3IflRtlkpQWiAlU_11SCRmVa8Yqdc5QUNynxGbFhlKlAyPaxNJ17fOjz7lfM3/s1600-h/bannerghatta-reptile-2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sahajcq7LK_GmLgrjRCVlkR-QPBrcoxCNhC0dAmd8X58H3QcROfgbn87VWtKIJSMSn708E-3IflRtlkpQWiAlU_11SCRmVa8Yqdc5QUNynxGbFhlKlAyPaxNJ17fOjz7lfM3/s400/bannerghatta-reptile-2.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Reptile" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177476148033981666" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />It was already past 2 O'clock in the afternoon and it was time for lunch. So we thought of having food. There are shops and hotels just outside the National Park. We had a nice lunch. Our visit wasn't over since we hadn't visited the <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_zoo">Butterfly Park</a> yet.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhmG_BLHjnKrVjtdouPMIqz058Id0l8w_7TdFWK3euIdu5J2NM15WSV_nopMnS0sjVa7RaANY41mZmxjqQmbpyki5UCuFdCCGjlPdzfqdZgs4BMbZ9nPaO5-ZFCVfZXfNZpk-/s1600-h/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-stream.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhmG_BLHjnKrVjtdouPMIqz058Id0l8w_7TdFWK3euIdu5J2NM15WSV_nopMnS0sjVa7RaANY41mZmxjqQmbpyki5UCuFdCCGjlPdzfqdZgs4BMbZ9nPaO5-ZFCVfZXfNZpk-/s400/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-stream.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Butterfly Park" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177466389868285026" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />We took tickets to the Butterfly Park. Butterfly Park is is a kind of unique zoo I have ever seen. It's the first of its kind in India. It's a doom shaped closed space in which various class of butterflies are maintained. Informative paintings are drawn on the walls of museum adjacent to the park. You can learn almost everything about the butterflies in that museum. If you are still curious, you can even watch a video show which gives more in-depth information about these idyllic species.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYMRekzqRvCpDiC9oyms0R3PEiPXFyLZixkzA_xvt2ZxAo52O3yPe1i82BEKAOIZMEaWHEIuNbsJbkXZ1iKKvBmcsaBA7et59xzN9V4G1adhiTt_3huDw62IbhBKdPWQE9-86/s1600-h/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYMRekzqRvCpDiC9oyms0R3PEiPXFyLZixkzA_xvt2ZxAo52O3yPe1i82BEKAOIZMEaWHEIuNbsJbkXZ1iKKvBmcsaBA7et59xzN9V4G1adhiTt_3huDw62IbhBKdPWQE9-86/s400/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-1.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Butterfly Park" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177466870904622194" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjCjCdgoZIEGpzAvfTYdv-Rvby0sgTEBddnhGUZQ6VVtibOtClUbwrDeB-yQqQn3bxhptuIeA3LsQDsuunoRYDixooQti6xfrp5cvhwmEkDLSB1INvXEKHvr01RLU4iovJhfs/s1600-h/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjCjCdgoZIEGpzAvfTYdv-Rvby0sgTEBddnhGUZQ6VVtibOtClUbwrDeB-yQqQn3bxhptuIeA3LsQDsuunoRYDixooQti6xfrp5cvhwmEkDLSB1INvXEKHvr01RLU4iovJhfs/s400/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-2.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Butterfly Park" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177467046998281346" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvvyVpMAoLqmNWXlwFIPLLd4FZ2zK1rKBI1fYsCXuKBqiOsc8bO5NkSGvz3IF8wOIQ-i3l0N3bOgw7CpFny2QEk0Cj2BU43XfhIREUBc7PodLYCb_eStqVOGdPp_HJVUEhWpl0/s1600-h/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-3.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvvyVpMAoLqmNWXlwFIPLLd4FZ2zK1rKBI1fYsCXuKBqiOsc8bO5NkSGvz3IF8wOIQ-i3l0N3bOgw7CpFny2QEk0Cj2BU43XfhIREUBc7PodLYCb_eStqVOGdPp_HJVUEhWpl0/s400/bannerghatta-butterfly-park-3.jpg" alt="Bannerghatta Butterfly Park" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5177467231681875090" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br />There are many other places if you want to trek. But we were really, really exhausted. So we decided to come back. All in all, it was an unforgettable outing. If you are bored of the intricacies of the city life and if you badly need to experience the diversity in flora and fauna of the nature without traveling too far, then Bannerghatta is the right place you should consider going to.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">UPDATE:<br /></span>My friends have asked for a few more details, which I thought are worth mentioning here (Some points are already mentioned in the article, but I've listed them here again for the sake of completeness):<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">BMTC bus service </span>to Bannerghatta is <span style="font-weight: bold;">very good</span>. BMTC also provides <span style="font-weight: bold;">Volvo (A/C) buses</span>.</li><li>You need to pay a <span style="font-weight: bold;">nominal fee if you want to take photographs</span> in the Bannerghatta National Park as well as in the Butterfly Park.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Entrance and photography tickets are separate</span> for the Zoo/Safari and the Butterfly Park.</li><li>Entrance<span style="font-weight: bold;"> fees are a more on weekends and holidays</span>.<br /></li><li>You get <span style="font-weight: bold;">chats and cold drinks</span> inside the zoo as well as outside the entrance.</li><li>On <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesdays, Bannerghatta National Park remains closed</span>.<br /></li></ul></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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Most often than not, spams get generated from bots, viruses and automated mailing lists. In the rare cases, they are also caused my human users which, quite often, happen to be the most irritating kind of spam generators. It is observed that around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam">80% of the email messages exchanged are spams!</a>. How disgusting!!<br /><br />Take, for example, an incident which happened recently. One of my friends sent a mail to a large number of recepients. But one of those recepients was not an intended person. That person used <b><i>Reply All</i></b> and asked my friend to remove him from his mailing list. Well, you can guess what happened. All of us got the reply email which was intended only for my friend. Thankfully the chapter ended there itself. To get a hint of what can happen in such cases, see <a href="http://www.ihateyourjob.com/how-to-look-stupid-reply-to-all/"><b>how to look stupid</b></a>.<br /><br />What is the solution for this? It's simple: We have to be in the right mind and know when to use <b>Reply</b> and when to use <b>Reply All</b>. As a rule of thumb, we should <b>NEVER use Reply All</b> unless we are 100% sure about what we are doing.<br /><br />Instead of relying on others, another way to prevent such incidents is to be cautious enough not to disclose the email addresses to the recepients at all. It can be easily done by adding the addresses to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Carbon_Copy"><b>BCC</b> (<b>Blind Courtesy Copy</b> or <b>Blind Carbon Copy</b>)</a> field instead of <b>TO</b> or <b>CC</b> fields. Unfortunately <b>BCC</b> field ranks top among the most obscure and unused standard feature of email!<br /><br />The features discussed above are only for mails generated by humans. What about those spam emails which get generated by malwares and bots? Such spam emails are mainly the means for advertising products. More the number of recepients, more the number of customers. But how do they get the email ids? It's directly or indirectly by ourselves. We may have inadverently given our email ids to some website or it might have gone there by one of our friends. We need to be extra careful if we want to be at a distance from spams.<br /><br />Also it is a good idea to remove the sender's information while forwarding an email to others. It not only protects your privacy, but also prevents any potential spammer to use the email addresses in the body of the mail to be used for unsolicited mailings.<br /><br />Virtually there is no way to stop such emails if you are already receiving them. <b>Precaution is better than cure</b> is the mantra to be followed here. When we give out our email ids to some third party web sites, we need to be extra careful. <b>Never give your email id to any unknown public mailing lists</b>. You never know who shares your email id with spammers!<br /><br />Another way to detect and filtering out spams is to give <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_address#Plus_.28or_Minus.29_addressing">plus or minus addressing</a>. You can use different tags for different mailing lists and if you start receiving spams, you can come to know who shared your email address with the spammers. Read more about <a href="http://www.digitalalchemy.tv/2006/09/use-gmail-generate-unlimited-e-mail.html">spam control by plus addressing technique here</a>.<br /><br />Is that all? Not quite. One of the most common mistakes done by many people is to use their email addresses in their signatures. You may think that is going to make you more famous in the online world. But remember, for one genuine email you get by displaying your email id there, you start receiving hundreds of spams. <b>Never ever make the mistake of putting email id in web pages, forums or social networking sites</b>. Also, remember never to give away your friends' email ids to sites which ask you to invite them to join it. You may think you are being courteous to your friends by giving their email ids but, in reality, you are making them victims of spam emails.<br /><br />Last but not the least, as a rule of thumb, <span style="font-weight: bold;">don't forward any email message if it explicitly asks you to do so!</span> Stopping spams may not be in our hands, but reducing them really is!<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-52799162699332151622007-11-22T19:09:00.001+05:302008-03-11T12:05:08.261+05:30A formidable process: Indian Postal Service<div style="text-align: justify;">Last week, as a part of our general training, we were being introduced to Software Engineering, wherein we came across the three most important things which render a project successful. They are: <b>people</b>, <b>process</b> and <b>technology</b>. The instructor gave an example of how a formidable process can make the entire organization superior. He took an example of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Postal_Service"><b>Indian Postal Service</b></a> (officially known as <a href="http://indiapost.gov.in">India Post</a>), which, in spite of a lot of difficulties, has been giving a promising service for over 150 years. I think that example is extremely thought provoking, and that is the reason I'm jotting down this article.<br /><br />Let us quickly review the conditions under which the Indian Postal Service is working:<br /><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Letters can be sent to any place in India, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladakh">Ladakh</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanyakumari_%28town%29">Kanyakumari</a>, from East to West, from metros to remote villages and delivery is ensured.<br /></li><li>With <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languages_of_India">20+ official languages</a> and 24 languages being spoken by more than a million people, the diversity itself is a serious problem for <a href="http://indiapost.gov.in">India Post</a>. But there is no rule that instructs people to write address in a particular language; you can write a letter to Uttar Pradesh writing address in Kannada, and still it reaches.</li><li>Address in any part of India (excepting a few regions) is messed up, with "<i>near</i>" and "<i>Opp.</i>" taking most of the address lines and sometimes only name and city is mentioned (Yes, it's hard to believe, but I am not exaggerating. It happened with my father, in which only the surname and city was mentioned in the address). As against this, for the postal services of other countries, door number/street is compulsory.<br /></li><li>Most people sending letters will not know the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Index_Number">PIN (Postal Index Number)</a> of the destination or they won't write it. Even worse, they sometimes write wrong PINs, but the people in the Post Offices are generous enough to correct the PINs and send it to the correct recipient. Contracting this, postal services in many other countries require PIN or ZIP codes specified, or the post will not be delivered.<br /></li></ul>Had we ever thought about all these? This is not a era when someone discusses why a postal card or an inland letter is not reaching properly. With telephones and mobile phones becoming a necessity and the Internet being the medium of fast communication, no one bothers about the snail mail. Also, when it comes to the public services, India is considered to be a close competitor for the last position. But, as I said, the example of the Indian Postal Service instantly changed my mindset and made me think and rethink.<br /><br />Apart from all those constraints mentioned before, the number of posts undelivered is just about 5 per million. Very close to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma"><b>Six Sigma quality</b></a>. And all this happens with no written rule. Such a quality service is possible only due to a formidable process and equally eminent people working in India Post who adhere to this process. There are a very few other such systems in the world, which always provide their 100%, yet remain unnoticed... Shouldn't we be proud of such systems?<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-8321965660567025862007-10-30T08:53:00.000+05:302007-11-02T08:09:27.522+05:30Shortcut to Success?!<div align="justify">Well, it has been quite a while since I posted an article in <a href="http://mgharish.blogspot.com/">this blog</a>. That's due to the change in my dwelling place as well as my entry into the corporate world. Now I'm residing in the beautiful garden city, Bengaluru (Bangalore). I'm not going to write more about that now, but let me discuss an issue in which the current generation is getting attracted towards: <b>finding shortcuts to success</b>.<br /><br />What is the most sought thing today? Probably, for most of us, it's money and nothing else. A more important issue regarding this matter is that everyone wants money, but without or minimal effort. But is it achievable?<br /><br />There have been a lot of organizations which offer a huge money for a small investment, and there are a lot more people who go for them. With the advancement of the Internet and the means of online payments, it is growing even more rapidly nowadays. From offline firms like <b>Amway</b> to the online communities like <b>agloco</b>, from the antiquated firms like <b>AllAdvantage</b> to the emerging ones like <b>eBiz</b> and <b>GISH</b>, each of these firms has its own claims as to how the customer is able to earn a lumpsome amount. They promise to make you a millionaire in a year or two, but none of them has succeeded in this regard till now. Has anyone seen a person who is competing for a place in top 100 in the Forbes magazine just by participating in such organizations and making people members?<br /><br />I'm not here to accuse these firms as frauds or to compell people not to join them. Each one has the right to do what he/she wants to do. Then why am I writing this article? I just want to share my yesterday's experience here.<br /><br />My friend called me up requesting me to come to <acronym title="International Tech Park Limited"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITPL">ITPL</a></acronym> yesterday evening. He didn't tell any reason, but still I made sure that I went there. It was only after I met him that I came to know that he had called me to give a presentation about GISH, and now, I know that it has turned out to be a very good reason for me to write this article.<br /><br />It was all about joining this organization by investing some amount initially and then urging others to be a part of it too. For every pair of members that you make, they give you 1000 bucks. And if you are able to have a certain fixed number of customers downline in a prescribed time period, you are eligible for some extra privileges by GISH. But that's not what matters here. An interesting figure he told was that even if you do only one pair of members in a month and consider the same rate of logins by those members and their downlines also, you'll end up with 2<sup>12</sup>=4096 members at the last level in one year. So it's not a big deal to have a large number of people down the line. Seems interesting right? Just think, can you continue with the same growth rate for the next couple of years?? You'll have to have 2<sup>30</sup> pairs, which means 68,719,476,736 people. Current population of the world is just 10% of that. Where on the Earth do we find those many homosapiens then? Do we have count and include ancestors too and make them members?? <b>There is no shortcut to success</b>. Hard work can only fetch you what you want.<br /><br />I forgot to mention, the presentation started with the expansion of GISH: Goals, Income, Savings and Happiness. According to the presentor, achieving <b>Goals</b> brings you <b>Income</b>, which when <b>Saved</b>, will give you <b>Happiness</b>. But does money alone ever bring happiness? Every insightful word or adage or <i>Shloka</i> tells that money is the cause of all the sorrows of man. As <b>Adi Shankaracharya</b> has described in <b>Bhajagovindam</b>:<br /><br /><div align="center"><b>अर्थमनर्थं भावय नित्यं<br />नास्ति ततः सुखलेशः सत्यम् |<br />पुत्रादपि धनभाजां भीतिः<br />सर्वत्रैषा विहिता रीतिः ||</b><br /><br />arthamanartham bhaavaya nityam<br />naasti tataH sukhaleshaH satyam ||<br />putraadapi dhanabhaajaam bheetiH<br />sarvatraiShaa vihitaa reetiH ||<br /><br /></div><b>Meaning</b>:<br /><br /><div align="center"><b>Wealth is problem - think deeply on this<br />There is no true happiness from that<br />A rich man is afraid even of his own sons<br />This is true everywhere and forever</b></div><br /><br />Now tell me, do you still think that you can become rich overnight? And even if you do, does that bring you happiness? It is up to you to think and decide what you want to go. Whichever path you take, I wish you all the best!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-3086769934501312022007-10-03T02:15:00.000+05:302007-10-06T15:49:53.446+05:30What do you think of yourselves, MindTree Minds?<div align="justify">They were humble, elegant and more social than they are now. They had never shown this frog-in-the-well attitude until that fateful (?) day they got recruited to an Indian multinational company called <a href="http://www.mindtree.com/"><b>MindTree</b></a>. I'm talking about my own classmates and friends who got entitled <b>MindTree Minds</b> when they got selected.<br /><br />I have been observing this attitude not only in my classmates, but also in friends in other colleges and juniors too. There are a few exceptions, nevertheless. But I stress, <i>only a few</i> are still the same as they were before. What makes me post it here? Because the so called MindTree Minds:<br /><ul><li>act as if MindTree is the only IT company in the world.</li><li>don't generally combine with people other than MindTree recruitees as they used to be.</li><li>show off that they are recruited to MindTree.</li><li>talk about the company all the time.</li><li>think that they are superior to others, while the truth is that some of them got selected by sheer luck.</li></ul>I don't know what they think of themselves. Are their minds rotten to the core to be unable to understand the simple fact that they may not be in Mindtree forever? The sooner these vain mindtree minds understand the reality and come out of this dangerous egocentric syndrome, the better. As <a href="http://www.mindtree.com/">MindTree</a> tag-line itself says, <b>a tree is known by the fruit it bears</b>. Mind it and get a life, folks!<br /><br />Your honest opinions are welcome.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-24537255848023201672007-09-27T23:52:00.001+05:302008-12-12T23:50:22.558+05:30Free SMS for Karnataka Spice Customers!!<div style="text-align: justify;">With all the Cell phone operators increasing the charges for SMS, it has been a difficult time for the students and those who rely upon SMS for the communication most of the times. Spice, Airtel, Hutch all have increased their tariffs to 5 paise or above. But a week ago, my friend RJP sent me a message telling a trick to get <b>free SMS</b>. This works only for <b>Spice</b> customers in the <b>Karnataka</b> circle.<br /><br /><b>Change </b>your <b>message centre number</b> in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">message settings</span> from default number to <b><strike>+919810051913</strike> <strike>+919840011055</strike> <strike>+919810051873</strike></b>.<br /><br />A few notes about this trick.<br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>It works only for <b>Karnataka Customers</b>.<br /></li><li><b>All messages are </b><b>completely free</b>.<br /></li><li><strike>This works only for <b>Spice numbers</b> which start from <b>9964</b>.</strike></li><li>You <b>can't recharge</b> your mobile by sending SMS with this message centre. You have to revert to your old message centre, recharge and then put this number back on.</li><li>The specified message centre is <b>Broadway II Gateway</b> number.</li><li>Even <b>interstate messages are also free</b>.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Just enjoy the <b>free messages</b> as long as <b>Spice</b> finds this out and corrects this bug. I owe you a lot RJP :)</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://mgharish.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/tech-fav-1.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites" /></a></div>Harisha - ಹರೀಶhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06053781336265673367noreply@blogger.com82tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11564855.post-75808581699102431452007-09-25T15:33:00.000+05:302007-09-25T15:34:27.967+05:30Wonder at the Wanderers!!!First things first. <b>Congratulations India for winning the first ever Twenty-20 Cricket World Cup</b>. Congratulation Pakistan, for posing a spectacular final at the Wanderers stadium, Johannesburg.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/80000/80086.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/80000/80086.jpg" alt="Champions: Indian Team celebrating after winning final of Twenty-20 Cricket against Pakistan" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div align="justify"><br />It had all the ingredients to be a tooth-and-nail fight, a treat to watch out for anyone, even remotely connected with cricket, in and around the Subcontinent - a dream contest between the traditional rivals.<br /><br />Let's set aside the result for a while and look how it fired up every one in the contending countries, especially in India. Even the fussiest roads were cool and calm as country-yards, even the money minded IT companies, which want its workers to work on Saturdays too, had allowed its officials to call it a day a bit early. And, everyone, no matter interested in cricket or not, watched at least a part of the match. After all, that's how it works in a country where cricket is a religion!<br /><br />Now to the result of the match. Who in this world has imagined that the team India would win? A team which had <b>no veterans playing</b>, which had <b>no regular coach</b>, which had just got a <b>new captain</b> to lead the team and which had a bunch of <b>novel players</b> half of which hadn't played even a single international T20 game. What a wonder! But that's cricket for you! Anything can happen until the last ball is bowled. India somehow clinched the cup, but the real winner was the game, as Sunil Gavaskar told after the match.<br /><br />The aftermath? Celebrations in India at least for a week, a warm and grand welcome and pouring cash prizes from each corner of the country for the players forgetting the past performances, and what not? The players can sigh a breathe of relief after what happened in the World Cup earlier this year.<br /><br /><b>Foot ball</b> to start with, then <b>hockey</b> and now <b>Cricket</b>!! Can this be a <b>CHAK DE INDIA</b> magic?!<br /><br />A final punch: Forget cricket, former President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_2020">APJ Abdul Kalam's dream</a> has come true. <b>India has become a strong power in 2020!</b><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><br /><br />*** Comments are welcome ***
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