Perspectives

Please Welcome www.Simplelife.in, a Men’s clothing, Fashion Apparel online store to buy t-shirts in India. Interestingly, The one behind this men’s branded clothing website in India is a Woman. A good friend with deep e-commerce interests. She is not designing the stuff herself though (thankfully). They seem to feature only premium international brands. The site seems to focus on tshirts, although it would not be surprising to see them venture into new apparel categories in the future.

There are about two new e-commerce companies launching every day. In my view, there are better things to spend your life on. Like Poverty, World Peace or even Bangalore’s traffic Jam. The SimpleLIFE site itself is clean and their Cash on Delivery checkout option works like a charm. Although the SimpleLIFE service encourages ordering multiple sizes and returning the bad fits at no extra costs, I am skeptical of the business’ margins and defensibility in the market long term. One will have to see how far SimpleLIFE goes, and whether it lives up to its name.

I got myself a nice looking Puma T-shirt. Package arrived promptly with a little gift in it. (I don’t think you will get the extras though). Please do encourage them. If something goes wrong, I will give you their phone number. Infact, we can shout at them together.

Nothing is impossible for a determined man with Two & a half days & Google.

Have an Iphone 3G that I bought off craigslist a couple of years ago in the US. It has only been trouble since then. I have done nearly everything to get it to work such as:

• Driving to a remove place in Nagarbhavi to pick up a turbo SIM,
• Pwangetool on Mac, Redsn0w, blackra1n, sn0wbreeze on windows
• Restarting windows hundreds on times.
• Re-installing itunes a few ten times.
• Putting iphone in all modes (DFU, Recovery, hard reboot) hundreds of times,
• A folder full of IPSWs starting from ios 3.0 upto 4.2 etc.

It has always worked at varying levels, just that I have spent a truck load of my time on it. There is a sewerage that runs behind my house. I thought this iphone’s rightful place is the drain. Not anymore. everything (Except wifi) is working smoothly. The problem is not lack of information about jailbreaking & unlocking on the internet, but too much of it. It is only fair that many are confused. I was.

This is for you if you need to “jailbreak” & “unlock”. So, without adding to more confusion with another stey by step tutorial, very briefly, this is what you should keep in mind:

• If you are on a baseband that begins with 04, stay there.
• If you are on a baseband that begins with 05, Your only option is to upgrade to the ipad baseband. Kudos to folks at the iphone dev team. What a hack!
• Furthermore, dont bother with ios 4.1, you can never get into to install. Move straight to ios 4.2
• Never restore to a stock IPSW via itunes.
• Different sn0wbreeze versions work for different IPSW versions.
• Use Redsn0w if you need to jailbreak.
• The downloads for all the tools are all over the place. Exercise caution.
• Install iphonebrowser to connect & change files via usb. You may need this to enable editing APN settings.
• Use cyder2 to install Ultrasn0w for carrier unlock incase wifi doesnt work.
• All the very best.

Nothing is impossible for a determined man with Two & a half days & Google. Hence proved.

Needed a backup internet connection for work. Having heard great things about their network/pricing and bad things about their customer support, I decided to go with BSNL.

• To begin with, I didnt know where to go find a BSNL SIM card.

1. Turns out, BSNL offices are in the many BDA Complexes in Bangalore.

• Being a backup connection, it makes sense to take a Prepaid connection. But:

1. 1. BSNL Prepaid cards are hard to find.
   2. There are no yearly or forever validity packs available on 3G data plans.

A quick study revealed that the only difference between prepaid & postpaid plans is when they take the tax & not pricing. (700 Rs plan valid for 60 days in prepaid may be better than Postpaid, but due to lack of availability, I went with Postpaid). Took a monthly 400 and odd plan.

• Buy a data card or just connect a mobile phone as modem?

1. 1. Many cheap mobile phones may not have 3G. For ex, I had a spare Nokia 2690 which only supported EDGE.
   2. The max speeds on these mobiles phones may lesser than a dedicated stick. So, I decided to buy a dedicated stick.

I tried connecting an old Nokia N73 as modem but I felt that the (download) speed was slow. Three variables (I hear) when it comes to data cards are: Max speeds, HSDPA & tri band. HSDPA is an extension on top of 3G network which enables faster download speeds. Point being, even if your mobile phone operates on 3G, you may get lesser speeds than data stick.

• BSNL sells Terracom data cards (7.2 MBPS) for 2500 Rs which is locked

1. That means you can use it only with BSNL SIM. There maybe ways to unlock it (Google is your friend), but neither did I want to worry about it nor did I want to get locked with BSNL (considering I did’nt know what actual speeds I will get now or in the future).
2. Decided to go with a generic USB stick that will work across networks. BSNL Sells Huawei E173 in their offices for Rs. 4700 or so. These USB sticks are not easily available in computer stores but they are in Ebay.
3. Because I didnt want to increase failure points, decided not to order from Ebay despite the fact that the same model was available at around 2900 Rs or so. (How can there be such a big price difference unless they are eating into warranty?).
4. Now a proud Owner of Huawei E173, HSDPA enabled, tri band & speeds upto 7.2 Mbps. Great.

• Huawei card does not do anything. There is nothing in the Network Managar applet.
  

1. The Huawei E173 stick also has a slot for shoving in a Mini SD card & so, by default, the stick gets recognized as a USB mass storage on Ubuntu 10. So, connect the stick and do:

$ lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 12d1:140c Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 058f:6366 Alcor Micro Corp. Multi Flash Reader
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

12d1:140c is the ID of your device. Now do:

$ sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch

$ sudo usb_modeswitch -c /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1\:14oC

$ sudo modprobe usbserial

Now you should see the connection in your “Network Manager” applet. Configure it. The only thing you need is the “APN”, which is “bsnlnet”.

I restarted & didnt find the connection in network manager. So, created a shell script called “3G” with those two commands. Ran it & we are up again. And here is what I got (which is significantly faster than what I got when I did the test on Windows)

Two hours have passed since the credits of Endhiran (Robot) rolled up in a Cinema hall at Bangalore. I was there, dragging my feet along towards the exit, saddened that it is over. There will be a second time, but, it wont be the same. Hormones don’t function that way. I sit here and wish for another Rajni movie in a few years or for someone to rise out of the ashes to hold me captivated like Rajni. The latter…will remain a wish.

But, this is not about Endhiran or Rajni. This is an appeal to Journos, Commentators & Authors who are suddenly forced to write about an industry, a person & a movie they hardly know about. Asia’s costliest movie, Asia’s second most paid actor, 2000 screens worldwide: Everybody from Rajeev Masand to a Dog has to write with every drop of ink in their pen (Or, key in their keyboard). I have been keenly reading most of the content and, as an ardent fan of Thalaivar, have been able to notice the uber-cool, intelectual point of view that most critiques are taking. A common weaving thread of sarcasm hinting “How is this guy able to do this?“, is evident. One thing becomes clear. None of these guys know a god damn thing. Neither factually nor emotionally.

My understanding of the Hindi language & culture is far superior than an average non-tamilian’s insight into the dravidian likes & dislikes. Very recently, I quipped to a north Indian friend who has lived close to five years here- less than 40 kms from the boundaries of Tamil Nadu- “Well, Tamil does not have a script“. She innocently went “Oh! really?“. I don’t blame her. The exposure is such.

To bring about my opinion, Here is what I feel about, lets say, Singh is Kinng:

I didnt understand the punjabi/Hindi mix-bag in the movie all that well. Long ago, I was told that Akshay kumar worked as a Bartender in Bangkok. I thought he was averagely attractive (My wife goes head-over-heels, by the way). As a kid, I grew up on Superhit muqabla, watching him jump up & down with Big brother-ess on “Churake dil mera” Frankly, it/they did not go very well with the curd rice I was eating.

I couldn’t stop staring at the mis-spelling-”kinng”. Further research informs me how Bollywood believes in Numerology. Lucky Singh? This dude got to become a don in Australia with that name? Did he just get Lucky? And there is one more called “Happy”. Folks kept laughing around me on stuff that I thought wasnt worth a giggle. Hindi audience have an extremely low humour quotient, I felt. I was eager to get out. Katrina Kaif couldnt keep me in there.

Point is, this is not the true review of this movie. I am welcome to have a point of view, but not qualified to write under the pretext of Journalism.

Dear Journos from Bollywood and elsewhere, you all probably know this better than me. A Movie review isint exempt from best practices of Journalism. There are three things you need: Facts, Context & an opinion formed based on the former two.

I am extremely delighted that Endhiran is forcing you all to travel & see beyond Borivali. Furthermore, I have a few suggestions to you: Throw your suburban train tickets & Vada pav away. Fold up your Dhoti, Drink up Filter Coffee, Listen to Carnatic Music & dance for hard percussion on the road. Because, 60% of our 1256 million Dollars in Movie Industry is made by non-hindi movies.

I find it exhilarating that the costliest movie in India has to come from an industry half the market size of bollywood & 1/5th the consumer base. How does it make you feel?

Do you know that from down here, Bollywood seems low-grade (loaded with flesh & item numbers), SRK, pretentious & Kapoors, Comical? Still don’t know what I am talking about? Go ask Rotten Tomatoes on for review on Dabangg and compare it with yours.

DOT.

• "Our favorite holding period is forever." – Warren buffett #
• Makes sense to me: "too much focus on profit will destroy profit." – http://bit.ly/9wdps2 #
• RT @roopitwit Almost dead free UPS in Banaswadi – Roopit http://bit.ly/9bhONI #
• #mokkai #
• wait pannitte irundhaa dubukkunu paaku will also go away #mokkai mohan #
• "Mokkai try pannaalum yenakku varaadhu da" #mokkai #mokkamohan #
• Poetry is coming out of my mouth machan – #mokkai #mokkamohan #
• Vanara and ravana are anagrams #mokkai #mokkamohan #
• "If you are going to hell…Keep going" – Winston churchill via @ysudhir #
• #correction – "If you are going through hell…Keep going" – Winston churchill via @ysudhir #

• The Roopit "Hi" Video http://youtu.be/9nPBO9p_tH4 – http://www.roopit.com #
• The Roopit "Hi" Video – http://bit.ly/dCVA7z #roopit #launch #startups #india #bangalore #roopit.com #
• Damn it. My gmail is locked, I think. #fail #
• And at the end of it all, @moxada says "I feel like Google" #
• Micromax mobile – Nothing like Anything….This is so profound. I am not able to imagine what that could mean. #
• Horror at Harare #

Chart of Pagerank vs Websites

Have been studying SEO quite seriously lately. Specifically,  I wanted to know how the promotion from one pagrank to another happens, how frequently, and on what basis.

Dont have the answers for all of them yet, but in the process, I made up this chart on the left which lists all the websites from the internet (atleast, the ones that Google knows about) on the y-axis and pagerank on x-axis.A few interesting inductions can be made from this chart.

• There are a ton lot of websites that simply dont have a pagerank. That’s possibly because there isint even one previously pageranked site linking into them.
• But the moment you fall under Google’s pagerank radar, it seems like you get promoted from 1 to 3 quite easily. Indicated by the fact that there are fewer PR 1 sites than PR 3.
• From PR 4, it is a climb against a mountain. Fewer and fewer websites get promoted further up. Infact, there are just 15 websites with PR 10.

So, if your website is in PR 3 or PR 4, it is reasonable to say that is an average website in Google’s eyes. At PR 5, you can really claim you have left the crowd behind.

After some looking around, particularly this post on Ubuntu email with Mailx (which is incomplete, if you follow all the instructions, you will realise that the certificate he is talking about does not exist in the tgz that you download) and a few others, I got my mailx to work with my gmail account.

I guess you can try setting up an MTA such as exim and use sendmail or even mail, but that seemed quite complicated and I wanted to send out a mail from my shell script as quickly as possible.

Here are the steps involved which I wrote up as a little shell script:

Update: The Script got messed up when I ported the blog from Blogspot to wordpress.

#! /bin/sh

sudo apt-get install ca-certificatessudo update-ca-certificates
sudo apt-get install msmtp mailx
echo "# config options: http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/doc/msmtp.html
#A-user-configuration-file
defaults
logfile /tmp/msmtp.log

# gmail account
account gmail
auth on
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
user EMAIL
password PASSWORD
from EMAIL
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
# set default account to use (not necessary with single account)
account default : gmail" > ~/.msmtprc
chmod 600
~/.msmtprc
echo "# set smtp for nail
set from=\"EMAIL (YOUR NAME)\"
set sendmail=\"/usr/bin/msmtp\"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments=\"-a gmail\"" > ~/.mailrc

echo "Edit CAPTIALS in .msmtprc and .mailrc and run a test message like this:
"echo "echo Message | mailx -s \"this is subject\" user@email.com\n"

Enjoy!

I am done writing about Maps & Local in India. It is not interesting to me anymore. And the symptoms are showing. I havent written anything on this blog for over 5 months now. Not that I didnt have anything to say all this while. Just that they didnt fit into a blog that was titled “On Maps & local in India”.

So, here it is. I am taking the blog back to what it was earlier. A blog on thoughts, experiences and incidents from my life. Now that is broad enough that I can write virtually anything.

Adieu Maps & Local.

Nokia Navigator ad at Bangalore airport
Originally uploaded by shivku.

Nokia, having bought Navteq, has Navteq’s data in their mobile apps. And the map coverage sucks.