Choto Cheeta Online

BSNL revolutionized the Indian approached to Internet by introducing DataOne service via ADSL technology. It is seen to many as revolution because of the area covered by BSNL. BSNL happened to be the largest PSTN service provider of India by virtually having RJ-11 telephone wire every where in the county. Hence they were able to make broadband available to every one, even for the person leaving at remotest corners of the country.

Now it seems the Indian Railway is coming to the party. Indian Railway happen to have one of the largest OCF network of the country. Up till recently, Indian Railway decided that as because, much of their bandwidth is not been utilized hence to generate more revenue they shall offer end user Internet solutions.

They have successfully tested end user domestic and corporate services at Bangalore and presently operating 250 large state of the art Cyber Cafes in 250 major stations of 83 cities nation wide. They are presently under process to deploy Wifi at 500 major railway stations nation wide and to provide wireless Internet at all important trains (Rajdhani / Shatabdi / Jan Shatabdi express).

What makes this news interesting that while replying to ChotoCheeta.com, Indian Railway end user service support (Railwire.in) have said that they would be now moving to second phase in which Kolkata as one of the city would have end user ISP solution from Railtel.in under their PAN-India roll out plan.

Kolkata will come under our pan-India rollout plans. From the customer support team we at present do not have good visibility into the exact dates and timelines. However, you could expect us to reach Kolkata by end of this year or early next year.

Indian Railways have a total of 50,000 KM (as of Feb, 2007) of optic fiber network. Virtually where ever they have broadgage lines, they have their OFC running beside it. Hence this allows them to provide some really attractive rates. Bandwidth ranging from 256kbps to 155 mbps. Certainly this can be a really good alternate to any of the present running ISP, major players like BSNL (DataOne Broadband) / MTNL / Reliance / Sify / TATAIndicom).

Railwire.in end user ISP tariff for unlimited data uses,

256 Kbps Rs. 320
512 Kbps Rs. 620
1 Mbps Rs. 920
2 Mbps Rs. 1220
4 Mbps Rs. 2120
8 Mbps Rs. 3620
16 Mbps Rs. 6920
32 Mbps Rs. 13520

Therefore the wait begins for the RailTel service !!!

A report at PC-World suggests that Microsoft corporation is planing to spend USD 20 million on computer literacy programs in India.

Incidentally, company has already spend USD 20 million since 2003 under project Shiksha, providing basic computer knowledge and training to over 2,40,000 Indian government / NGO employees / teachers / educators.

Over next 3 to 5 years Microsoft plans to invest another USD 20 millions to continue the success of project Shiksha.

Although to many of us, its a welcome news where as open source supporters are criticizing the move. According to some this is an attempt to build an user group trained on Microsoft technology, thus effecting the decision of the involving organizations to procure a software with which their employees are familiar with.

It seems people are simply not willing to let go the humors relating to the Sharp Edges of MacBook Air. As recently HP’s VooDooPC CTO cut his birthday cake with MacBook Air.

Voodoo CTO Rahul Sood apparently have used his birthday present MacBook Air as a knife to cut the birthday cake. Farther on he writes in his blog,

I immediately used it to cut the cake, it’s so damn sharp it did a fine job.

Recently on 20th May, WinVistaClub carried out a news stating,

The Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, was speaking at Corvinus University when a protester interrupted and started throwing eggs at him.

and today the author of WinVistaClub, pointed me towards this web site allowing users to play a game based on that Egg throwing incident.

Egg-Attack.com is allowing users to play a game in which you can save Steve Ballmer from the attack and also attack Mr. Ballmer with bucket full of eggs.

The Planet, one of the largest operator in US lost their Houston H1 data center facility on 31st of May due to electrical fire.

As per their official forum, the primary transformer suppling power to the facility caught fire and actually exploded. The explosion caused serious damaged to the buildings electrical system. It was so powerful that it knocked 3 walls down.

Local state Fire fighters didn’t allow the company to run any back up electrical source like their heavy duty generators forcing the facility to completely go off line.

For information, the Planet primarily hosts many of the hosting service providers. Hence not only their direct customers but rather many indirect customers found their services to be effected with this incident.

The Planet as confirmed that there is no physical damage to any of the servers or networking / computing equipment, however at this point they are still working round the clock to asses and repair the damage done.

Incidentally, ChotoCheeta.com is hosted at The Planet’s Dallas facility !!!

No wait, you are in no need to donate any thing any where. Its Microsoft who is donating. all you have to do is watch a 35 seconds commercial performed by a Kid.

Microsoft Australia is running a donate / charity campaign in which as company they will donate $ 1 to Smith Family (a foundation which helps disabled kids with their education) every time some one visits and watches a  Microsoft commercial !!

So all you are in need to do is visit Help aussie kids get great education web site and watch the introduction video (35 seconds) in which a 9 year old Aussie kid speaks about Office 2007. Just waste your few mins to watch the video (35 seconds) and make Microsoft pay $ 1 to help those kids !!!

In just 5 years we have climbed a long way up in the Internet speed ladder. I can remember my self back in 2001, seating in the same chair, typing on the same keyboard, and accessing the Internet via BSNL landline (PSTN) with Satyam (Sify) dial up connection on my P-II 400 MHz with 128 MB of RAM .

Rs. 450/- which I used to pay for 1 month of Dial up pack (20 hours of access) to Sify and Rs. 1.26/- per call (near about Rs. 24 per hour) to BSNL for their PSTN access charge !!!

Back in school, in our literature classes we read about poet Jibanananda Das, who died under a tram. I used to wonder how can one die under a tram ? As those who are in Kolkata or ever been in Kolkata would know, tram is one of the noisiest and slowest moving vehicle in the traffic.

Today I experienced 1st hand as how true and possible it was to die under a tram.

Yes, you are reading right, legally you can watch or stream IPL (Indian Premiere league) T20 (Twenty - Twenty) matches live via Internet.

The official BBCI T20 web site, http://www.IPLT20.com is broadcasting / streaming the matches live. You may need at-least a 2 MBPS connection to stream it without much of a lag, though while testing I have found there are little video lag (drop in fame rate) but commentary (voice) runs with out any lag.

Its BSNL 8 MBPS which makes the most out of this feature. I have tested and found BSNL 8MBPS is able to run it with good frame rate and without any lag whats so ever.

Unfortunate for most 256 / 512 kbps unlimited users as the service is quite unusable with such low bandwidth !!

One more interesting fact I must mention is, the telecast is the same which we see on TV but in iplt20.com, there is 0 ads in the telecast, so I quite enjoy watching the matches there at web broadcast.

Brief history of IPL

England and Europe has their football league, where as USA as their NFL to support and chear about. Where as now, in India we have one of our own event to talk about.

Cricket is the biggest religion of India and subcontinent and our cricketers are like god to us. The game is invented in England but undoubtedly its been mastered by Indians. India cricket board, the BCCI is the richest cricket board of the world, richer than cricketing controller of world, ICC itself.

There used to be some off record talk on BCCI to ruling the cricket world by the power of its money. Last 3 days brought the matter right on to the record. England is the only country which is known for 1st class cricket where cricketers from different country go for country cricket matches.

BCCI, known for only performing at International arena, is now changing that aspect with one single blow.

T20, known to most as twenty-twenty cricket, invented in south africa, practiced by AUSSY and West Indians, is now the weapon for BCCI to change the definition of  Indian domestic cricket.

Congrats to  Kolkata Knight Riders

World’s top players are now playing under our IPL T20 club team, one of which is Team Kolkata or also known as Kolkata Knight Riders

Money power and the passion of local crowed is making this event of IPL a real big success and players are now taking this as bigger than their own international matches.

Hats off to Kolkata Knight Riders, led by prince of Kolkata, the most successful captain of Indian cricket, dada him self, Saurav Ganguly, on their 2nd successive victory in IPL.

I am supporting my home team Kolkata, whom are you with ??

After I posted few jokes about Ranjikant, I received few emails asking about this all mighty and while preparing my email replies, I happen to find 2 contrasting photographs of this ever green super hero.

We all know the almighty, king of industry always been seen in his movies, as an youth icon, where as this bellow 2 pictures (The real world picture of Human Rajnikant, and another, the almighty big bos, youth icon, super hero in this Film) would give the visitors a proper idea of the magic of editing and true power of his Make up team.

Our almighty in an Interview (press release of his films)

The Super hero taking a shot of his latest Film

Truly his make up team pulls out miracle on every single movie of his.

The word “cheque drop box” is now an haunting factor for all Indian bank customers. Earlier it used to be just private banks, but now the government banks are joining in too.

What is this problem ??

When you walk into your branch to make an account payee Cheque deposition, the bank branch may ask you to drop the cheque on a drop box by just attaching the deposition slip with it. There will be no proof of deposition given.

When you ask your Branch Manager for proof, he may insist that, as per new rules, all banks have stopped providing proof of deposition and its now mandatory for all customer to deposit the cheque on the drop box.

What happens if there is no proof ??

Yes, a valid question. What may get wrong if you don’t get any proof as its A/C Payee cheque, as theoretically only your account can encash it.

How ever thats only theoretical, Now some hard facts,

• Suppose if you deposit a cheque which is from a bank branch of same city, as per RBI (Reserve Bank of India) guide line, your bank is bond to encash the cheque within 3 days and credit the amount under your account. As there is no proof of deposition you will not have any power to ask the bank why the cheque is not yet been encashed !!

• The bank will no longer take any responsibility after they lose a cheque, as you will never be able to prove that you really deposited a cheque !!

What to do then ??

Please note, there is no such rule which says one must have to drop the cheque in the drop box without deposition proof.

Infact, as per RBI guide line, it is mandatory for all banks operating in India to provide proof (acknowledgment) of cheque receipt. Drop box is completely a voluntary decision of a customer, banks have no right to direct a customer to drop the cheque on the drop box without proof of deposition.

RBI Guide Lines

Cheque drop Facility-RRBs

Cheque Drop Box Facility and the facility for acknowledgment of cheques

My problem and my fight with SBI

Indian economy is booming, no doubt about it, we are in race to produce worlds richest men, one after another… TATA motors is coming up with their stunning RS. 1 lakh (USD 3000) TATA NANO… NRI are returning to India and spending hundreds of dollars… Foreign citizens are choosing India as their residence…

Banks are just their to hand you as much loan as you need… Our Stock Market is running faster than the fastest farrery !!!

and yet, today once again I experience the other side of our economy… I experience a life and death struggle of a mother for her 9 year old child…

Indian movies doesn’t necessarily mean Bollywood, its a vast country and just like bollywood, the south Indian film industry also has its fare share… One of the biggest name of South India film industry and also known face to bollywood is Mr. Rajnikanth…

As happens with all celebrity, he also has his own set jokes… !!! Bellow ones are circulating at many Indian forums, I thought it wont be a bad idea to give a little fun to my readers…

Before you read, please note, I am just another armature digital Camera user !!! So if you are a pro, then simply don’t read this article !!!

Just was playing with Nikon s51c white balance… Thought to blog about it…

One pretty confusing factor many is the White balance, there are many preset options are given, between them we see 2 options as, Dusk / Dawn and Sunset…

What is White Balance ??

To a common man, it is just a term which allows one to adjust the image colors properlly… If you need to know more about it, you may read more about White Balance at Wiki..

There are many Preset options are available for Nikon Digital Camera, such as s51c… Which makes most of us confuse is the choice between Sunset and Dusk / Dawn !!!

With simple testing I found that under both, at morning sunrise or at evening sunset its the Sunset while balance preset which gives us the best results…

Bellow are 2 pictures one of which is taken with Pre-set option Dusk / Dawn mode and another at sutset mode… One may him self spot the difference !!!  Do note, that, there were no image editing tools are used with any of this pictures apart from Windows Paint to reduce the image size !!!

1st one is taken with Preset mode, Dusk / Dawn

2nd one is taken with preset mode, sunset !!!

Is this happens with just Nikon s51c ??

Not quite !!! tested with E5200 also… !!!

Once again the bellow 2 are same subject taken with 2 different mode, the 1st one is at
Dusk / Dawn mode and the next one at Sunset mode… !!!

With Preset menu mode Dusk / Dawn (Sunrise)

Taken with preset menu mode, Sunset…

So what to do ??

Personally I have felt, even if it is sunrise or sunset, when using manual preset white balance, Sutset works best for me at preset menu mode for white balance !!!