whats with the Bangalore weather

If anything you ever liked o b'luru was its weather.... its one of the most best thing you ever feel. But off late from past 2 or 3 years... its not been the same. Blame it on the usual global warming or the huge chunk apartments coming up in every corner of the city or outside the city limits, with flyovers, underpasses and METRO train making way of cutting loads of greenery, its getting worst.

I never felt so warm of all my years stay in b'luru till now, but year 2012 seem to be the worst in terms of heat being seen in b'luru. My sister who stays in Gulbarga, which is known for its worst summer days feels very hot and comparing to G'barga where it seems its raining alternate days with heavy breeze.

I've seen people wearing thermal wears even during the peak of summer in older days, but now you're forced to remove your dress due to the hot humid conditions.

Hope, some incessant rain brings some coldness to this city....

Whats in a name...

Writing down the blog after quite a time... been busy for a while now. Most sites i visit in a day include networkworld, lightreading, cricinfo, news channels and few other social ones. Got to see Srilankan players name, i would say they can easily enter into Guiness book of records for the largest names. Not sure, why they need to have such long names, here are few ones which can increase anyones eyebrow...

HDRL Thirimanne, DPMD Jayawardene, HMRKB Herath & the mother of all:

UWMBCA Welegedara

Whats in a name, whoever said and go by it, i would certainly ask them to check these names.... there is still a lot in a name !!!

My home on Kannada Sitcom

If you're lucky, you'll most probably see my home/residence in Kannada TV Suvarana channel's Sitcom "Classmates". Lots of shooting happens close to my place mostly tele-serials. You'll see the compound or the outside of my home in this sitcom which is played every evening at 7.30 PM.

My residence on Wikimap

Just added my residence location on wikimapia. Its been an quite a work when never I provide my residence address to my relatives/frens. With putting my residence on wikimapia, it as resolved my house location issues.

Below is the link under my name:

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=12.8866857&lon=77.5391489&z=18&l=0&m=b&show=/18896773/Laxmanagouda-Patil-s-Residence

Shankar Nag: After 20 years

Its been 20 years since the sad demise of our beloved maverick actor/director, Karate King Shankar Nag alias Shankar Nagarkatte. There have been lot of people in our Kannada industry known for their own abilities but Shankaranna stays apart from all. He will be remembered not only by Kannadigas but also by the whole Indian film fraternity with his directorial ventures like Malgudi Days and his acting in Utsav, Nishant.

Below are the couple of videos and couple of links which tells us the internal part of Shankaranna which many of us are not aware.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbG4HPNDlsk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0hGA4zZEM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w9BEINFlf8&feature=related

A very good account on his life as narrated by his close fren's circle.
http://movies.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/sep/30/slide-show-1-south-remembering-shankar-nag.htm

It all happened during the Shooting

This happened on 22-09-2010. After coming from office as usual, i reached my home around 5.30 P.M. Getting down from my car with keys, entered my home. Let out my shoes & laptop bag. It was quite exhausting that evening due to heavy traffic compared to other days. After refreshing myself, went to kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. In the mean time, i restarted my laptop to finish off some email replies. Relaxing while having tea, i got settled in hall and started going on with the mails. It was getting dark slowly, bit of noise from outside, didn't bothered to check it out.

As i was engulfed with my work, i suddenly heard a loud noise outside my house. My home is in a layout with entrance from the main road. I checked out whats happening through the window. To my utter surprise, couple of constables and a Police Inspector were chasing one guy (prospective thief or some kind of thug). My home is located towards the dead end of the layout. All the four men passed my house. I went out looking whats happening. Before i could reach the gate, guy tried to jump over the fence. Two constables got hold of him followed by the Inspector. They started thrashing him with their canes. There were also few guys who were watching from the other side of the fence. For my eyes, this was the first encounter of chase involving Police/thug. Didn't knew what as happened. Before i could see anything more, i got realized all this was part of SITCOM shooting which usually happens in my neighborhood. It never crossed my mind since i was very much aware of the shooting happening around. I wished the guy (acting as thug) for his most natural acting. I was so engrossed & i thought this was real thing happening (This was may be due to couple of weeks back there was a house-break done close to my layout). The shooting was done for "SUVARNA" channel's "Classmates" teleserial. This was one heck of experience. I would never forget in my entire life :).

BSNL 3G Datacard

It looks like ages since i was off with no internet at my new house (4 months, Gubbalala). Airtel didn't had BB connection over there and i always had reservations with Reliance/Tata indicom, so never bothered even to check with those guys. All along this time, i've applied for the BSNL BB connection. They said it'll take a week or so for the phone plus the internet connectivity. Application was applied on June-19. Waiting period was ON with various calls with Customer service. Every Customer service representative was asking me to get in touch with the Area Engineer. One thing is for sure, BSNL as a long way to go in terms of Customer service. Numbers given by their representatives for their Area Engineer or his Superior are just for namesake. They never receive any calls. Either they are switched off or they will simply give another number with another name and pass the buck. But few ones are helpful though. Problem in my area was that there were not issuing any new connections due to the old cable & the instrument have run out of slots and they were waiting for the new cable work to be done. For this, they have to dig up the road and for digging up the road, they have to get the permission from BBMP or BDA (who ever the road owns) which it seemed was not going to happen in near future. We all are aware of Govt... work.

Finally after much research work, i've to settle down with BSNL 3G data card. I had bit of apprehensions since i was not sure about the connectivity in my area (Even though, i've checked the BSNL 3G coverage map at the Service center). But i didn't had any other option/s. Getting the card is pretty simple job. All you've to do is follow the simple steps. This is for the Postpaid connection and i think the same holds true for prepaid too (not sure, but you may want to check).

1) Before purchasing, make sure your area is covered under 3G. They have posted a map in service center which lists out all the areas which are currently under BSNL 3G
2) Go to any of the nearest BSNL service center with photocopy of Resident proof, ID proof (DL, Voter ID, PAN Card should do) plus one photograph of yours, and 2500/- bucks for the 3G Instrument (Which is more of a USB/Memory stick) & another 700 (659 to be precise) bucks as security deposit for the Postpaid connection.
3) After providing the above details, you'll be provided with the instrument plus the SIM. SIM will be activated in no time. For me, it took some 12 hours since the BSNL server was down and i've to wait till for the next day. For one of my fren, he has to wait for 2 days just for the SIM activation.
4) There is quick guide to help you out in installing the 3G device. Put the SIM onto the data card and connect it to Notebook/PC USB port. For me, it started the installation by itself and it was pretty fast. After the installation, you will see a GUI (Graphical User Interface).
5) Few check ups need to be done.
a) If the SIM is not activated, you'll see the Red color LED glowing on the USB stick
b) Once the SIM is activated, you should see the Green color LED glowing
c) Basically, you don't need to do any configuration as such. Everything comes loaded.
6) Verify the internet connectivity by clicking on the "internet icon". You'll see "connect" (something similar to button) on the RHS. If you see the GUI, it'll start by opening the port plus the authentication. Am not sure how this is done, may be i need to sniffer out the packets
7) Once it gets connected, you'll see the Green LED glowing and you're off for high speed browsing.

This is just my 2 days experience and it doesn't sound so easy as i've written down if anyone is going to buy it for the first time. But after reading the above blog, there is nothing to panic. Life as become more easier with net access now. Checked all the stuff, yet to do the Video calling. Speed is varying a lot. I got upto 3.6 Mbps as quoted & some times, it was flapping a lot.

Happy 3G Browsing.

P.S: Checked all the stuff, yet to do the Video calling.