Rakesh Reddy Kandula

Getting Lost

What an addiction the Lost series is!!!! Just started watching it on Friday evening. Saw the first 5 episodes of Season-1 and went to bed. After that this is what I did on Saturday -

Got up at around 11.15 AM.

Had some tea and started watching Lost.

Watching Lost continues along with my brunch.

And then again Lost and lost……finally by evening ended up watching 5 more and decided not to watch more. Then thought of just watching 11th episode and then only the 12th ….and after that did not decide anything….it went on upto 6 AM in the morning with a few tea breaks and dinner break. By then I completed the 23rd episode of Season-1 .

On Sunday, got up at around 1.45  PM and the same routine continues … completed the last 24th episode of Season-1 and then started with Season-2. Finally put a stop to it at half of 6th episode of Season-2.

Just to add, did not even take bath over the last 2 days . The only other productive work (apart from having food and putting my clothes in washing machine) I did was to get half a kilo of Chocolate Truffle cake .

Also started watching Friends these days. Done with Season-1 and Season-2 is going on. And South Park download is going on now .

I think I will be in serious trouble if this continues………need to get back to work now but will try to complete all the seasons of Lost in a month .

1 comment April 26th, 2010 at 02:45amIST

Getting a MacBook Pro

At last I am getting it….I am getting a MacBook at work … its going to be the newly released MacBook Pro….the 15″ one. But the only problem is the procurement is a long process and I will be able to play with it only after 2 months from now ….but its definitely worth the wait   and I am really excited to get my hands on the new macbook. Will update it here once I get it shipped.

Update May 20th 2010:

Fortunately/unfortunately apple released the new macbook pro hardware at the same time as I was raising a request for mac. So, after a long wait for a month, finally cisco has evaluated the new macbook pro hardware and gave a green signal to ship new macbooks. So, today finally the purchase order has been placed and my new mac book pro will soon be shipped from singapore. Can’t wait to lay my hands on it .

2 comments April 22nd, 2010 at 12:45pmIST

Food food and food….

Thanks  to Amith who took me to Alibaba Cafe & Restaurant for the first time. I must say, it’s the best place to have mutton. Yes!! this post is all about where and how I ended up in finding this Arabian restaurant….though the name has cafe in it, its definitely not one of those Irani cafe’s in Hyderabad . This place is known for the Arabian delicacies and the mutton served there is really tender. My favourite is sukhe maas (mutton) along with gawapolis. They have a special biryani made only during weekends called khuboos. Also the tea served here is also great.

I like the food there so much that I take the pains to drive 45 mins (one way) in bangalore traffic to eat mutton . The route to this place is a confusing one and consistently I have always gone through the same wrong route but somehow ended up reaching the place. I would definitely suggest this place to any pure non-veggie visiting Bangalore.

Add comment April 19th, 2010 at 01:15amIST

Moved to a new apartment

After 2.5 years of stay in Bangalore I finally decided to rent a 1 bedroom apartment for myself…and that is when the problems started.  My requirements were a decent sized apartment for a single person with car parking in a good locality……don’t think it’s asking for too much but it was not that easy to find one.

Even after a month’s search I could not find a decent apartment that I could rent….and in the process of my search (sulekha was the only source of my searches) I found some really interesting houses…….one guy posted an apartment for Rs. 7500 with 10 months advance that did not even have doors for bathrooms, the kitchen which was actually an extended room into the veranda with some asbestos sheet as the roof. Then there was this house that was not even big enough to accommodate a 6′x4′ bed…and the owner says, a software engineer who was staying there until recently moved to US now and even got a citizenship there . So, does that mean, I have to squeeze myself into that matchbox like house in the hope of getting a US citizenship !!!

Though I was completely against going with agents, in desperation I finally thought of contacting some and none of these people charge anything less than a month’s rent . So, was back to sulekha again.

Finally after many shocking experiences  I could find an apartment suiting all my requirements but for a slightly higher rent but I had no other option….and it was through an agent (good part is he did not charge me  one month’s rent as commission). But now after a month and a half of stay in this apartment, I must say it was a really good decision. I am enjoying every single moment here especially the amazing view of the lake and coconut grove from my balcony. Its so refresing and worth every paisa .

The other good part about this place is this being a big campus, even at midnight you can safely go down for a walk (which I rarely do ) which reminds me of the good old IIT campus days. I am eagerly waiting for a good rain during the day to see how it would look…..will post some more pics then.

2 comments April 18th, 2010 at 11:53pmIST

Telangana History X

I am not going to whine here about the present Telangana movement. Was actually watching American History X movie and that was the initiative.

Has anything you have done made your life better?……… This is the statement that made me write this post.  Professor Sweeney in the movie asks Derek this question in prison and that makes Derek to really look back at all his actions against the Afro-Americans. This guy Derek was actually influenced by another person (Cameron) and joins a radical organisation against the Black people. The above question really makes sense. If only people would start thinking rationally and ask themselves such questions before blindly doing/supporting anything, this world would definitely have been a better place.

In the current situation I can correlate this to the on-going Telangana State movement (and that’s the reason for the title ). Instead of people just saying we have been fighting for a separate state for the last 40 years and we want it now, why can’t they just think for a moment in what way is that going to make their life better. In my opinion, oppurtunities be it education/job or whatever it be should be based on talent and not just because you happen to be from some region in a country and so have got more right than someone else from a different region. The sooner people would realize this the better would be our future.

Ofcourse, this applies to whatever we do in our life and its just a coincidence that the Telangana movement was going now and found it to be apt.

And towards the end of the movie, liked the conclusion of Danny in his paper……..Hate is baggage. Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time. It’s just not worth it.

A good movie with a good message.

3 comments January 3rd, 2010 at 11:01amIST

3 idiots

Another good movie from aamir’s stable. Somehow I was a bit skeptical on how good this movie can be as it was based on five point someone and was not sure if Aamir would be successful in appealing the audience. But I was proved completely wrong and I enjoyed every bit of the movie .

This was also my first movie in bangalore in a non-multiplex theatre. Watched it in Rex Theatre, Brigade Road. We were three people and got the tickets for thursday’s second show. We were enjoying the movie so much that did not even feel uncomfortable sitting in the rear stall seats.Yeah, by mistake my friend booked in rear stall instead of balcony.

Coming to the movie, we were laughing for almost whole of the movie and the best one was the speech of chatur on Teacher’s Day . Still can’t stop laughing when I think of that scene . Best part was that the movie did not focus too much on Aamir & kareena’s love which would otherwise be the case with any other Bollywood movie. I was also feeling a bit nostalgic during the movie  and was recollecting all my IIT days.  Boman Irani has also done justice to his role.  Looks like he now has perfected the role of being a khadoos Prof. On the whole a very good movie and is definitely worth-watching.

Btw don’t know if it was some coincidence, but when I was in Delhi I always wanted to go on a trip to Leh, Ladakh but could never go. Even this year was thinking of this trip with two other friends but did not materialise. And I saw the same again in 3 idiots and its back again now . Hope to make it next year for sure.

Add comment December 28th, 2009 at 05:31amIST

Internet woes contd………..

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……

Add comment December 28th, 2009 at 04:51amIST

Internet woes

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 -  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 ……………………

Add comment December 28th, 2009 at 02:32amIST

Getting locked out

Had it not been for the third time in 3 months, I wouldn’t have written about this . In my 25 years, I barely remember forgetting stuff like this. This is about how I got locked out of my house twice during the night and once during the day and how I managed to get back in .

The first time it was around 9 PM and I went out to get some stuff and when I came back realized that I left my keys in my room itself and it got locked. The good thing was I do have a duplicate key set in my office drawer. So, called up another colleague of mine and went to office. I was requesting the security guys to open the drawer in my cube to get my keys but they say all the keys are in some safe and a seal has been put and it can’t be taken out . Only when I said I can call the campus security head they said they will call their incharge and see if something could be done (and in fact they could get the keys but you know people are not always ready to help so easily). Finally they broke the seal and got the key to open my drawer.

I told to myself that I will never again be so careless but that’s what exactly happened for the second time. But this time it was just after I got ready to leave to office. So, luckily I had my drawer keys in my pocket. So, called up the same colleague and asked him to stay at my place until I get back with the key and lock the house .

And today yet again I got locked out during the night . I went out for groceries and came back home at around 9.30 PM only to realize that I didn’t had my keys with me. And this time I could not recollect if I left my keys inside or if I lost it somewhere on the way as I was on my bike wearing shorts. So, it was the same routine again…. a colleague….campus security…..but this time I really had to call up the campus seurity head and only when he told them to help me out, they let me in and got the key to open my drawer. But this was not the end and I was really tensed until I reached my home as I was still not sure if I lost the keys or forgot to take them. And finally I found them safe in my room .

So, now I decided to keep this duplicate key in one of my friend’s place because I am pretty sure the campus security people are not going to entertain me for the third time . I hope I won’t forget stuff like this again….but this is seriously not a good indication . Anyways will keep updating here if it happens again…….

Add comment December 18th, 2009 at 01:31amIST

Got a new car

Just got my new Hyundai i10 delivered. Its i10 1.2 magna, silver colour. Don’t have a camera right now……will upload a few pics here later. As of now I am restricted to drive only in and around the city . No long trips approval received yet . Hope to go on trips later but for now its only bangalore . More to come later……

Add comment December 17th, 2009 at 06:02pmIST