Saturday, September 24, 2011

Safer Internet -- Categories to Quarantine

I have been receiving a lot of requests from people what are the various URLs that need to be blocked as part of parental control and what I recommend as a good parental control tool. I normally recommend OpenDNS has a good, free, reliable and cloud-based parental control tool. There is nothing to install and you can get started with a faster and safer internet in a few minutes.

Also OpenDNS groups the various URLs into different categories and it would be easier for you to block the URLs. My default ruleset of blocking is 'Custom' and the categories I normally block are hereunder:


I fondly hope that categorization should be fairly comprehensive parental control for securing an individual families' driving rooms. Opendns also facilitates individual URL unblocking/blocking as exemptions over and the categorization specified.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

JustDial -- "I am with you where you are"

JustDial is a reliable and dependable staffed and human-attended humane yellow pages 411 search lookup service. Initially they started their operations in India. They have a quick number called 6999 9999 which is available in most of the cities of India. So when you call this number from New Delhi, the local JustDial would answer it.  Whilst calling from the mobile just dial prefix the (long distance) area code (called as STD code in a few Asian nations)

For me, back at home, Just Dial used to be one of the ICE numbers to be frank. Interestingly in this part of the country there are a few text-to-services like Goog-411 (ceased to be operational on November 2010), Bing 411, 411 services provided by telephone operators (at a premium charge) do exist. But I still feel that 1-800-JustDial seems to provide an unmatched service. This is the same business as the one in India. For that matter when you visit http://www.justdial.com/ from here are you are only redirected to a country-specific service. Interestingly, the calls are being serviced through their Mumbai call center.

I hence would recommend JustDial for anyone as a quick lookup to be saved in their mobile phones.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Gifting of a Lexar Jumpdrive by Bank of America

A while back there was a small Target gift card from Bank of America. Today I just thought would pay a visit to the Target mall here to see what is good. Had it been Amazon there would be a different strategy to avoid the shipping fees and get it. For Target to qualify for free shipping online, you need to book at least $50 worth of goods.

After a while the only item that I could afford with the gift card and was good was a Lexar Jump Drive. Don't worry. The illustration was lifted courtesy Bing Images. But the one I ordered was only a single piece of 4 GB storage.

Glad that Bank of America is able to reward the customers for the spends on the credit card but only thing is that they ought to restrict the amount of telemarketing calls on the pretext of those cranky surveys at odd hours despite being protected by Do Not Call Registry.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Rain lashes Northern Virginia


For the fourth day today it had been incessant non-stopping rains which rendered several routes impasse including a partial closure of i495 and 95 because of severe flooding at Woodbridge VA Holly Acres Mobile Park where people had been summoned an evacuation forthwith late night yesterday.

Occquan is almost resembling another big roaring ocean inland. The weather is still inclement. Schools which have recently opened for the year had opted to stay close due to the inclement weather conditions until further announcements from the weather department and  improvements.

I had an interesting trip from Reston to Richmond yesterday. Almost had three to four detours because of almost flash flood situations en route before reaching the destination. Torrential Downpour is the one we would have heard and read of it. But this was the one which was felt yesterday.

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Time to celebrate nuptial anniversaries

Around September 6 2010 I had posted my first anniversary celebrations here. Looks like 2011 has fun and enjoyment trebled.
  1. September 5 2011 is the first anniversary of Prathiba
  2. September 6 2011 is the second anniversary of this blogger
  3. Prathiba and Aravind have also another thing to rejoice -- The new addition to their family ('Ananya'). Sweet hugs and kisses to Ananya.
Time flies really really very fast. It is time for peace and prosperity of the families. Please join me in the prayers and wish us.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Sweet September

Just two days back I was found cribbing around and lamenting 'Sick September'. So "what the hell is this guy around" would be the thought process nurturing in you. Yes. The dawn of September did bring a lot of sweet roses in more ways than one.

A few of the good things as of writing on 1st September are:
  1. Ganesh Chaturthi
  2. Ramzan Celebration on the eve of September.
  3. I believe the first week is also loaded with a lot of celebrations a few of them are socially colorful and a handful of them have a personal fanfare. How about giving a privileged mention to the series of Onam festivals that are lined up for our keralite fraternity. Happy Onam guys!
  4. For those truly hard-workers, the first monday recognizes them at least in this part of the world.
  5. This point number 5 and September 5 is dedication to the teachers who enlighten us from darkness into the world of blooming knowledge.
  6. This point number 6 and Sweet September 6 is a treasured for me and my better half. I would rather say 'my best half'. "Salutations to thee" -- I have a long list of yearnings of learning from you, my cutie pie. Wait. I would catch up
"If winter comes can spring be far behind" perhaps turns out true for even this post series on September. Sweet September. Doesn't it sound sweet even to tell this phrase? As a matter of fact, rose by any name would smell sweet.