Personal Weblog of Deepak Vasudevan

An interesting quotation behind a Tata Innova observed today morning Today morning near Velachery Vijayanagar terminus there was heavy traffic snarl. When the vehicles were inching bit-by-bit, I observed a Tata Innova with an interesting quotation written in its back window: No Girl Friend; No Tension. I just thought I would share this with observation with others too.

Save Srirangam from the bureaucratic clutches of Government of Tamil Nadu Whilst casually browsing through a few weblogs, I saw a quite shocking news about the malefic hatred objective of Government of Tamil Nadu in proposing to take over the nandavanam ('The Holy Garden') of Sri Rangam temple. Check out this blog post over here . There is also a hosted petition to voice our support towards the noble cause of saving the temple resource over here . There are tonnage of constructive items for the state administration to improve upon the lifestyle of the people in the state and redressing their grievances. I really am surprised many times people behave weird and crazy driven by political vendetta and disturb each other's sentiments and beliefs. Let us appeal with solidarity to the administration and the Lord to get this malefic effort halted and have the beautiful garden saved.

Checkout and Checkin This post is just a simple fun comparison between checkout and checkin with reference to hospitality industry (hotels) and technology configuration management tools (like source control) Checkout (in hospitality industry): The latest time you would need to depart from the room by settling the bills. (Technology): The act of preparing a file for editing and making changes to the same, which is protected by source control. Checkin (in hospitality industry): The process of signing up formally with the hotel helpdesk and taking up your room. (Technology): The act of saving back the changes made on the file to the source control. While for hospitality industry a typical checkin process happens before checkout itself; in the case of technology the reverse of the process is the reality reserving the fact that first addition of the file is classified distinctly as 'Add to source control' [which can also be deemed as a checkin process] :)

The Bliss of Solitude There had been a little steady stream of events right from the end of December 2009 plundering and sabotaging my peace of mind contributed from a steady set of quarters. Thanks to my very favorite Ashram in Coimbatore and their meditation practices and my Todolist (now powered by Google Apps ) the general productivity level has just touched the threshold red-alert border without dipping further anymore. The week ago I had a conversation with my Guruji and I believe my new year assurances (" Go Back Tension ") would now get empowered with little more refinements from the night of 26th January 2010 00:00 hours or before that forthwith. I love Wordsworth for his ability to love the essence of daffodils during the periods of solitude. Quoting the verses: For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. M...

Scorching Hot Sun Right in January itself The hot summer seems to be peeping in this year quite early; rather as early as January itself. Till about 6.30 it is so cold and just at 7 AM the sharp prickly rays of Sun start to trouble us when we start out to our day-to-day chores. We need to ensure that we stay cool and secure indoors maintaining low profile. Though air conditioning and other luxury things might not affordable to each one of us at least a little newspaper hand fan should be helping us a great deal. Let us also see if we can help out the poor animals by giving them some water when we see them in the sun.

Squatting on Cyber and Physical Premises seems to be the fashion of the day...   (Imported from Blogdrive) Be it Internet or a public transportation footboard or a open poromboke (waste land) or a lake area , one can find illegal people occupying the space with great vigor and interest without caring for the general interests of the public. The following are the responses of such squatters:   Internet: You can see a number of domain parked sites with reputed industry names too stuck with them. Due to geographical distributions and multi-country legislations recovery seems to be little difficult from such cybersquatters. Public Transportation Footboard Travellers: Despite the fact that they endanger their own lives and limb by travelling on the footboard, they put a big danger to the work of the crew who need to visit the police station and court if something happens to them alongwith the unwanted delays for other passengers not to mention the burden they give ...

Safety -- You will regret if you forget This is an observation from a road safety slogan put up by Hyderabad Traffic Police , near Microsoft India IDC in Gachibowli. The slogan reads very interesting: Safety -- You will regret if you forget I believe everyone should make an honest and humble endeavor to remember this slogan each time when they commute and/or travel on public roads. In the similar vein, I would also like to share Chennai Suburban City Traffic Police which supports and upholds blood donation and road safety in one quick precise sentence: "Donate blood; Not To Road" which is also inscribed in Tamil as: ரத்த தானம் செய்; சாலைக்கு அல்ல

You needn't be a silent mute spectator for the anti-social things around you any more ... India's premiere television channels now equip and empower every citizen of the nation with more power to their voice in expressing and sharing out bad things that happen around them so that the hitherto lazy bureaucratic red tape administrative personnel are kicked to be more active to redress their grievances at the earliest. I just thought of sharing two things which I observed: Initiative by Aaj Tak : You can now send out details about incidents that you witness to reporter (at) aajtak.com Initiative by Jaya TV : You can now send out details about incidents of crime, administrative inactions to pugarplus (at) gmail.com

Prepaid Cellular -- More Control and Flexible When it truly comes to a more control and flexible cellular connection, I believe a prepaid should be a best bet choice. Whilst service providers argue that they present enviable number of bill payment options for the comfort and convenience of the users, recharging a prepaid is no big deal. Be it online or your local dukanwala can help you recharge your cellular connection really fast and amazing. A few online services that I came across to help quick and easy recharging of mobile connections are: Fast Recharge Recharge it now Recharge Today Apna Bill Besides this your banker should also most probably offering a quick recharge through their internet banking services. Check with your banker for more details. Note: Hyperlinks to select service providers are provided as an illustration and comfort to the people. I have not personally/comprehensively tried those services and hence can not vouch or endorse on the reliability and trust of those...

Bribeline -- Business Registry for International Bribery and Extortion Whilst checking my email came across this website called Bribeline , an initiative by Trace International . This seems to be an international mission by non-governmental organizations to raise the standards of Anti-bribery compliance. The details requested from the bribe victim and very less and not much personal information is collected in the website. I hence thought I would share these URLs for the benefit of everyone.

Solar Eclipse Alerts from Aaj Tak This year 2010 has been dawning on the eclipses and hence astrologers advise us time and again to exercise utmost vigil and caution besides doing appropriate propitiations to the planets depending upon individual horoscopes. The new year itself witnessed a lunar eclipse and less than fifteen days from the new year, Happy Pongal festival witnesses a longest solar eclipse. Aaj Tak was telecasting special shows with eminent astrologers yesterday to get the planetary forecasts for different zodiac signs. A quick search on the internet also revealed that the same is available on YouTube too. Check it out here .

Now you can get your photos scanned for free from Rediff Ever wondered where to locate a good scanner to digitize your photo in good quality but don't have a scanner with you. Rediff has an innovative service called 'Scan a Snap', which I came across whilst locating an information. All one has to do is to send a non-returnable snap/photograph (along with your Rediff Homepage nickname, email address and telephone number behind the snap) to the following address: Scan-A-Snap Rediff Communication Limited, 1st Floor,Mahalaxmi Engg. Estate L.J. First Cross Road, Mahim (W) Mumbai - 400 016. Rediff takes about four days to have the photo scanned and then they send you the same by email. There a few few fineprints with this service which may kindly be noted: The photographs are non-returnable . There is an upper cap of four photographs per user. Cost: FREE You can check out for more information from here .

VITAA Day 2010 Invitation Just received an email from VITAA confirming the Annual Alumni Meet scheduled to be held on 26th January 2010. The text of the invitation is included below as a humble service to my alma mater and to ensure that other VITians can get this message so that they can try to schedule their calendars to attend the alumni meet. Dear friends, Greetings from VITAA (VIT Alumni Association) !! You are invited on behalf of VIT Management and VITAA Office bearers we invite you and your family members to attend the VITAA Day 2010 (Annual Alumni Get-together) on 26th Jan. (Tuesday) in VIT. Our beloved Chancellor, Pro-Chancellors, VITAA Office bearers, Faculty, Staff & Students of VIT will be happy to meet you at VIT on 26th Jan. 2010. Please register at: http://www.vit.ac.in/vitaa/vitaa_day/vitaaday_frm.asp Welcome to the VIT's 26th year celebrations on the 26th Jan. 2010. TRACKS 2010 Please visit: http://www.vitaa.org/vitaa_tracks.pdf to view the VITAA Annual Alum...

Go Back, Tension! I was reading an old article of Indian Independance when in 1928 there was a huge movement against the 'Simon Commission' called 'Go Back Simon'. Something interesting struck my mind I think starting this Pongal we should nurture a similar thought 'Go Back Tension'. It is better to give back the tension to the originators itself than we shouldering it without any need. Stress and tension mostly eat away the productivity both in personal and professional cadres. Some people try to feed these vectors to us because of their own patented idiotic idiosyncrasies. Rather we succumbing to it, if we can give them back that should make use feel lighter so that there is more room for productive thoughts. In less than forty-two hours, we celebrate Bhogi. Bhogi is a unique festival in India wherein the old things are destroyed and the house is painted and decorated with new things. We should take a cue from this festival in that we destroy the evil thoughts...

"Lavanya -- The Essence of Beauty" is the theme of ITC 2010 Calendar ITC has released a beautiful desktop calendar for the year 2010. The elegant calendar carries the theme name of 'Lavanya -- The Essence of Beauty'. You can download the small 6.5 mega bytes calendar from here .