Posts filed under 'General'
Had I known before about internet connection sharing in windows xp, I would have saved some time today. But anyways it was a good learning experience.
I initially connected my laptop’s ethernet port to my pc’s port and on my laptop, gave the default gateway as my pc’s usb connection’s ip address. My idea was to direct all outgoing packets to the pc’s usb interface. But this did not work. Then after a little bit of googling came across the internet connection sharing feature in xp (not sure if the previous windows versions had this). That worked like a charm for the first time itself. So, I had the following setup working now -
Laptop’s ethernet to pc’s ethernet and then bsnl modem’s usb interface connected to pc’s usb port. And on my pc, I enabled the option Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s internet connection. This was the easiest solution but it only solves half of my problems. I will now have to sit near my pc to work 
which is pretty bad. I somehow wanted to get my wireless also working in this mode 
.
For the wireless to work for me, the WRT54G2 had to be brought into the picture now. Now instead of connecting pc’s ethernet port to laptop directly, I connected it to one of the lan ports of my router and then the laptop’s port to one of the other lan ports. This works fine and I was able to access internet over both pc and laptop. Now the final issue was to get the wi-fi working.
Because of a few failed attempts in getting the wi-fi connected, I thought the access point mode was not supposed to be used. So, tried the client mode, client bridge mode, repeater mode and repeater bridge mode though knowing that these modes were for a different purpose all together. I already had a client bridge mode setup back in my flat in bangalore. But I was so frustrated that I started exploring all the available options . Finally when nothing worked I thought of getting back to AP mode and bingo…..it works!!!!! 
. Was so happy to get the wi-fi also working. Ofcourse, all this has eaten up 2.5 hours of my time but atlast got what I wanted.
So, here is the final setup just in case some one needs a similar thing to be done -
Scenario – One pc with spare ethernet card and connected to ISP over some alternative interface like USB port or another ethernet card. And need to get wi-fi access and other systems in the lan to be able to share the internet connection along with the host pc.
Solution – Enable Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection under the Internet Connection Sharing on the host pc. Connect the host pc’s ethernet port to one of the wired ports (not the WAN port) of the router. Have the router in AP mode and that’s it. The wireless can now be shared among any number of laptops just like any normal connection and also other systems can be connected to the remaining wired ports of the router.
Update – Jan 4th 2010
Though the wi-fi setup works fine in the above scenario, I noticed that initially when my laptop’s wi-fi gets connected it shows the speed of the connection as 54Mbps but within few minutes it drops down to 1Mbps. And then the speed you get is worse than my reliance datacard. Also one point that I noticed was that when the desktop’s internect connection was being used, we can forget about working on the laptop over wi-fi . Looks like it works by statically alloting specific bandwith to each of the interfaces. Need to explore further. Will keep posting my findings here……
December 28th, 2009
Like last year, we have an year-end shut down this year as well and amidst all the telangana struggle, the bandhs and protests, reached hyderabad safely yesterday morning . And the first thing I checked after reaching home was the internet connection. Switched on the desktop here and everything seemed to be fine and was quite happy.
Later when I switched on my laptop and connected my WRT54G2 router, I realized that my modem’s ethernet port was not up. Only the USB port was working and that’s how the desktop’s internet was fine. And I can’t even use the USB port with my laptop as this has some strange issue with it. The internet stops working after a few minutes of browsing and when I pull out the USB cable, the laptop just hangs and I have to do a hard restart. And this is 101% reproducible . Now tried with other cables and tried connecting the modem’s ethernet port to laptop & desktop directly. But nothing seemed to work. Finally decided to give a complaint as I was strongly suspecting that the modem’s ethernet port was having some issue and the modem may have to be replaced. So, called up the BSNL customer care.
Took a while to actually find out the customer care number itself. And finally was happy that I got the number and the phone was ringing on the other side and some non-human response was heard. And after a few button presses, got to talk to a human and this is how it went.
Call#1 -Â Some lady picks-up and after the routine greetings from her, she says she can help me out in resolving my issue. Was happy that BSNL customer care also works and thought that things are improving with BSNL as well (this is ofcourse proved to be wrong later ). Now she asks me to check if I have dhcp/static ip settings and then asks me to ping to the router’s ip address which would not work. I was telling her that the modem’s ethernet link itself is not up and its definitely not going to work. But she won’t understand it and finally she says its some issue at their end and it will work in 2-3 hours 
. Now come on, what is it got to do with their end when the modem’s port itself was not working. That’s when I understood that she never understood what my issue was. This is how the tech support of the BSNL customer care is .
Call#2 – Then called up again after some 30 mins hoping to get someone else on the other side now. This time it was a male voice and I explained to him the whole situation. And the way I explained to him, he understood that there is no point in asking me to check ip address or any other routine settings. He puts me on hold for 5 mins and then comes back saying that it could be some hardware issue and I have to get help from some technician. Now that is what I called them up for and this guy in turn expects me to get some other techinician to check the port. After insisting that it was the bsnl modem that has an issue and someone from bsnl has to come and maybe replace the modem, he says some techinician will call me back in an hour and he does not even register a complaint.
Call#3 – More than and hour passes now but still no sign of phone call. So, thought of contacting them again and this time a lady picks up and says a complaint was already registered and it actually takes 24 hours for someone to respond back and she happily gives the complaint number and hangs up. And its almost 40 hours at the time of writing this post and no sign of follow-up from them .
It was only today evening I realized that I had to work on something very urgent and was supposed to complete it by the weekend. That’s where my problems started again. Thought I have a datacard, the response on vnc would be so slow that one can hardly work on it. The other backup plan was to go to a cousin’s place but somehow got busy with some other work at home and it was already midnight. So, finally thought of coming up with some solution using whatever I had with me (a desktop, bsnl modem with working usb connection, linksys wrt54g2 router, laptop with integrated wi-fi & a few cat-5 cables). More on the solution part later………….need to finish up my work now ……………………
December 28th, 2009
Got a new Asus WL-500GP version2 and I am extremely happy with this. Now I have a 24×7 download rig without the need to continuously power-on my laptop. I just start my downloads by logging into the router’s transmission torrent client once and that’s it….. rest of it is taken care of.
Here is how I got this setup done……one of my colleagues was actually using this and posted details about this router. Liked it by looking at what all one can do on this router and got one from US. Btw, though the asus website shows many dealers in bangalore who sell this, none of them actually have one. The only way to get it is through an agent in Mumbai who gets stuff from US that is generally not available in India. We just have to give him the link to the product (amazon, ebay, etc.) and this guy ships it to us with some additional charge ofcourse.
Here is how my setup looks like now:
  I kind of started loving dd-wrt firmware too much. My secenario was I had to put my two routers in different rooms and had to get them connected wirelessly. This requires the client bridge mode which is very easy to setup with dd-wrt firmware. Neither the linksys stock firmware nor the asus stock firmware support this natively.
Now coming to flashing the firmware, the Asus router comes with a restoration utility on the CD which comes in handy if we brick the router. But somehow the restoration utility never worked for me .So, I had to flash my new firmware using tftp. Initially flashed the oleg firmware (in the second attempt ) but setting up the client bridge mode seemed to be complicated. So, decided to move to the DD-WRT firmware and after another 2-3 attempts of firmware download I got it working finally.
And from here, setting up the client bridge mode and getting the USB disk to work was pretty straightforward. Installing the transmission torrent client was also simple. One more advantage of this router is with the USB disk connected to it, you have a NAS server that can make this disk to be shared in the local network. So, my problem of having a NAS device also got solved. In fact, few months back I was looking to buy a NAS device but did not find a suitable one for me. The stable ones were priced too high and the cheaper ones were not good.
Now, I connected a 160GB 2.5″ laptop hard disk to the router and I have a startup script saved in the router that restarts the transmission client once power is resumed after a power cut. So, apparently the downloads go on 24×7. There are quite a lot of other features as well on this router but did not explore them all. Will keep posted here if I play around more with it.
November 23rd, 2009
What a movie it was!!!!! As far as I remember this is the only movie in which I was laughing from beginning till the end and even now 
. These days I reduced my movie watching a lot and am really happy that I watched such a good movie after a long time. Just like the way I used to watch movies randomly before, was just sitting idle in the evening after having worked from home and was feeling bored. All of a sudden came this thought to my mind to watch a movie and that’s it, me and Karthik went to forum and watched the night show. It turned out to be really really good one.
About the movie, I think there must be tons of reviews already on the net and I don’t want to repeat here again. Only thing I would say is it’s a must watch for all the guys out there 
……..and very much true as they say What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
July 21st, 2009
Its been a long time since I posted anything. But never expected that I will have to start with something bad. This is about the bungee jumping event organised by CARE and facilitated by BMC India in Bangalore on April 10th, 11th, 12th.
Few days back, I got a mail forward about this bungee jumping event being organised by CARE adventures and headrush bungee. I was interested in it but could not go because of some work and a friend of mine, Karthik registered for the event. He went to the event on 11th April. His serial number was 31 and was waiting for his turn. In the meanwhile he went out for lunch and after coming back he notices that nothing was going on over there. Then he came to know that there was a mishap and a guy got injured seriously. So, the event was cancelled. Just after five or six persons had done it, the hook was broken and resulted in the accident.
So, this post is to warn anyone who would like to register for such events in the future. Be sure that enough safety measures are taken before taking part in any such events. Later on when the news about this incident came on news, we came to know that the guy has succumbed to death. There wasn’t even an ambulance at the venue which is supposed to be a very basic safety measure. And as it always happens after such events, the organisers were absconding. So, people be careful…….all the adventurous people out there, this should be an eye-opener.
April 11th, 2009
This particular TED talk by Janine Benyus is all about Biomimicry wherein we imitate or take inspiration from nature to solve the human problems sustainably. The last few statements of the talk inspired me to write about this particular TED talk. It goes something like this – These organisms figured out a way to do the amazing things they do while taking care of the place thats going to take care of their offsprings. When they are involved in foreplay they are thinking about something very very important…..having their genetic material remain ten thousand generations from now. And that means finding a way to do what they do without destroying the place that’s going to take care of their offsprings and thta’s the biggest design challenge. Luckily there are millions and millions of geniuses willing to gift us with their best ideas…..good luck having a converstion with them. For people who haven’t seen the talk yet, when the speaker refers to organisms, she is actually referrring to the creatures around us on the planet and they are the geniuses she is referring to towards the end.
She illustrates her ideas with just 12 sustainable designs inspired from nature. In fact that’s the title of the video – Janine Benyus: 12 sustainable design ideas from nature. I liked the ideas so much that I was thinking of getting hold of a copy of her book also. A few of the ideas that she mentions in the talk are – a locust’s ability to avoid collision within a roiling cloud of its brethren informs the design of a crash-resistant car; a self-cleaning leaf inspires a new kind of paint, one that dries in a pattern that enables simple rainwater to wash away dirt; and organisms capable of living without water open the way for vaccines that maintain potency even without refrigeration — a hurdle that can prevent life-saving drugs from reaching disease-torn communities.
I think its high time that we start exploring alternative ways of manufacturing before all the fossil fuels are completely depleted and environment polluted to alarming levels. After watching the video I was just searching for more information on biomimetics and was surprised to see that there is so much going on in this field already. I found a nice featured article in NGC site as well that talks about biomimetics. That was a pretty long article and at the time of writing this post, even I haven’t read it completely .
Some other interesting TED videos that I came across can be found in my forum. I keep updating it whenever I find some good videos.
December 2nd, 2008
Its been a long time now since I posted anything new here. The last post I made was on September 2nd and since then there haven’t been any updates. There have been several comments in my latest post asking me why aren’t there any new updates . I never knew there were so many people checking this place. Anyways was actually a little bit busy since the last few weeks. So, could not post anything. In fact I still have the draft of quite a few posts that I was thinking of posting since 3 weeks but could not complete them.
I even saw many movies recently but couldn’t update about them as well. Anyways now you will all see some regular posts here again as before. Thanks to all those who were curious to know why there haven’t been any posts recently . And the funniest thing is that all of them know the reason .
September 29th, 2008
Was surprised today to see a mail in our company mailing list with the subject “Traffic Tickets in Bangalore“. That person was given a traffic ticket for “No Parking” violation. Initially I thought it might be just a one-off case…. but after googling up a bit, I came to know that bangalore traffic police are indeed issuing tickets for traffic rules violation…. as of now I think its mostly for parking violations only. The cops just give the ticket and we need to go to the police station to pay the fine. No towing of vehicles, no bribes and no arguments. But I guess its being implemented only for cars and two wheelers are still towed away . You can check out the experiences of some people here. Looks like things are changing slowly.
This actually reminds me of another new initiative by bangalore traffic police where in they send sms to people about traffic updates. You can check out the blog entry made by jayant about this here. I think as of now, its only airtel subscribers getting these messages. Whatever it be, atleast things are changing now and lets just hope that traffic situation in bangalore would just get better.
September 2nd, 2008
Finally some good news for people who would like to use IP telephony to make long distance international calls legally from India. You can check out the press release from TRAI here. It was just one year back that MTNL has started offering the VoIP services to its subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai. The subscribers then had to get a Analog Telephone Adaptor which would be connected to ADSL modem. Call rates to US, UK, Canada, etc were just Re. 1 per minute and there were various subscription offers like lifetime plan or pre-paid services, etc. Now, TRAI has removed any sort of regulations on using IP telephony (calls can be terminated on PSTN and not just a pc) by any subscriber. This move is definitely going to slash the ISD rates in India. And to me this SPA3102 from Linksys looks to be one good option to go for as suggested by one of my colleagues. The press release mentioned above has got more details.
Another good news for subscribers:
Very soon we will get to choose the cheapest STD and IST tariffs irrespective of the service provider. The subscribers will be having freedom to choose carrier of their own for making long distance calls. TRAI initially had a plan to implement carrier access code (CAC) but due to resistance from telcos, it wasn’t implemented. With this new directive, the subscribers will have to buy pre-paid long distance package from any of the operators and then just dial-in a set of numbers to get on to that service provider’s network. More details on this can be read from this economic times article.
With all these new initiatives it looks like in the coming few months, long distance calls from India are going to reduce drastically.
August 19th, 2008
It all started because of the long weekend of August 15th. Last time when I was in hyderabad sometime during last week of june, I was just checking tickets availability for bangalore to hyderabad for august 15th and by then only it was going in wait list. I booked in two different trains and the status on august 9th was still in wait list. Finally, I had decided to book in tatkal quota.
So, a guy who does not get up early in the morning (early here implies before 8 AM ) to go to office only decides to get up by 7.45 AM on a saturday . And finally I got up at 7.44 AM by a wake-up sms (yeah you read it right…..a wake-up sms) from a friend . Now without wasting any more time, I opened my laptop, opened irctc site and was ready to book the tickets. And just as the clock struck 8.00 AM, I started trying, but it says not yet opened. By then I came to know that another friend was able to open and was entering the passenger details also……it was from US. So, the next thing I did was to connect on my vpn 
and then tried again. In the mean time, I started to try from my second laptop with another user id that I created the previous night. But it was of no use. And just a few minutes later, I get a status update from my friend that only 11 tickets are available and then the next update is W/L 13 and that’s the end. After that I tried in other trains and other classes but of no use . Just within a few minutes after tatkal quota started, everything was in waitlist again.
Then, I checked for buses and ksrtc was full. Then tried redbus to check for private operators and even that was full. Had no other options and booked a ticket for august 15th as a backup. Then decided to go to Kalasipalyam (for those of you who don’t know what that place is……….its sort of Mecca for private bus operators in bangalore….. one can find atleast 100 travel offices at a single point). And as always as a backup plan asked a friend of mine to check in apsrtc and another one for any other private operators near his place. And finally after sometime I get a call that one of my friends could get tickets but for double the price . We had no other option and atlast we decided to go for it .
Now when I started back from kalasipalyam, I didn’t knew the way back. I just knew how to reach the place . I was almost lost in bangalore city in broad daylight and this is not the first time it happened to me. The first time I went to Kalasipalyam to book tickets to Pondicherry, me and my friend lost our way and it was around 11 PM. Finally, with the help of some auto drivers and other people on the road, I just reached home .
Learnt a lesson now and I got my ticket to hyderabad for October 8th booked already . And I am going to book the return ticket also on the first day it opens up.
Ultimaltely, after all the pains, I am going to hyderabad on august 14th night in a bus (which I always try to avoid) by paying double the normal price .
August 9th, 2008
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