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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.

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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……

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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 😀 ……………………

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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…….

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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……

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The Alchemist

I had a list of books that I always wanted to read and The Alchemist was one of them. But somehow never got a chance and today read this book and now I feel like I learnt a lot or rather I knew all those but needed something/someone to help me re-discover and here it was in the form of this book.

It was such a simple story yet reveals the facts of life. One thing that I would always remember is to never give up and keep trying to realize our dreams no matter whatever comes in the way. Like in the case of Santiago, though during his journey to realize his dream he could have settled with what he achieved, he never gives up his quest to realize his actual dream. He could have gone back from the crystal shop with all his savings and settled as a shepherd with more sheep or he could have settled in the oasis as a counsellor and lived with Fatima for ever. But he never got distracted from his ultimate dream of going to the Pyramids inspite of all the hurdles and the riches he made during his journey.

There were a few points made in the story that hit the nail straight on the head and will never forget them.  Most favourite one was “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it“. And then the story that the king tells Santiago about the boy and the wise man. The boy was given a spoon with few drops of oil and then the wise man asks him to have a look at his castle. But the boy was so engrossed in taking care of not to spill the oil that he could barely look at the castle. And when he was told the second time to have a look at the beautiful castle, he comes back with all the entire oil spilled. That’s when the wise man advices the boy – “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon“. And then what the Englishman says to Santiago – “It was the fear of failure that kept him from attempting the Master work for 10 years and he is happy that at least he didn’t wait for 20 years”. And finally what the Alchemist tells Santiago – “You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love……the love that speaks the Language of the World”.

In fact there are many more such instances that have appealed to me but of course cannot write them all here. In short its a very good read and yeah that’s the reason its transalted into 67 languages winning the Guiness World Record and sold more than 65 million copies in more than 150 countries (Source: Wikipedia).

And digressing from alchemist now, thanks to my Asus router, I have started watching IMDB top 250 movies and hope to complete most of them soon 😀 .

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Paa….

Watched this much-awaited movie today and Amitabh Bachchan has proved it again. Amitabh’s  performance as a Progeria kid Auro was brilliant and also an excellent work done by the make-up artists.

But the movie as a whole wasn’t that great as expected. Definitely it wasn’t as good as Taare Zammen Par (TZP).  And it could be partly because of the kind of subject choosen in Paa. The disease Progeria that the movie is all about has no cure and Amitabh had to die at the end. But more than Amitabh dying at the end, I didn’t actually see much about Progeria being dealt with in the movie. At least that is something basic expected from these kind of movies. If we compare TZP with Paa, TZP is entirely about dyslexia in children and how they could be helped rather than being neglected. On the contrary, the director in Paa was trying to address many issues like bad politics, irresponsible media and of course the bringing together of Abhishek and Vidya Balan. But as the disease Progeria itself has no cure, maybe the director had to come up with these extras to keep the movie going. Maybe a different subject could have been chosen and then showed how it could be handled. In Paa, it was like Auro was just left to die and nothing could be done. To me it looked like another routine Bollywood story with a slightly different touch.

But, Auro’s comedy was something really good and also some of the touching scenes in the second-half were good. More or less it was just Auro driving the whole movie as our Big B always does 😀 .

Another point that I didn’t like was the titles being read out by Jaya Bachchan when the movie starts. Though it was just about for a minute, somehow I really felt irritated with that idea. Was just waiting for her to stop 🙂 . Instead they could have had some background song.

On the whole, I would definitely suggest watching this movie at least for our Big B’s performance.  But point to remember is not to go with TZP’s expectations. Big B definitely rocks but its no match to TZP. Lastly, though initially many thought that Paa was a remake of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, its definitely not. Paa definitely deals with a real disease where as the other one is just some work of fiction.