Tech Diary

FAQs about my Nexus One

2010-04-18T20:33:00.003+05:30

January 5^th, Google announced Google Nexus One based on its Android Mobile platform. After reading reviews after reviews of the phone, I decided to take the plunge and buy the latest and greatest Android based smart phone in the market, The Google Nexus One. Since I was about to return to India soon, I bought the phone without a contract, which created a huge dent in my wallet. In return for burning a hole in the pocket, the Nexus One, I would get the rights to brag about it, or so I thought.

Upon returning to India when I went and met my friends, they asked me to show the phone with eagerness in their tones. With a big smile I took out the phone and handed it to them, but with a second that smile vanished when my friend asked, "Is this better than the iPhone?". After playing for a while with it I got a deluge of questions followed. I shrugged this as and one of occurrence. Went and showed it to my colleagues at office, in a striking coincidence all of them asked the same set of questions and pretty much in the same order. This prompted me to compile a list of Frequently asked questions and there answers.

FAQs about my Google Nexus one and the answers.

Q. Is this the iPhone?: A. Nope, this is Google's Nexus One.
Q. When did Google launch this?: A. Jan, 5^th 2010
Q. Is it touch screen?: A. Yes.
Q. Is is better than the iPhone?: A. IMO, yes, its better than the iPhone.
Q. The UI looks the same as the iPhone, how is this better?: A. Its hardware specs are better than the iPhone. Supports multitasking! It has multitouch contrary to the popular belief. Its not controlled by an evil empire called the Apple. (While answering this I wish I had the controversial Section 3.3.1 of the Apple SDK couple of months back, but instead I had to stick to "I hate Apple" argument instead.)
Q. No! I heard/read about the 3G/Network connectivity problems, how can it be better?: Google came up with a patch for that, seems to have fixed the problem for many. But I didn't get a chance to use it with 3G yet.
Q. What are the problems you have faced so far?: A. So far none.
Q. What is the camera resolution?: 5 Megapixel
Q. What special features does this have?: A. Has a built in GPS receiver as well as AGPS and a digital compass, which compled Linus Torvalds to not hate a phone and actually love it!.
Q. Hmmm. What is the use of a GPS in India anyway?: Well you have to update yourself my friend! (Big broad smile) Google maps now knows how to navigate like a local.
Q. How much did you pay?: A. 529 USD, with tax it comes around 572 USD.

By this time most of my friends just wanted to end this and they just give a smile or just nod and hand back the phone to me. This made me realize that am not good at selling idea/things to others. Although I have sold a used car, I still struggle to sell a new car! May be I should try selling Snake Oil once...

Firefox Lorentz

2010-04-09T17:37:00.001+05:30

Mozilla today announced the first beta release of Firefox Lorentz. With this update Firefox will run all the plug-ins like Flash, Quicktime and Silverlight in a separate process outseide of the browser, resulting in better handling of crashed and hung plug-ins. There will be a page load performance improvement as the main browser thread can work on rendering the page as the plug-in takes its own time to load and initialize. So Happy You Tubeing!

Download Firefox Lorentz from here. Lorentz is built on top of Firefox 3.6.3, so will not effect the installed plug-ins and extensions.

Battleship Texas

2009-07-30T10:05:00.003+05:30

San Jacinto Monument is a 25 mile drive from the city of Houston, it houses a 570 foot tall memorial and USS Texas(BB-35) war ship. This memorial commemorates the battle of Texas, fought between Texas rebel army and Mexican army. Located along the Houston Ship Channel, is well known among the Ship watchers and Ship photographers. Houston being the energy capital of America, one can expect to see a lot of huge oil tankers and cruise ships from the Galveston harbour along the channel. This Time Lapse video gives a fair idea of the number of refineries along the Houston ship channel.

USS Texas served both in World war I and II. After being decommissioned from service in 1948 it has been converted into a floating museum. Improper maintenance and neglect turned USS Texas to a huge rusting wreck. It took a massive restoration programme during February 1990 to restore it to its glory of 1945.

USS BB-35 bell, inside the ship. Strikes of a ship's bell are used to indicate the hour aboard a ship and thereby to regulate the sailors' duty watches.

Being a battleship, USS Texas had massive fire power, which can be seen here.

One of the passing oil tankers

After roaming around the ship and catching a few massive takers pass by we headed to San Jacinto memorial, about a mile from the battleship. San Jacinto memorial has a massive 220 ton star symbolizing the "Lone Star" of Texas. This monument closely resembles the Washington Monument in Washington D.C.

Visitors are allowed to the observation deck located 489 feet from the ground. The observation deck gives some really breathe taking views of Gulf of Mexico and the Ship channel. Also in front of the Monument we have a 1800x200 feet long reflection pool. Notice Battleship Texas?

A view of the refineries along the Houston Ship channel from the observation deck.

The memorial also houses a theatre, which plays a 20 minute movie about the battle Texas. We also have a Houston photo gallery depicting Houston in its various stages of development. Since all the photographs are copyrighted, we are not allowed to photograph inside the gallery.

Update: Oops! forgot to credit the photographer. Before I get sued for plagiarism! Photographs courtesy Tapo

Neutral Buoyancy

2009-03-08T23:19:00.008+05:30

"Houston, Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed. - Neil Armstrong, transmitting from the Moon, 3:18 p.m. Houston time 20 July 1969."

Johnson Space Center is located about 25 miles from Houston. Johnson Space Center is used for mainly mission training and Mission Control. NASA has guided tours for general public. We chose to go on Level 9 Tour. This tour takes you inside the Mission control center! But the catch is, the tour is only during weekdays and not weekends! So me and my friends decided to "fall ill" during a weekday so that we can go on this tour. November 12^th was the day we choose to reduce suspicion as it was mid week. Tickets had to be booked in advance as there are only 12 seats available for the tour.

Level 9 tour starts at around 11.30am and lasts till 5pm. We reached the Space center around 10.30 and get done with all the formalities. All the Level 9 tourists are given a NASA employee look-alike ID card to give an authentic look. Since there was time before the scheduled departure of the tour, we used that time to go around and checkout the exhibits.

As a security measure there is a photo session before the tour can commence. All 12 tourists were asked to board a mini bus for the tour, we were joined by a group of airline employees on a company sponsored trip. After the initial introduction the tour bus started its 4.5 hours trip around the NASA facility. Our first stop was building 3 for lunch. This is the Cafeteria for the employees. Sonny Carter Training Facility is our next stop. This is the Neutral Buoyancy training facility, the largest in the world. It can hold the entire 1:1 mock-up of the International Space Station.

As the name suggests, Neutral Buoyancy Lab is used to simulate Zero G, an essential component in a days work for the astronauts. Here the astronauts get a first hand experience in doing the most mundane task like walking under zero gravity! That is astronauts preparing for the next ISS mission.

We are familiar with the Hubble Telescope and its breathtaking pictures it can take, now it was time to see the Hubble Telescope Mission control center itself.

A mission control center controls everything about a mission. We have seen in many Hollywood spy movies, like James Bond's Die Another Day, when Gustav Graves tries to direct the beam from his satellite "Icarus" through the Minefield, such things are done from a mission control center in real life. Moving on, earlier we saw the astronauts preparing for their next space mission, now it was time to see the Mission Control of ISS.

Finally the moment we were all waiting for, The Apollo Mission control center! This mission control center was used to control all the Apollo missions and the controversial Apollo 11 mission which land on the "Moon"

We get to see the technology of the Apollo era. Also we get to sit, where the Mission Director used to sit and pretend to control the whole mission! The mission control also has a replica of the American flag, that was "hoisted" on the lunar surface.

Coming back to modern era, we never heading to the mock-up facility, then one of the co-passenger realized that India also has a moon mission and asked, "Hey, You guys have something on the Moon too, right?". It was quite a proud moment to be an Indian. It was just 3 days since the historic launch and the images of the launch and the video were fresh in our mind, and we enjoyed bragging about Chandrayaan! Another guy in the group saw us bragging and asked, "Does your space organization have such tours?". Sadly, we had to end the bragging and say the ISRO didnt have such public visits. I really wished ISRO did something like this, its such a morale booster for the youngsters.

The Space vehicle Mock-up facility has the 1:1 replica of all NASA space programs currently underway. Majority of the mock-ups were from International Space Station mission components. These mock-ups are used to train the astronauts before the missions.

That is a space spider to be sent to Mars for exploration! Our final stop on the tour was Rocket Park. This facility holds a Saturn V rocket from the canceled Apollo 18 mission. Apollo missions were stopped due to budget constraints.

After exploring the various stages of the Saturn V we returned to our starting point concluding our Level 9 tour. It was a memorable experience visiting Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center(JSC) and worth bunking office!

Los Angeles

2009-02-09T07:22:00.002+05:30

First Monday of September is observed as Labor Day in US. This long weekend gave us a opportunity to visit the Entertainment Capital of America, Los Angeles, California. Well known for Hollywood, its artists and beautiful beaches along the west coast of America. Our travel plan was simple, reach LA by evening of 29^th August, next day visit Universal Studios, LA city tour on Sunday and return to Houston by 1^st September. We used a travel website to book our flights, hotel and rental car to get a good deal. And deal is what we got, for 830 bucks per head we got flight tickets, 3 nights stay in Shearaton Gateway and a rental car for 3 days.

Universal Studios is one of the biggest and the oldest movie productions houses in Hollywood. Its located some 30 miles from the Los Angeles airport along the Hollywood Freeway. The Studio opens for general public at 9 in the morning and is open till 9 in the evening, so we reached the studio by around 8.30. We had a red carpet welcome to the studio.

First stop in the studio was the House of Horrors. This is a collection of all the characters, costumes and some live characters from all of Universal's classic horrors movies. Its a dark maze to be navigated and screemed. One of the live character came to catch hold of me, and I said a "Hi" and tried to shake hands, after this failed attempt the artist went back to the his hiding place, making everybody in the vicinity burst into laughter. Felt bad for being a spoilsport later. Continuing further, we went to meet Shrek on his way to rescue his princess from Lord Farquaad's men. In the movie the characters come out of the screen and onto your lap! Its a 4-D presentation, the 4^th dimension being the physical effects, were the seats rock, when the character is riding a horse or water is sprayed when the someone spits or throws-up! One princess Fiona was rescued we went to take the 45 minutes guide tour of the whole studio. This tour takes us in the live sets and previously used sets to depict how a movie is shot.

This location is used to shot many flooding sequences in Hollywood movies. Most of the King Kong movie's sea shots were shot in this small pond!

War of the Worlds' famous airplane crash scene was shot in this location. Steven Spielberg, brought an actual Boeing 777 and dismantled it to create this set at a cost of 2 Millions US Dollars!

After the tour we headed to meet the Animal stars of Hollywood. Animals have always had a great part in Hollywood movies. Next we went to get some "Travel Books" and also to meet Anna Scott. But to much to our despair, the book store was closed!

It was noon already, pacifying the bandicoots in the tummy became a priority than searching the Dinosaurs at the Jurassic Park ride! Next it was time to fight "The Mummy". Pyrotechnics has always played a huge part in Hollywood movies, Backdraft is one such movie which uses pyrotechnics to a great extent. The set used to shoot the climax sequence is preserved for public viewing with a live performance. SFX or Special Effects is another great technique used extensively by Hollywood movies. We visited the SFX lab to get a first hand experience of this technique. It was closing time by the time we were done seeing everything. Quick stop at the Souvenir store and we were on our way back to the hotel.

We began our second day early, we had the pickup for Los Angeles City tour at 8am. First stop on the tour was Hollywood Bowl. A Amphitheater with a seating capacity of 17000 plus!

Next we took a walk on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I managed to capture Donald Duck's Star next to Mickey Mouse's leg!

Grauman's Chinese theatre, home to many movie premieres is also located on Hollywood walk of fame. Next to the Chinese theatre is the Kodak Theatre, Oscar awards are present here. This is The Sunset Boulevard, a famous road with many landmark locations which gave Hollywood many of its artist from its numerous comedy clubs, music lounges.

From Los Angeles city we entered the city of...

Beverly Hills is the home to the stars of the Hollywood, home to Million dollar houses! Universal studios is located just outside the city limits of Beverly Hills. No wonder people want to be in Beverly Hills.

After going around the Beverly Hills downtown we returned to downtown Los Angeles to visit one of the oldest house called the Avila Adobe

We had lunch at the Farmers Market, a famous meeting place in Los Angeles. "When Walt Disney was preparing his early designs for a place called Disneyland, he did some of his work while dining on Farmers Market patios. Elements of the Market’s unique design are incorporated into his original drawings." Next we saw La Brea Tar Pits, where tar seeps from the ground to form a pool.

Along with Tar, Methane is also liberated in the surrounding areas, hence all the houses in this area have methane monitors, and if the methane reaches a certain level, "drastic actions" are taken to avert a disaster. Someone lighting a smoke better be careful in this area! Next the tour took us back into Beverly Hills to show the houses of Hollywood actors, we ended up seeing only the compounds of famous actors and actresses!

A Drive to Corpus Christi

2008-10-07T09:51:00.006+05:30

July 4^th long weekend gave us a chance to visit the coastal city of Corpus Christi, eight largest city in Texas, located 200 miles from Houston. This time around me and my travel companion decided to drive ourselves and hence we rented a car. Being a long weekend there were lot of rental car booking and by the time we went to pickup our car, we were left with only a Pickup truck!. With no other option left we decided to go with the only available option, a blue Mitsubishi Raider a 3.7 litre V6 engine pickup truck.

We started our journey at around 10 in the morning. Google Maps was our route guide for this trip. This was the first road trip for both of us in America and it was just two days after we got our Texas driving license. We were looking forward for this trip. Soon we were on the out skirts of Houston and the US country side started to emerge on the horizon. Texas is much more greener than what we normally think of. The drive was a great experience for us, but rain played spoil sport. Due to rains the visibility was drastically reduced at many places and everyone on the roads drove at around 20 Mph(30-35 kmph). But when it was not raining it was a pleasant drive. We stopped once to refresh ourselves and change drivers. After a pleasant 3 hour drive we were at Corpus Christi welcomed by heavy rains. By the time we reached our hotel raining had stopped. Since were 3 hours ahead of our check-in time we were not allotted a room. Instead we decided to go to the Texas State Aquarium.

A huge crowd had already formed to gain entry into the aquarium. Apart from marine animals they also had Flamingos as well. Next we visited the Dolphin Bay to watch the Dolphins do stunning acrobatic maneuvers. Later we descended in a underwater viewing room to watch the dolphins play around in the pool.

Next we went to meet the North American River Otter. There were two of them and both were....

Next we watched a Bird show in the Wild Fight Theatre. And we met him

Corpus Christi is known for Jelly Fishes lying on the beaches. They are not as yummy as they sound, when they sting they sting pretty bad! We had our fair share of Jelly fish sightings in the aquarium as exhibits and as well as long the shore. Sea turtles swam in pool of their own with a word of caution!

I tried touching a Stingray but it swam away, but couple of others standing around the pool managed to touch it.

After all this roaming we decided to have lunch as we had covered most of things to see. We just stood near the sea shore admiring USS Lexington and the water traffic passing under the Corpus Christi harbour bridge.

It was around 3 in the afternoon so we checked into our hotel and rested for sometime before going to the beach. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach. We took a stroll along the beach enjoying the gentle breeze. The waves were not very high and the water was quite shallow.

As we were walking my thoughts took me for a trip down the memory lane, bringing back the memories of digging along the shore of Marina beach during my summer holidays. Kulfi ice cream, cold drinks and beach were the things that my mom used to promise only after which I would agree to come to Madras during summer vacation. Soon we reached the other end of the beach. We sat down on the rocks watching others fishing and enjoying the fading daylight. On our way back we saw quite a jelly fishes washed ashore.

From the beach we went to a restaurant to have our dinner before the fireworks display began. Soon after finishing our dinner we found a nice place on the beach. Fireworks were arrange from the deck of USS Lexington. Soon after the choppers cleared the air and the coast guards took care of the sea to keep people from harms way the spectacular fireworks display started. It was a 30 minutes spectacle consisting of various mesmerizing fireworks display.

A huge round of applause from the crowd marked the end of the spectacle. Slowly the crowd started to make its way back. We sat for awhile enjoying the cool breeze blowing across the beach and the massive war ship before we went back to our hotel room to call it a day. It was quite an eventful day!

Day two of our trip had an hectic plan ahead of us. Our first stop after breakfast at the hotel was visiting USS Lexington. Its a World War II aircraft carrier converted to a Naval museum after it was decommissioned in 1991. The photo was blurred due the humidity and fog!

Here is a small video about USS Lexington. The tour of ship is divided into 5 different sections. Tour 1 - the Flight Deck and Bridge. One of the aircraft on the flight deck.

Next is the Foc'sle(forecastle). This section is mainly dedicated to the Pearl Harbour attack. Next is the Gallery Deck. This section houses the Combat Information Centre amongst the others. We went down to the lower deck to see the Engine Room. This ship was powered by two massive engines.

As we walked into the lower deck of the ship the smell of the sea and the ship was quite evident. Its a nice experience in itself. The major attraction of the museum is the overnight camping, wherein you will be a peacetime sailor for a day. Inside the museum we have theatre in the Hanger Deck. We watched a movie called "Fighter Pilot", a 45 minute presentation about the pilot combat training programme. After all these tours we had lunch on the deck of the warship itself.

The final destination of our trip was North Padre Island National Seashore. Around 30 miles from Corpus Christi. There are two main beaches on this island North and South Beach. We went to the North beach. This place is quite beach and nothing other than that. Families come here on camping. The biggest thing that I liked about this place is the peace and tranquility, the only sounds that you hear is of the seagulls and the waves. This beach is also quite shallow and we can walk quite a distance and the water wont go beyond our hip. This is also nesting place for sea turtles. We spent quite sometime just walking across the beach and standing in the water enjoying the scenic beauty of this place. We came back to our car and dried our legs before starting our return journey. We started around 5 in the evening and hit the highway to Houston. And we were greeted by quite a heavy downpour almost all the way. At some places we had to drive at very slow speed as the visibility was quite bad. But as we neared Houston rain started to subside and we had clear weather till we reached home at around 8. It was quite a driving experience for both of us. We missed our route twice once while going and once while returning. The best part of losing your way in US is that you wont find people to ask directions for, you have to go by your instincts and common sense. But even that was fun :). All in all it was a memorable drive marked by the majesty of USS Lexington and tranquility of North beach.

San Antonio Part II

2008-08-14T09:39:00.010+05:30

A bright sunny morning greeted us as we prepared to continue on our San Antonio trip. Today's destination was SeaWorld, its a famous water amusement park. We had booked our entry tickets the previous day itself. We expected a huge crowd since it was a long weekend, so we started early to beat the crowd and it was around 30 miles from where we stayed. It took a 30 minute cab ride to reach the water park. Almost a quarter mile long queue of cars had already formed around 10.30. We rented a locker to keep our personal things and headed towards our first section, "The Lost Lagoon", a wave pool and cluster of other smaller rides. Our timing to enter the pool was perfect as the waves were about to start and before crowd could fill up we found ourselves a nice spot (although it doesn't really matter :-P). After floating around in the waves we moved on to water slide. First we went to the tube slide later the same run without tubes called "Body slide". And trust me the Body slide was better than the tube slide.

Dolphins show called the "Viva!" was our next stop. Its a 30 minutes artistic performance by Pacific White-sided Dolphins. The main attraction of this show was a dolphin jumping out of the water and hitting a ball suspended above 10-15 feet from the water surface. After meeting the Dolphins, it was time for some high octane adrenaline rush filled ride the "Steel Eel" the famous roller coaster ride. Its 3700 feet long and the ride last for about 2 minutes from start to finish and has a 15 story drop!. And you don't have to describe roller coaster rides they are always awesome no matter what!

Photographs taken during the ride are sold outside, we got one each for ourselves before we continued on to "The Great White". This is Texas' first steel roller coaster ride. In this ride your foot will be dangling in the air as you flip around in loops, like in one of the soft drink commercials (although we didn't carry any such thing on the ride). This ride is again around 2500 feet long and takes close to two minutes from start to end. By the end of this ride we were quite hungry, so we made a quick dash to the nearest food court and had our lunch. After lunch to went to "Pirate - 4D", its a 3D movie with water sprinklers, under the seat vibrations and other special effects. It was a nice time pass and kids really enjoyed this. We went on to meet "Shamu", a giant killer whale. Highlight of this show was water splashing by the whale, which can reach up to 16 rows! A half-an-hour presentation featuring various acrobatic maneuvers. Then we took a plunge in the "Atlantis". Half roller coaster half water ride, in this ride we climb 100 feet in a small boat and then we splash into the water!

Our last stop for the day was "Castaway crusin'" a long stream of water where you can swim, walk or float along and rest your body from the day long activities. After couple of round of this stream we went straight to the wave pool to catch the last wave of the day. Nice 20 minutes in the water and we headed back to our locker and made our way out as it was closing time. We were in no mood to wait for a cab and to our luck an empty cab was waiting and we approached the cab driver and asked if it was free. That cab driver said, "No, the cab is engaged, but people who called the cab don't seem to be insight. You guys wait for a couple of minutes and then if they don't come I will take you." We were more than happy to wait. We waited for few minutes and when we were about to leave the group that has actually called the cab turned up. But the cab driver was not amused by there delay so he agreed to drive us instead of them! Cab driver guessed from our looks that we were Indians and was telling about his close family friend being a Indian, the local Indian restaurants anything and everything related to India in San Antonio. He also felt that India is taking over the world from all the "Science" education that we have in India. At this point to re-assure him I had to quote Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's words that, "For 2,500 years India has never invaded anybody" and added my own words, that it has no plans to invade in the future too. We continued on with our discussion, then the cab driver said he had to refuel and we pulled into a gas station a.k.a petrol pump, this station happens to have an Burger King outlet too, so we packed our dinner and took off heading towards our hotel. After munching down our burgers and cola we decided to call it a day.

Next day was our last day at San Antonio and we had a hectic plan ahead of us. First stop Natural Bridge Caverns. These are naturally occurring caves formed due to underground rivers which have spectacular limestone structures. This place is a 30 minutes drive from our hotel. Since we had lot to cover we started a bit early. There are two kinds of tours, one is a guided tour and another one is a self guided tour. We chose the self guided tour called the "Discovery Tour". Along the route you will have guides giving you details about the important locations inside the cave. The cave formations are just mesmerizing.

The tallest formation is 32 feet tall.

And if you let your imagination run wild, you will "Discover" many interesting formations like this one, the King's throne

The white spot on the photo is just a tiny droplet on the camera lens and not a moon! The deepest point of the tour is 180 feet below ground level. The ground can get quite slippery. We had spent more than 2 hours exploring and taking pictures and we didn't realize the time pass by. After a quarter mile trip down the cavern we emerged at the other side of the natural bridge. Next pit stop for the day was the famous and historical, The Alamo. A mission converted to a fortress in which approximately 187 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis tried resisting 6000 strong Mexican army led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna. This fortress has been converted to an museum to stand testimony for the brave men who laid their lives defending Texas on 6^th March 1836.

The main entrance leads us to a big hall which houses the memorial, a scale model of the original structure of Alamo with the positions taken by the soldiers. As we exit the hall there is a park and a library. Near library is this pool. Go ahead toss a coin into the pool and make a wish!

At the back of the complex we have the medical center used during the war. It was time for lunch and head to the bus station. We had some more time before bus departed so we decided to take a stroll along the River Walk. And finally the long weekend was drawing to an end and our San Antonio trip. We covered all the places that we thought of covering and a bit more too.

San Antonio Part - I

2008-07-27T06:22:00.003+05:30

Last Monday of May every year is observed as Memorial Day in USA, to commemorate US men and women who died while in Military service. That gave us a long weekend to explore the state of Texas a bit more. So my friends and me decided to visit San Antonio. It is the second largest city in Texas and is place to one of the most important historical moments in the history of Texas.

Cut to chase... Saturday, May 24^th morning we boarded a Greyhound bus to San Antonio from Houston. Greyhound is a popular inter-city bus service in USA servicing to people who cant drive or who don't want to drive. Special things to note about the Greyhound buses are, firstly it is fully air conditioned(that was obvious), it has multiple TV screens hanging(although nothing was played on it) and lastly has a built-in restroom at the back of the bus. And By the way Greyhound claims that the running dog is one of the most recognized brands in the world! The bus stations here are quite different from what we were used to, here we have to go through a baggage check and the baggage is weighed and hence there is a limit on how much you can carry. Since we already had our tickets we went through the checking and collected our "boarding passes". Return tickets were not booked so we got that booked too. Then we found a place to spend the rest of the 30 minutes waiting. While we were waiting a lot of thoughts were running through my mind, though all these niceties are not present back home the US public transport system has a lot of catching up to do. The other side of the argument would be America being the inventor of the Car Culture. But with Global Warming and souring crude oil prices its time the public transport system gets its much needed adoption and recognition. I was brought back to reality by the "boarding call" announcement on the Public Announcement System and people rushing to the departure gate and in no time there was a long queue. Since all of us were well versed with this we managed to garb a place almost at the beginning of the queue. Once on-board and ready to depart the driver/conductor welcomed us and announced the departure of the bus and the estimated arrival time.

A three and half hour bus journey later we were at San Antonio bus station. The first impression I got on seeing San Antonio is that it has a lot of European touch to it. Right outside there were a lot of cabs waiting, so we took a cab to our hotel. Since we didn't book the hotels early enough we couldn't get a hotel reservation in the downtown area. Our hotel was around 10 miles from the bus station. By the time we checked in it was lunch time so we decided to try out the Mexican restaurant within the hotel compound. We were in for a surprise as the waitress came to our table and started speaking in Spanish! and all three of us were looking at each other to figure out who amongst us looks like a Mexican!?! To keep things simple we spoke in English and asked "Do you speak English?". Realizing the confusion the waitress went and asked one of her colleague to take our orders, who thankfully spoke in English. The next surprise although I had expected this to happen sooner or later, was to land up in a restaurant with no vegetarian dishes. I was kind-of prepared to handle the surprise but all that goes for a toss when your hungry. So we asked the waitress to suggest something for poor souls like me and she suggested something and we had to take that only as we didn't have much of an option. That dish was just Tortilla (cousin brother of Chapathi) and tons of cheese poured over it! Short rest in the room after lunch we headed to Alamo mission, a fortress which stands testimony for the Battle of Alamo. Since it was almost closing time we decided we decided to visit Guinness World Records Museum right across the road. This place has photographs and videos of all the Guinness records. The place is not that interesting as it sounds nonetheless a nice time pass. Next door to the museum is the Tomb Raider arcade

This is a small ride with 3-D goggles and laser guns. We sit in a cart which looks more like a big cup and this cart moves along a guided path. Once inside you have 3-D images and sound effects to simulate a scary cave on your way to raid a tomb. We have to shoot the daemons with our laser guns and earn points. The experience was like being in a video game yourself. At the end of the ride regardless of the points scored you are give 4 coins to use it on the video games parlor at the exit. And at one of the broken shooting console I happen to find four more coins, which I used it to play a round of car racing :-P . After exhausting our coins we headed to Louis Tussaud’s Plaza Wax Museum. First I met Mr. Forrest Gump

Laurel and Hardy told me a joke.

Later Oprah invited me to her show...

then I had to rescue Little Red Riding Hood, at least in the school drama I was the hunter who rescued her!

Next stop was the Ripley's Odditorium (yes its not auditorium but Odditorium for the oddities it houses inside). Here we get to see the 1:1 scale model of the world's tallest man.

Piece of the Berlin Wall

Largest production tyre and much more...

Famous San Antonio River Walk was our next stop. As we walked along the stream it felt like as if we were transported to some place in Europe, but was brought back to Texas with a restaurant proudly displaying the Cowboy shoe and skull of a bull. On both side of the stream you have a lot of restaurants. As the prices were a bit high and "choice" for the veggie guys being bleak we decided not to eat on the river walk. Since it was also getting late we decided to have dinner and head back to our hotel. Since my friend had vowed not to return to the Mexican restaurant in the hotel premises we went on a restaurant hunt to find something that suited us. And uncle Sam's Mc Donald's came to our rescue. We finished our dinner and decided to call it a day, an eventful day. We took a cab to return our hotel.

Splash at Splashtown

2008-07-14T01:08:00.006+05:30

At around 9.30 on a lazy Sunday morning I was admiring the closeness of the shave in the mirror, my phone started playing Final Countdown and I started to hum along with it. Then a second later I
realized that was an incoming call! So ran to pickup the call before it gets re-directed to my voice mail. I picked up the call...

Me: Hello.?. (Wondering why this person is calling on a Sunday morning)

Friend: Arent you coming to Splash town?

Me: Yeah, but when is everyone leaving?

Friend: Now... We are leaving in half an hour!

Me: Oh!... I thought it was sometime later not so early

Friend: Start now, meet you at the entrance in 20 mins!

Me: But wait, am not ready yet, I need some more time

Friend: Better get ready soon... I got to go... see you at the entrance bye!

And the line went dead...

Splash town is a water amusement park situated around 30 miles from my house. Our client had arranged for an all expenses paid one day outing at Splashtown. Being a contractor I too got a chance to avail that pass! So me and and bunch of my colleagues were planing to go Splashtown and have a splash. In a hurry I emptied the small rucksack that I carry to office everyday and dumped a set of dress and headed to the entrance where my friends were waiting to leave. After the initial Hi, hellos we started towards splashtown.

45 minutes and 30 miles later we were at Splashtown. Since we were not the earlier once to arrive we had to navigate around the parking lot to find a spot, we found one soon and we were on our way into the park. First thing we did was to rent a locker to keep our belongings. And the first place that we went was to the Wave pool. By the time were out of the pool it was already around 12.30, so we headed to grab a bite. The queue was quite long. By the time we finished lunch it was around 2.

Next stop after lunch was Shotgun falls, this ride is very much like a slide in the park, the only difference is that you land in 10 feet deep water pool instead of the conventional slide. Next stop was the high point of the whole outing, the Tornado. In this ride we fall into a huge cone and see-saw inside the cone before splashing into water. The adrenaline rush just cannot be explained in words. After this dose of fun we headed to other rides and chit-chatted for a while. it was almost 5 in the evening so we went to get some evening snacks and some rest in the shade. Then came the time for some beach-volleyball. After
two matches we headed towards the River walk. Here you can walk, swim or just float around and rest yourself. After floating around the stream couple of times we headed to the wave pool again for the last wave of the day. By the time the wave in to pool came to normal it was closing time, almost all of us were tired by the day long activities.

Did some car searching to spot the car and hopped onto it and headed home after a eventful day at the water park. I was looking forward for a nice hot shower and sleep like a baby :-). Forty five minutes later we were back in home....

Match Point

2008-06-08T09:02:00.005+05:30

After winning the grueling second set 7-5, I was wiping my and plotting my next move to defeat my opponent in straight sets, a burst of cool breeze swept across the Tennis court providing much needed relief from burning Sun. After having a definitive plan I stepped into the court and turned to the ball boys to collect couple of balls to serve. I thought of starting this set with a Ace, after a brief analysis of the line of serve I got ready and suddenly I heard a cat meow. Surprised I turned around and saw a white cat walking at the sidelines approaching towards me. I tried to scare it away but it kept its path unhindered, and couple of seconds later the cat jumped on me. With a sudden shock I woke up and sat on my bed sweating under the effect of AC! I looked around to calm myself and found myself staring at the same cat standing outside the balcony door. Probably this time the cat got scared seeing my petrified state and ran away. It was my neighbour's cat that had sneaked onto my balcony. I quietly tip-toed to the balcony door made sure that the door was properly locked, drank some water and returned to bed. Then something shiny caught my eyes, it was my new Tennis racquet which I bought earlier in the day, shining under the influence of the Moon light pouring in from the glass door. I laid on bed thinking about my first attempt at playing Tennis.

The new apartment that I moved in recently has Tennis courts, so me and my friend decided to get a Tennis racquet for me, so that we both can play tennis during the weekends. We planned a visit to Wal Mart to buy one. After searching through the all the available options we narrowed down to Prince Rage Racquet. It was designed for beginners like me. So we decided to go with this. We also bought Willson tennis balls, well this is not the "Willson" that accompanied Tom Hanks
in Cast Away, but from the same manufacturer. The first thing after returning from Wal Mart was to run and catch a free tennis court! Both of us rushed to our room, changed and
ran to the Tennis court. Now armed with a newly purchased racquet and tennis ball I was ready to serve. Like the pros shown on TV, I swirled the racquet, bounced the ball twice on the ground, adjusted the my T-Shirt... and threw the ball in the
air and Bang! I smashed the ball to complete my first ever Serve in Tennis. Well till I threw the ball in the air everything looked like a total pro, but the only difference came after I hit the ball, instead of serving it to my friend I
served it to the guy in the adjacent court! That guy was confused about which ball to hit and all he could manage was a shocked look on his face and to dodge both the balls.

New Tennis Raquet - $15.88

New set of Tennis balls - $2.47

Shocking the guy in the adjacent court with your serve - Priceless!

I quickly apologized to that guy, probably he understood that am a total novice with Tennis and said nothing and just nodded his head. Now that I had discovered that I have a very good serve we decided not to mimic the pros and get on with the play like non pros. We played for about an hour before both of us were totally exhausted.

Visit to Houston Downtown

2008-04-26T07:36:00.017+05:30

On the way home from airport, "That area is called the 'Downtown'", my friend said pointing to the distant high rise buildings. Not knowing what the word Downtown actually meant I just nodded my head and kept quite. My exposure to the word "Downtown" is limited to the Hollywood movies. The first instance that I can think of is from the the movie Speed, where at the beginning of the movie a hostage situation in "Downtown" high rise is being dealt with. Next instance that I can recall is Spider-Man spinning his web in "Downtown Manhattan". So I turned to the information super highway to help me out, and this is what Wikipedia had to offer. Downtown - is a term primarily used in North America to refer to a city's core, usually in a geographical, commercial, and community sense. So after gaining this information, I decided to go and visit Houston Downtown. After riding on the Information super highway a little more I came to know that Houston Museum of Natural Sciences is just a couple of miles from Downtown.

After gathering all the required route information from Google maps and the local public transport website, me and my friend set out to explore the Museum and Houston downtown. First stop of course the bus stop near our home! We took a bus to Downtown and as per my calculations buses marked Downtown would make a stop at Downtown Transit Centre, it is a big Terminus and also the head office of the local public transport. But all my calculations went haywire as the bus that we took goes to Downtown but doesn’t go to the Transit Centre. We got suspicious when almost all passengers got down and the drivers changed duty. When we enquired about this with the driver, he suggested that we get down and go back a couple of stops and take a train to "Hermann Park", from where we can go to the museum. So we got down and walked back to the train station. The Metro Rail is a local Train service that runs within Houston Downtown. We brought tickets from the automated ticket vending system located at either ends of the platform and were waiting anxiously for the train arrive. To tell the truth I was jumping in joy like a kid gifted with a store full of candies. Since childhood I had a huge fascination for trains, and when I spotted the train at a distant had a big grin on my face!

Six stops later we got down at "Hermann Park/Rice University" station. Two minutes walk from the station and we were at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.

We managed to reach the museum exactly an hour before the closing time. We booked the tickets for the last show at the Planetarium. When we asked about the entry tickets for the Museum, person at the counter suggested that we wait for 15 more minutes as after 4.30 the entry is free. So we headed to the gift shop to murder those 15 minutes. Here were greeted by a giant skeleton structure of a Dinosaur.

We gazed at the things for sale and came out as soon as the clock struck 4.30. At entrance we had 4 mega skeleton structures of our Dinosaur friends greeting us.

With less than 10 minutes left before the show started, we hurried onto the Energy section, there came face to face with the various Oil Exploration and Production tools and methodologies.

As we ran out of time we headed towards the Planetarium. Planetarium was a mid sized one not too small nor big hall. The show on offer was the "Night of the Titanic". I went to the show with an expectation of seeing something outer space; nevertheless it was a nice show. We came out of the Planetarium and decided that we are going come again soon to cover the rest of the museum, catch another show at the Planetarium and above all watch a show at the IMAX theatre situated inside the museum.

Right at the entrance of the Museum we have a 5000 pounds granite globe suspended on water. Water is pumped from the bottom to keep the massive rock afloat. We can play around with the globe like an balloon and proclaim that you too "Moved the Earth!" and its not just Galileo who did it.

Opposite to the museum is the Hermann Park which has the statue of Sam Houston, A Reflecting pool, Pioneer Memorial and Miniature train. The Pioneer memorial was installed to mark the 100^th Anniversary of formation of Houston City on 30^th, August 1936.

Heading out of Hermann Park, our next stop was checking out Downtown Houston. We got down at the Downtown transit center station and started our march towards the city streets. Being a Sunday evening we got deserted roads.

We walked around a bit taking photographs of the sky scrapers. Later we decided it’s time to head back home as it was close to 8 in the night and we might have problems getting a bus on our return journey. It was an eventful day, with lot more left to cover so we planned to make a second visit to the Museum shortly.

Ice skating

2008-04-21T11:00:00.005+05:30

Ok don’t faint just after reading the title. Trust me I didn’t do any ice skating. The closest that I went to ice skating was going near the arena and watch kids skate like professionals and couple of dads trying to teach their kids a trick or two.

Morning my friend and I decided to visit the shopping mall close to our home. This was my second attempt at this mall as the last time I reached the mall at closing time. This is one of the largest shopping centers in Houston and it’s called “The Galleria”. It has been built in three stages, Galleria I, II and III. All three have basement parking and 3 floors of unadulterated shopping space. The size of these shopping malls are so enormous that me and my friend kept roaming all day and could manage to cover only the ground floor of all three sections! It will take another couple of trips before we can declare it as “Complete” in our list of places to visit. For window shoppers this is heaven. Here one can find all possible brands for any item you take. For example for men’s clothing I found all the brands that I ever knew plus a lot more I knew ever existed, call it whatever you want it to. Same is the case with perfumes, watches so on and so forth.

Photography inside the mall is prohibited and the only section where it is allowed is at the Ice Skating arena. Initially we thought of watching it from the top. But the shutterbug won’t let me stand. So I asked a security officer if I am allowed to take pictures. I got a go ahead from him. So I went downstairs to the food court cum Ice skating arena. Entry fee $3, and hiring skating gears $7, proudly announced the display board at the entrance of the arena. I went and double checked with the Ice skating guys if I can cure the shutter bugs bite. The guy at the counter gave a go ahead so I happily entered the arena for free because it was not stepping onto the Ice.

I was stunned by the ease with which kids were performing on the ice. The energy in the atmosphere is very infectious, it lures you into trying out, and Oh yes forgot to tell coaching classes are also conducted for new comers like me. One visit to the ice skating arena is good enough to refresh you after a long tiring shopping spree.

With no more energy left in us to explore more we decided to return home and take some rest after our long (window) shopping spree which had lasted for about 3-4 hours.

The American Dream

2008-04-07T09:11:00.006+05:30

Leaving the shores of your mother land for the every first time is always a bundle of mixed feelings. Firstly you are happy that you are going to a whole new place and followed by this happiness is the lingering memory of leaving your near and dear ones back. After landing in US the first week went in settling into the new environment, getting used to new culture, new terminology, etc.

My first ever weekend was a very quite one. Went out to see the Wal-Mart! It was bigger than I had ever imagined. My exposure to Wal-Mart was limited to books and documentaries. The only analogy that came to my mind was its big as a stadium. I had read and heard about America being the inventor of the “Car Culture”. I understood what it exactly meant. The parking space was bigger than actual store itself. Since we didn’t have a car, so my friend and I took the help of the Public Transport, yes you read it right, Public Transport! It’s not dependable but we had no other choice. My first brush with the American public transport was not that bad as I was warned about. It was a pleasant one there was no waiting time both ways! We didn’t have a four wheeler so what, Wal-Mart was kind enough to give us the second most used four wheeler in the whole wide world, The Shopping Cart! Armed with the dollar power and the shopping cart both of us entered the arena like brave warriors entering the ancient Roman Colosseum. Our mission was to exit the Wal-Mart without getting lost in the countless number of aisles and the product range at display. You think of anything and you had it. If you are tired shopping, visit the Starbucks coffee outlet right inside Wal-Mart, serving coffee of your desired flavor. After one and half an hour of roaming round the never ending store finally we were at the billing counter waiting for our term. The happiness of roaming around with a four wheeler also to comes to an end as we exited the store.

My next stop after returning from the Wal-Mart was another shopping mall close by at walking distance. The joy was short lived as it was closing time when I entered the mall. I thought I must have been really late, so I checkout my watch and was surprised, it was just 7pm. Having used to seeing Malls open till 11 this came as a shock to me. But I did manage to sneak into an electronics store and have a look at the gadgets on display. Since all the other shops were shutting down I didn’t want waste their time in window shopping so I gracefully made an exit before being kicked out.

Second week went by in no time and second weekend was staring right at us. This weekend friends had planned to rent a car and roam around. So we planned to go for a movie. The movie watching experience was totally different from what I known and expected. The multiplex was a 45 minutes drive. When we started, one thought struck me, “I am finally living the American dream the American way”! Though it was not the actual American way still remotely American. Reaching the movie multiplex, we were greeted by an almost empty parking lot and the whole premises looked deserted. An occasional gust of wind swept across while we walked towards the multiplex. The scene looked similar to that of “Once upon a time in little Mexico” where Antonio Banderas and his buddies carrying weapons assemble for the final assault. Lady at the ticket counter greeted us asking for the number of tickets, I heaved a sigh of relief assured that this place was not deserted after all. It was about the starting time of the movie, so we entered the hall. And another surprise, we were the only once to go inside the hall. Just before the movie started another batch of 3 people entered the hall. The show started with just 8 people sitting. The movie ended at around seven in the evening and we were greeted by a bright sunshine as if it was 4-5 in the evening. After some chitchatting we decided to call it a day and head home, so did the small stint at the American dream come to an end. I look forward for the week ahead…

A Bike Ride To Mahabalipuram

2008-01-17T10:05:00.000+05:30

On a cloudy winter morning in Chennai, Sun was playing hide and seek as I embarked on my first ever Bike Ride to Mahabalipuram. I chose to start a bit early for two prime reasons, firstly to reach before the crowd starts pouring onto this small shore town, and secondly to avoid being caught by the Chennai Traffic police! Nobody wants to get caught by traffic cops, especially if your coming from the rival state Karnataka and rival metro Bangalore! Keeping all these in mind I kick started my ride at around 8.30 in the morning. I had the Bay of Bengal to accompany me all through the 56 kilometres of the journey. After 45 minutes along the Beach Road into the journey I reached East Coast Road or ECR as it is popularly known as.

Take my word its not just Scenic as the hoarding proudly announces, but it is Breathtaking and Picturesque. People with the Shutter Bug syndrome, beware of this road, because you will find yourself bitten by the Shutter Bug every other 5 to 10 minutes! ECR is Pay and Use road, but Bikes are exempted. ECR is a bikers paradise, Most part of the road is usually straight and flat. The roads are very well laid out. One can find vehicles zip past you at speeds over 100 Kph, but the legal speed limit is 80 kph.

Bay of Bengal accompanies us all along the journey, but it's not in sight because of the urban jungle. After you cross the ECR Toll Plaza, you can get a glimpse of the sea for the first time, you get an uninhibited view of the Sea for the rest of the journey from this point onwards.

Further along the journey we cross the back waters of the sea. Here Boating enthusiasts can have a boat ride. Since I was travelling alone, I decided to continue with my journey.

All along the journey Mother Nature keeps treating us with many more picturesque sites, as I warned earlier Shutter Bug keeps biting, take my word its hard to resist such a bite! Finally after one and a half hour ride with ample stopovers I made it to Mamallapuram town! Mahabalipuram famous for its temples is also famous for its Sculptures. Every 5 - 10 metres we can find artisans busy working with their trademark rhythmic sound of chiselling.

I found this beautiful sculpture of Lord Ganapathi on my way to the first visiting point “The Shore Temple”.

All the tourist spots in Mahabalipuram are part of United Nations' World Heritage Monuments. Archaeological Survey of India (or ASI) has taken up the maintenance of all the sites here, hence we get to see well maintained monuments. We have a one time entry fee of Rs. 10, for the Shore temple and the “Five Rathas” monuments.

The main deity here and other places in Mahabalipuram is Lord Shiva, as the rulers of Pallava dynasty, founders of this town worshipped Lord Shiva.

As the name suggests the Shore Temple is located very close to the sea shore. A 5 foot tall boundary wall separates the temple from the deep sea.

The Shore Temple and most of the other monuments here are made of Sand Stone, which is easily disintegrated by the rough sea and salt laden winds. Most of the carvings on the temple are spoilt as a result of this. ASI has taken special measures to arrest the erosion of the sculptures.

Adding to the ambient atmosphere is the pleasant sound of the waves hitting the shore right next to the temple along with a cool breeze. Just the sight of this place makes the whole journey worthwhile. I was lucky enough to get drenched in a fine drizzle of rain. Though the rain did not last more than a few minutes, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Next stop in my journey was Cave temples. This group of caves is just a 5 minutes walk from the Shore Temple. The cave temples are a collection of 13 cave carvings.

Along with the cave carvings, we also find the Old Lighthouse built by the Pallava kings. No one is allowed to climb to the top of the Lighthouse, but we can get a fair view of this town from the foot of this ancient sea marker.

After visiting all the cave temples, I headed to the last stop of my journey the “Five Rathas”. This is another 5 minutes walk from the Cave temples. As the name hints this is a collection of five monuments each named after Draupadi and Pancha Pandavas. Each of these Rathas or Chariots are sculpted using different forms of Indian Architecture.

From left to right the chariots are named after Draupadi, Arjuna, Bhima, Dharmaraja and Nakula Sahadeva. Apart from the five major structures, we also find a Bull, a Lion and an Elephant. Due to the Salt laden winds even these sculptures have eroded over a period of time.

By the time I was done with visiting these monuments it was afternoon and I was hungry. Guided by the localities I found a nice eatery. After finishing my lunch, I started my return journey to Chennai with all my batteries charged! 32 kilometres on the ECR and finally a hoarding announced the end of ECR.

At this point I was engulfed by multiple feelings, joy of a memorable journey and sorrow of the end of ECR and its beauty. At the end, no words and pictures can explain it completely, one has to experience it to feel it!

Jog – A piece of heaven

2007-09-30T22:36:00.000+05:30

After a very long time all five of our engineering gang was meeting, and its been almost two and a half years since all of us went together for a trip. A much awaited break for all of us from our routine life. All of us had so much to catch up on each others lives. So finally at around 11 on a cold Friday night we started our journey of 400 kilometers from Bangalore to Jog. The ride was filled with pranks, pulling each others legs, remembering the good old days of our college life. By the time we thought of taking a nap we were more than half way through our journey. Our heated arguments, discussions and fun had probably enraged the car I believe it overheated! So we had to break for about an hour before we started moving. As the saying goes “Alls well that ends well”. This one hour break in our journey ensured that we reached Jog at a perfect time in the morning.

Six in the morning still quite a distance from Jog we were surrounded by the enchanting and picturesque beauty of the Western ghats. Frequent spells of fine spray of rain had made the curvy roads look even more beautiful, this made me jealous of the driver. To add to this we had lush greenery on both sides of the road. Me and my friend started clicking pictures of this timeless beauty.

Finally we reached Sagara, a small place 30 kilometers from Jog. This was the last place before most mobiles went silent due lack of network. After a quick break we started the final segment of our journey. The first place we stopped over was a bridge across the river Sharavati just a few minutes from the waterfall. Everyone jumped out of the car to enjoy the pleasant weather and view. Even at eight in the morning fog was taking its time to clear on this little hill station. Due to the dense fog we couldn't see things 100 metres away let alone the waterfalls.

After clicking few photos we headed to the main waterfall. As soon as the car came to a halt we literally ran to get a glimpse of the waterfall. Much to our dismay we could just hear the roaring of the waterfall and nothing much was visible due to heavy fog and thick cloud cover. But we had a pleasant surprise waiting for us, courtesy Mother Nature. Cloud cover just started to clear bit by bit to showcase the true beauty of Jog. All of us were jumping in joy to see “Raja”, first of the four waterfalls. Then “Rani” showed up quickly, followed by “Rocket”. But to see “Roarer” we had a wait a little more. Finally all four waterfalls were visible and we were totally bowled over by Mother Nature. We were jumping in joy, clapping hands. It took us awhile before we could even talk. I just cant express the euphoria in words. Quickly we decided to pack our breakfast head down towards the bottom of the falls and have it there.

A rocky decent of about 1500 steps. All the cementing of the steps were washed away due to recent heavy rains. As we were making our way downhill, the view and roar of the waterfalls was getting better. Half way through we were completely taken by the shear beauty of Jog. Its just then we started to get the feeling that “This is indeed a piece of Paradise of Earth”. No one can express the beauty of this place in words or in pictures, one has to see this place to enjoy its beauty. The rocky path gave us ample opportunity to enjoy Nature's beauty. The Shutter Bug wont allow you to take more than 10 or 15 steps before you feel like clicking another one!

3/4th the way down we were greeted by the fine spray from the waterfalls. With every step it was increasing. Still further down the fine spray was now like heavy drizzle. More closer to the falls we decided that the cameras and mobile are best inside the bag than outside, as no one had the patience to click pictures and the waterfall spray was really heavy. At the very bottom of our decent we were literally running towards the falls. Mother Nature had lot more surprises than we could ever imagine. All of a sudden the water flow increased and it was accompanied by gust of wind making the waterfall spray look like a heavy rain. We couldn't open our eyes even though we a good 100 metres from the falls. Since we were early to start the decent we had very few people near the falls, so we had all of Jog just for ourself!

We were so completely taken in by the beauty we were out of words and we were just screaming at the top of our voice to express our excitement and complete surrender to Mother Nature's beauty. Our trek downhill and the jumping and howling had drained our energy and we started feeling hungry. The gust of water was so heavy we had to find a rock to hide behind it and open our food packets. Everyone were so hungry and wanted to dance in this artificial rain, we ate in no time! And we headed straight to the waterfall. We could mange to go only to about 50 meters from the bottom of the fall as water was gushing with immense force and the water spray was too heavy. All of us just stood with an outstretched hand to enjoy the artificial rain. No one was ready to leave this place just yet. And Nature didn't leave us empty handed. Just as we were drenching ourselves Sun joined us in the party. Sun was hidden behind the hill had slowly started raising above the horizon. Sun cast its spell slowly by adding a tinge of golden yellow to each of the four water paths one by one . We again thanked Mother Nature and started our accent half heartedly. On our way uphill we took little breaks to rest and enjoy this timeless beauty.

Now that we had seen the bottom of the fall, now we were headed towards “Raja Spot” from where we can see the waterfalls from the top. It was already nearing noon when we reached up. We were completely exhausted by the climb so we decided to rest up a bit. After about an hours rest we started our 5 minutes drive to Raja Spot or now popularly called “Mungaru Male Spot”, as this place was used in shooting of a recent hit Kannada movie by the same name. Bottom of the falls gave us pure pleasure due to rain formed by the falls spray and the this gave us adrenaline rush. The view from the top is just breathtaking. You can see both the calm looking water and its power as it plummets to bottom. The depth of the falls is good enough to set your pulse raising, adding to that we have the roaring of the water. One can see the rocks carved out by the fury of gushing water. I couldn't stop myself from imagining how it would have been when the dams were opened due to the recent heavy rains. That would have been the sight of a lifetime, this was no less though! We have two places from were we can see the waterfalls. First one is a man-made structure from where we get to see the falls and its power. Next is from over the rocks just from where water path “Raja” falls. The view is just amazing. And soon one realizes that the later is the best choice to view as its much more closer to the falls.

From here you can experience the pure power of water, the gushing roar speaks for itself. We took turns to see the waterfall. By the time we reached Raja spot we had a lot of people, so we missed the peace and tranquility what we had at the bottom. After the high adrenaline pumping experience we took some time to enjoy the valley created by the river, its greenery on both sides of the valley. We were caught in two minds to leave this place or not. Ruthless Mind said we are running out of time and Heart said stay back, finally we decided to listen to the mind and now I regret that decision after returning from Jog!

MySQL Embedded Server

2007-01-09T16:24:00.000+05:30

MySQL Embedded Server Application
MySQL is an Open Source Relational Database Management System. Its fast, reliable, secure RDBMS. To add to this it has a unique feature which allows the whole DBMS to be embedded into the application itself, known as the MySQL Embedded Server.

MySQL Embedded Server
Whole MySQL Database server is bundled into a library called MySQL Embedded Server. This means that a single Dynamic linking Library (a .dll on Windows, a .so on Unix) that acts as a server and the client all by itself. Using this library one can run a Full featured Database server within the client application.

Benifits of using Embedded Server
The developer doesnt have to worry about database

Installation
Availabilty
Connectivity
Portability
Speed

With embedded Server we dont need MySQL server to be installed on the target machine. Next the developer does not have to think about the availabilty and connectivity to the server. The embedded server resides within the application and uses Interprocess Communication (or pipes) instead of using the network (TCP/IP) in a conventional DBMS.It also the makes the application portable. Portable in the sense data can be moved from one machine to another easily. As the server is running within the client application the speed factor is also taken care of.

Working with the Embedded Server
The embedded server resides within the application, so it has to be started and shutdown by the application. Once the server is initialized (i,e started) we can use the regular MySQL API to perform database transactions as in any Database application. To use the MySQL embedded server we have to just link the application with libmysqld library and just add four(two in most cases, unless you are developing a multithreaded application) extra function calls to the existing MySQL client server application. The extra functions to be called being
mysql_server_init() - to start the server
mysql_thread_init() - to be called in each new thread that accesses MySQL
mysql_thread_end() - to be called before exiting
mysql_server_end() - to stop the server

Starting the Embedded Server
The Embedded server is initialzed using the mysql_server_init() function with the following function signature

int mysql_server_init(int argc, char **argv, char **groups)
Where argc and argv are same as the the main() function's argc and argv. The last argument is used to specify the active groups of the options file.

Options file
MySQL server startup can is customized with a list of command line options. If the number of arguments are large then the command line becomes very big. To avoid this problem we can put all the options in a file and instruct MySQL to read this "Options File" while starting up. The same holds good for the embedded server also. In a single options file we can have multiple groups of configuration. So we will have to "activate" a certain group using the third agrument in the mysl_server_init() function. By default MySQL looks at certain places to locate the options file. On Windows it looks at the following locations:

C:\my.cnf Global options
WINDIR\my.ini Global options
INSTALLDIR\my.ini Global options

WINDIR is where Windows is installed. It’s normally C:\WINDOWS or C:\SYSROOT.
INSTALLDIR is the folder where MySQL is installed.

On UNIX it looks at the following locations:

/etc/my.cnf Global options
DATADIR/my.cnf Server specific options
~/.my.cnf User specific options

We can override this default behaviour with the "--defaults-file" option in the command line argument(in the argv argument to the mysql_server_init function). The best and easy way of using this in an embedded server application is to ship a options file with the installation and use the --defaults-file argument to point to this options file. Once the embedded server has been started we can proceed further using the database with the regular MySQL C/C++ API.

Bare minimum Options File
The bare minimum options file has to contain two groups namely "[server]" and "[client]". Then this can be followed by other custom groups. Under server group we must have atleast the following two enteries:
datadir - The location where data has to stored
language - Path to the language files.
The client group has to have the language entry. In the options file if we are going to have just one set of options then we can skip server and client groups.

Sample Options File

[test_libmysqld_SERVER]
language = C:/Path/to/language/files
datadir = C:/path/to/data

[test_libmysqld_CLIENT]
language = C:/Path/to/language/files

Note that the Windows path needs to contain forward slashes (/) and not the backslash (\). To be on the safer side use absolute path. The above example is for Windows, some holds good for UNIX also, just change the path. Copy the language files from the MySQL installation to workspace.

Stopping the server
We have to stop the server when we are done with using the database. This is done using the mysql_server_end() function call. This function has no arguments and shutsdown the embedded server.

Example
Lets take a look at a simple example for using MySQL Embedded Server in C.

#include
#ifdef WIN32
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_LEAN
#include
#include
#endif
#include

int main()
{
static char *server_options[] = {"mysql_test", "--defaults-file=my.cnf"};
int num_elements = sizeof(server_options) / sizeof(char *);
static char *server_groups[] = {"libmysqd_server", "libmysqd_client"};

MYSQL *mysql;
MYSQL_RES* result;
MYSQL_ROW row;

/*Initialize the server*/
if(!mysql_server_init(num_elements, server_options, server_groups))
{
printf("Error initializing the server\n");
return 1;
}

/*Initialize the MYSQL structure*/
mysql = mysql_init(NULL);

/*
* Set connection type to MYSQL_OPT_USE_EMBEDDED_CONNECTION
* When we do a real connect, then a embedded server connection is used
* instead of a conventional client server connection.
*/
mysql_options(mysql, MYSQL_OPT_USE_EMBEDDED_CONNECTION, NULL);

/*
* Establish a connection to the database. By default user authentication
* is disabled in a embedded server. If user authentication is required then use
* --with-embedded-privilege-control in the server_options.
*/
if(mysql_real_connect(mysql, NULL, NULL, NULL, "test", 0, NULL, 0) == NULL)
{
printf("Unable to connect to the database\n");
return 1;
}

/* Now that we are connect we can use the C API to proceed further */
mysql_query(mysql, "SELECT UserName FROM USERS");
result = mysql_store_result(mysql);
while((row = mysql_fetch_row(result) != NULL)
{
printf("UserName : %s\n", row[0]);
}

/*We are done with the database. Clean up!*/
mysql_free_result(result);

/*Close the connection*/
mysql_close(mysql);

/*Shutdown the server as well*/
mysql_server_end();
return 0;
}

The above code is taken from MySQL tutorial located at http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/embedding-mysql-server.html and modified as required. Next step is to compile the program. Following is a makefile that works on UNIX.

##############################
# Makefile to build the MySQL Embedded #
# server example on UNIX #
##############################
CC=gcc
CFLAGS=`mysql_config --include`
LDFLAGS=`mysql_config --libmysqld-libs`

all: embeddedserver

embeddedserver: embeddedserver.o
$(CC) embeddedserver.o -o embeddedserver $(LDFLAGS)
embeddedserver.o: embeddedserver.c
$(CC) embeddedserver.c -o embeddedserver.o $(CFLAGS)

clean:
rm -f embeddedserver.o embeddedserver

##############################
# Makefile to build the MySQL Embedded #
# server example on Windows #
##############################
CFLAGS=/O2 /G5 /GA /I "C:\MySQL\include" /D "WIN32" /D "_WINDOWS" /D "_CONSOLE" /D "_DEBUG" /D "_MBCS" /FD /EHsc /MT /GS /Fo"Release/" /Fd"Release/vc70.pdb" /W3 /nologo /c /TP
LDFLAGS=/OUT:"Release/article.exe" /INCREMENTAL /NOLOGO /LIBPATH:"c:\MySQL\Embedded\DLL\release" /LIBPATH:"D:\MySQL\lib\opt" /NODEFAULTLIB:"libcmtd.lib" /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE /MACHINE:X86 libmysqld.lib mysys.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib

all: "Release/embeddedserver.exe"

Release/embeddedserver.exe : Release/embeddedserver.obj
link Release/embeddedserver.obj $(LDFLAGS)

Release/embeddedserver.obj : embeddedserver.c
cl embeddedserver.c -c $(CFLAGS)

clean:
del Release\embeddedserver.*

Cygwin and X Windows

2006-09-29T10:29:00.000+05:30

Cygwin is a port of popular UNIX applications to Windows. Cygwin provides a UNIX like environment in Windows. Cygwin provides necessary UNIX System Call API allowing users to write and port UNIX based tools and applications by recompiling source code on Windows box.

Cygwin/X is a port of X Window System to Windows based on the Cygwin environment. Cygwin bundles Cygwin/X with its distribution. Cygwin/X allows users to run X Window server on there Windows machine which allows them to run graphical applications on a remote UNIX machine and display the GUI on the Windows box.

There are two ways to get the GUI from remote machines to Windows. First method is thought the use of DISPLAY environment variable and second using XDMCP. We shall see both the methods.

First things first, we have to see how to start our X Windows server. We have to start our X Window Server from the Cygwin terminal using the following command.

XWin –multiwindow –ac –clipboard > /dev/null 2> /dev/null &

So what does the above command do? It starts the X Window Server which can support multiple windows at a time. Remove access control on clients to connect to the server. Integrate with the windows Clipboard so that we can copy and paste between Windows and UNIX. Redirect the Standard Output and Error streams to “/dev/null” so that our terminal does not get cluttered with the debug information printed out by the X Window Server. And finally tell the shell to run this command in the background. Now we should have the X Windows icon in the Windows system tray. Set the Environment variable DISPLAY and run any X Window application like xclock, xcalc, etc. DISPLAY will in the format as follows

IPAddress:display_Number.monitor_Number

Display number will be typically being 0 (zero) until otherwise if you are running multiple X Window Servers on your windows box, same is the case of monitor number.

If you Bash use export and setenv for C Shell

$ export DISPLAY=192.23.9.114:0.0

$ setenv DISPLAY 192.23.9.114:0.0

Run xclock as follows and we should get a our graphical clock as in the figure below

$ xclock &

Some thing like this should popup like this. Congrats you have successfully started your X Window Server and ran an X Window application locally. Now the next step is to do the same thing which running the application on a remote machine and getting the display on the Windows machine.
We can connect to a remote UNIX box using telnet, rlogin, etc, etc. Once we have successfully logged in then we can set the DISPLAY environment variable to point to your Windows box IP address. The DISPLAY environment variable is used to the X Window System to direct the GUI to the required machine. The target machine must be running an X Window Server as well. Only then the graphics sent from the remote machine can be captured and displayed on the target machine.
In the above example I telnet to a local UNIX Server and set my DISPLAY to my Windows Box and started a graphical text editor nedit. And I got the editor on my Windows Machine as shown below!

Now that you have seen the first method lets look at the problems that one might face. First and most common mistake is forgetting to set the DISPLAY environment variable or setting DISPLAY wrongly. The next problem might be that the firewall on your machine may block the incoming X Window message. The X Server will be listening to port 6000, check if that port is enabled on your machine.

We shall see what XDMCP can do it for us. First of all you don’t have to take the pain of connecting to a UNIX machine, setting the DISPLAY environment variable, XDMCP will do this for us. Let’s see what XDMCP is all about. XDMCP stands for X Display Manager Control Protocol. Using this protocol we can directly tell the X Window manager on the UNIX machine to forward all the graphics messages to our Windows machine directly.

To use XDMCP to connect to UNIX machine we have to do nothing special just add an extra argument while invoking X Server and remove one argument that’s all. We have to add the –query argument and remove –multiwindow argument and we are done. So our command line to invoke X Server will be

$ XWin –query hostname –clipboard –ac > /dev/null 2> /dev/null &

The –query argument tells the X Window Server to query the X Window Manager running on the remote host hostname to forward the X Window graphics to the machine from which you are querying. If the server agrees to this query then we shall get a graphical login screen.

Once you login, you shall be working on the remote machine itself in total Graphical User Interface. The display will be some thing like show in the screenshot below.

The troubles that we might encounter while using XDMCP is the remote machine may not be configured to respond to XDMCP query message. Secondly /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess file on the remote host controls the access to XDMCP queries. Remote host Firewall might be configured to block query requests.

Links

www.cygwin.com Cygwin Home page

http://probing.csx.cam.ac.uk/about/xdmcp.html Small intro on XDMCP

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XDMCP-HOWTO/ Linux How to, both holds good for most UNIX flavours.

Virtual Network Neighbourhood

2006-09-28T14:31:00.000+05:30

Introduction

Can we think of a computing environment without sharing resources over a network? We might use FTP to transfer files from one machine to another machine or use Grid Computing to share processor time. Then our options of sharing resources with different platforms are very limited. The reasons for this big list of incompatibilities are different platforms use different architectures (x86, SPARC), protocols (NFS, CIFS), different byte orders (Little endian, Big endian) to list a few major restrictions.

The next question that we need to think is how to overcome this problem. Getting all the systems to use single processor architecture is not a viable option. The same with the byte order, but for the byte order we have a universally accepted Network Byte Order. Lastly the biggest hurdle, the protocol used to share the resource. One option is to use a common protocol among all environments. Once again this is not a good solution. The reasons being
1) Each type of resource needs to be shared differently
2) The semantics of one protocol doesn’t suit other environments.

Like a language translator can help us when we go a new country without knowing the native language, in the world of computer networks a “Protocol Translator” can rescue us from this situation. The Protocol translation is not a new concept it already exists in a different form at the lower levels of the protocol stack in the form of Gateways. If we could implement similar thing at the top of the protocol stack (Application Layer in OSI reference model) we can seamlessly share any kind of resource with any kind of computing environment.

Requirements of the Protocol Translator

Now that we have seen that a protocol translator can help us get out of this situation, we have to chalk out the requirements of this protocol translator.

i) Thin
ii) Handle different authentication protocols
iii) Serve multiple clients at the same time
iv) Stable

Requirement 1: Thin
The first point that we have to take into account is that to serve a single request from the client we will have to perform translation at least twice. Once from the incoming request to the target protocol and back again. But if the source protocol supports complex operations in a single request then we might have to perform multiple transactions with the destination protocol to achieve the required result. Hence we will have to keep the protocol translator as “Thin” as possible. If the protocol translator becomes “Thicker” then the response time takes a beating.

Requirement 2: Handle Different Authentication protocols
Every resource sharing protocol has its own system of authentication. Protocol translator should handle all these different Authentication protocols. Even after supporting all the different authentication systems we still have a problem. The authentication information given by the source protocol may not be suitable to use at the destination and vice versa. A good example is, CIFS (windows network neighbourhood) uses Challenge response authentication, but NFS (UNIX file sharing system) uses password authentication. In such a situation we have two viable solutions. First and the easiest way ignore the authentication which is not a good idea. The second is authenticating separately. That is we use the challenge response and authenticate the CIFS client and then when resource access is made we authenticate the translator with a predefined username and password with the NFS server. This is our best bet to ensure security.

Requirement 3: Serve multiple clients at the same time
The protocol translator must be able to serve multiple clients with different source and destination protocols at a given point. This way we can ensure transparency. For this requirement we can have a “Multithreaded” solution. A multithreaded solution will be light when compared to a “Multi process” solution. The reason being creating a process is costly (in terms of system resource) when compared to a thread.

Requirement 4: Stable
When we handle multiple protocols simultaneously we will have to be careful to mange the system resources used by the protocol translator. If the resources are not managed properly the translator might crash in the worst case or the response time will take a beating.