Personal Weblog of Deepak Vasudevan

Not sure if OpenDNS made some re-categorizations or my recent Web-content filtering got stricter that familiar Google Youtube got blocked in my computer. Interestingly I could not sign out of Google Voice/Gmail because the logout urls for Google Accounts are currently serviced from accounts.youtube.com Now I am making selective adjustments in the Web-content filtering settings to allow these websites.

It is frustrating to see the situation in some of the developing and developed countries where the evil are prospering and the good people are suffering. The country which had been the benchmark for the world nations and considered super-power once is struggling to protect the lifestyle of its citizens. A host of unscrupulous immigrants are taking good advantage when the nation is suffering. The current government seems to be giving tall claims of various 'war-footing strategies' to improve the situation but the economy which has been ransacked and ravaged by the previous blood-hound leads seems to be in deep pit just like bhooma devi in the clutches of Hiranyakshan. Where is Bhoo Varahan and Lakshmi Narasimhan to resurrect the nation and the earth? The city of sky scrapers witnesses a large scale of selling of properties for the sake of food. The city of cars is witnessing people preferring to transit because of the state of affairs. I fondly recall the 'Unnal Mudiyum Th...

Google Voicemail seems to be having issues with Cricket Wireless phones. The local conditional call forwarding trick that is used to divert cricket voicemail system to Google Voice does not seem to work. Whilst the 611 team asserts that the systems are in place to make it work, the actual level-playing field does not resemble so and elicits an error message as below: I have posted this message to Cricket Wireless Facebook team to see if they can investigate and fix the issue.

Due to time constraints there had been a few occasions when the posts in this blog had been slipping into hiatus. However interested readers can also stay tuned through my micro-blog. I believe you would have seen my micro-blog linked through my personal website. Do send me more suggestions and improvements for the aesthetics and presentation in my micro-blog (LD-LavanyaDeepak).

Two weeks ago I had an opportunity to know about the film Raman Thediya Seethai through infact a really interesting source. I came to know of this title whilst preparing a script for a screenplay. Out of curiosity when I binged it, there turned out to be a movie on the same title. A lot of things to learn from Cheran's creations -- his wonderful ways to capture real life situations as movies. Ranjitha's confession of her inability to judge him at first sight and expressing her love towards joining hands with him is really heart-moving one. At the same time, Gayatri's authoritative and tender moves in making a thief turn a good hard-worker and joining hands with him is another good shot. The one thing I hated was Vidya's move for the way she ditched her family and everyone on the eve of her wedding and eloped with her paramour. Vidya -- the name is really bad for it shares another similar real life villain 'Pammal Vidya'. Perhaps V&R is a better person to...

Last weekend I had an opportunity to watch Radha Mohan's creations 'Payanam' starring Prakashraj. It is a clear demonstration of political interferences in the high voltage drama involving a aircraft hijacked from a fictitious incident involving a flight from Chennai to New Delhi. The pilots resisted causing the engine to be damaged forcing it emergency land in Tirupathi instead of succumbing to the hijack diversion to an alien land of Rawalpindi in Pakistan. A few points to observe from the movie are: Bad behavior of media to sensationalize the topics just for boosting up their TRP ratings even involving an illegal impersonation attempts by reporters. Unethical behavior of airport staff to smuggle explosives into the aircraft lured by the hijackers just for a pay of 2 lakhs. Is so many human lives worth just 2 lakhs? The government just blindly releases the terrorists to 'satisfy' its vote bank and 'dumbass' security advisors without heeding to the ...

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.

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...

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 .

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.

Around September 6 2010 I had posted my first anniversary celebrations here . Looks like 2011 has fun and enjoyment trebled. September 5 2011 is the first anniversary of Prathiba September 6 2011 is the second anniversary of this blogger .  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.

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: Ganesh Chaturthi Ramzan Celebration on the eve of September. 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! For those truly hard-workers, the first monday recognizes them at least in this part of the world. This point number 5 and September 5 is dedication to the teachers who enlighten us from darkness into the world of blooming knowledge. This point number 6 and Sweet September 6 is a treasured for me and my better ha...

The weeks of September pronounce some kind of sluggishness not sure because of the spiritual Mahalaya Paksham or because of the transition of climate from hot summer to either fall/winter. At least for a few years now, September witnessed a sporadic violence on me. A few recaps: 2006: Bouts of medical visits 2007: Bunch of leaves taken for ill-health compared to other months 2008: High temperature whilst at onsite that went up to getting an emergency call but my friend managed to get one of his friend who was a medical practitioner in Dallas to help out informally. 2009: :) 2010: Tylenol...Tylenol... 2011: Tylenol and now series of appointments with Prince William Medicine Om Namo Bhagavate  Maha Sudharshana Vasudevaya Dhanvantaraye;  Amrutha Kalasa Hasthaaya Sarva Bhaya Vinasaya Sarva Roka Nivaranaya |  Thri Lokya Pathaye Thri Lokya Nithaye Sri Maha Vishnu Swarupa  Sri Dhanvantri Swarupa Sri Sri Sri Aoushata Chakra ...

This week had been little truant across the East Coast all from North Carolina to New York. Whilst Tuesday we  did experience a novel 5.9 Richter Scale tremors which are kind of new in this region, the coastline is preparing to greet yet another hostile entrant -- 'Hurricane Irene'. At least to this point I have received three Weather Alert Text Messages  indicating the imminent siege of Irene in the region. The most latest news might say that Irene has weakened a bit but the coastlines are exercising heightened vigil. Several low-lying areas in NC have also been called for mandatory evacuation . Let us hope for the kindness and magnanimity of the nature. 

The 548 day legal dispute with one of the distant family members that seeded on January 26 2010 was finally resolved amicably before the Tambaram Subordinate Court today (July 28 2011), thanks to Shanidev and our legal counsel. A lot of mediation options did not properly work out as the other parties were either not responding or responding with hysteric hostility and hence we had to force and get a formal court order to clear off the hurdles. Sath sath Koti Pranam Shanidev!

The Holy Month of Ramadan starts tomorrow*. Our Islam brothers start to observe the divine pre-dawn to post-dusk fast, helping others and strenghtening the ties with the omnipotent omnipresent divinity. Here is our wishes to each other on the start of Ramadan ('Ramadan Mubarak'): A'uzu billahi minashaitanir rajim Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar (3) Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar (6) [ I seek refuge in Allah from the outcast Satan. In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest ] I am glad  that I was able to get my old friend (Afroz) in Chat who explained me several things about Ramadan. [* Asia countries may start a day later. Check out Ramadan calculator here .]  Check out Ramadan calendar details for Washington DC :

Bing has a unique user loyalty program. With a simple rewards signup everytime you use Bing, you are eligible for a few points which can  be redeemed for exciting gifts from Microsoft catalog. Just thought of sharing a little gift that Bing sent me a few minutes back.

Today I had an opportunity to see Payanam , a thriller-drama epicentered on a  hijack attempt on a domestic flight in India which is unfoiled by National Security Guards.  A few points about Payanam are hereunder: As a Radha Mohan's movie and with Prakashraj it does carry a very good entertainment. We can also see Brahmanandam's comedy in it, similar to Mozhi .  The precedence that our politicians give to their vote banks more than people's life, national image and integrity of the nation has been brought out quite clearly. I am really expecting the "2G" movie to hit screens which is being planned out currently.  The malicious journalists and their attempts to thwart the national security just to gain TRP ratings has been illustrated by a reporter who infringes airport security by trespassing as a 'fake cop'. How did the so-called Central Industrial Security Force was callous is another story which has not been captured in the movie? Or where they al...

First Aadi Velli (Holy Friday of Aadi Month) today. Let us wish each other a very happy and prosperous Aadi Velli celebrations. I would like recollect my previous post on Sri Mahalakshmi Stotram by Sage Agasthya. You can also quickly hear the slokam over here .

Ensure your calendars are marked to facilitate you attend the event. You may be aware that the Gajavahanam  a recent addition to the temple (having clear the port of entry/customs regulations and registered to the temple services)