My 2¢

Airtel: potential tapping and abuse of personal information??!

2010-06-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with one of my relatives about a College that provides Management courses. Yesterday I got a Advertisement message about the same college that reads:

AD-

@place offers UG, PG courses in part-time and correspondence at Affordable fee. For more details call email:

What is puzzling and annoying to me is:

How did I suddenly get an message about the college I was talking about over phone suddenly?
How come I got the message just a day after I had the conversation?
Why do the 'Don't disturb' that I'm enabling every time whenever I received unwanted messages, never seem to be activated?

While whether the information was useful to me is secondary, it is not clear how they could get information that they think could be useful to me? Where is Privacy?

Is Airtel tapping calls (automatically/manually) and helps spammers?
If this is the case then Airtel should be held accountable for Tapping, Misuse and abuse of personal information and snopping on people. An, usually happy Airtel customer for years, I'm finding this hard to believe.

Has anyone experienced such instances before?

Note:
1. I have never heard or mentioned about the college prior to that conversation and it has no relevance to my current profession.
2. I never used to leave my phone number with websites.
3. Please feel free to pass on this information to make people aware of such abuses.

Ps. I could register a complaint with Airtel, but they could easily give excuses and might claim that this is just coincidental.

BlogPost - a Blogging client

2009-07-24T06:33:00.001-07:00

I'm writing a blog publisher got GNOME desktop using PyGTK, initially for blogger and planning to extend later. This is my first post using BlogPost.

Padithadil Rasithathu

2009-02-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

கவுண்டமணியும், வில்லு பட விஜயும்
கவுண்டமணி: ச்சே.. போன எடுத்தா நச்சு நச்சுன்னுராங்கப்பா.. ஏதோ வில்லுன்னு விஜய் படமாம்.. அத விஜய் ரசிகங்களாலேயே பார்க்க முடியலையாம்.. என்ன பாக்க சொல்றாங்க.. அட இது பரவா இல்ல.. சோசியல் மேட்டர், பண்ணிக்கலாம்.. ஆனா விஜய் பாட்டுக்கெல்லாம் என்ன ஆட சொல்றாங்கப்பா.. நான் என்ன விஜய் மாதிரி ஆடுகாலியா இல்ல பரதேசியா? ஒரே குஷ்டமப்பா.. ச்சீ... கஷ்டமப்பா..

விஜய்: ங்கண்ணா.. போன் வயரு பிஞ்சு ஒரு வாரம் ஆகுதுங்கன்னா..
கவுண்டமணி: ஹே ஹே.. ஹெய்ஹெய்.. டே டப்சா தலையா.. இது செல்போன்டா.. உன்னயல்லாம் ஹீரோவா போட்டு படம் எடுக்குறான் பாரு அவன சொல்லணும்..

விஜய்: போங்கண்ணா.. உங்களுக்கு ஒரே குறும்பு.. கம்பெனி சீக்ரட் எல்லாம் வெளியில சொல்லிக்கிட்டு.. சரி சரி.. இப்போ நம்ம பாட்ட கேளுங்க..
"ஹே ராமா ராமா ராமன்கிட்ட வில்ல கேட்டேன்
பீமா பீமா பீமன்கிட்ட கதைய கேட்டேன்
முருகு முருகு முருகன்கிட்ட மயில கேட்டேன்..
ஈசன் ஈசன் ஈசன் கிட்ட மலைய கேட்டேன்"

கவுண்டமணி:நிறுத்துடா ஆப்பிரிக்கா வாயா.. இவ்வளவு கேட்டியே.. பிரபுதேவாகிட்ட கதை என்னன்னு கேட்டியா?

விஜய்:??!!!

Disclaimer: No offense meant to vijay fans :) Infact, I like vijay's dance.

A lesson while fixing blockage in the sink..

2008-09-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

The other day my wife was complaining that there was a blockage in our Kitchen sink and the water is getting clogged. As a typical Martian, I went out immediately to fix it. After initial investigation, I figured out there was a small vessel which was obstructing the water. As there was water in the sink I tried to use sharp edged weapons in kitchen :) to take it out. It seemed like a real battle!

It looked like it was struck hard so the vessel didn't come outside after the initial attempts. The troubleshooter in me said that - "Know the problem well before you attempt to fix it". So I decided to take all the water out and see what is blocking.. Once we drained we figured out that the we were trying to take the portion of the sink itself and not the obstructing vessel.

If we had continued we would have damaged the sink itself. And once we isolated the problem we could just take the small vessel using hand and no sophisticated weapon or method is required.. So, the lesson learnt..

Know Your Problem well enough before you attempt to fix! :-)

The Art of Listening

2008-03-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

How important is Listening? How does it matter? What difference does it make?
I pondered.. and that led me to write this blog.

Listening is a great thing especially when it comes to interpersonal relations. Some thoughts:

When you listen to people, you make them feel important, you make them feel special. You encourage them to share their feelings, thoughts, sorrow. Eventually, you make good friends sooner. You see a connection established between you and the them.
Listening, as explained perfectly by a Interpersonal relationship skills trainer years ago to me.

L - Look Interested
I - Inquire with questions
S - Stay focused
T - Test your understanding
E - Evaluate the message
N - Neutralize your feelings

This is Active listening.

Looking interested makes a difference, for sure. Try listening with smiling eyes making an eye contact next time when you listen to your close ones and observe the difference. I'm not saying, listen to whatever crap the other person says without expressing your feelings or thoughts [sometimes you've to do this if you listening to your girl friend or boy friend :) ]. I'm saying whenever you listen make an attempt to look interested and not be indifferent and evaluate than being indifferent.
Of course, the sweetest of conversations are the ones when a listener asks questions, understands and appreciates whenever appropriate. And I recommend, testing your understanding especially when it contradicts your theory or belief.
Often we put so much emphasis on "Talking". We don't do that much on "Listening" whereas both are equally important.
How many times we'd ignored our parents, kids, friends. It does no good to relationship. Even if you're not in a position to listen for e.g. tired, make it clear and telling them that you won't be able to listen attentively is much better. And how many relationship would have been saved if the involved people actually listened?
I think good Listening is a great skill everyone should master along with being observant.

Variety is the Spice of Life!

2008-03-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

Yup, the old template was boring. Just changed it to more livelier one. Also, the Blog name was too formal, changed it too ;-)

And, with regards to the title of this blog - Yes I believe, Life is more exciting when you try different types of experiences, when you meet people from different parts of the world, when you come across different culture, when you try new hobbies. So reminding myself, that Variety is the Spice of Life" :)

Journeyer Inside is born!!

2008-03-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

As promised in the previous post, I have started blogging technical and work-related stuff here.
"Journeyer Inside" is the name of the blog. The URL is http://journeyerinside.blogspot.com/
I chose to keep personal ones here.

Take a peek at it once in a while.

Writer Sujatha

2008-03-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Writer Sujatha, a multi-faceted personality - a great writer, the man behind Electronic Voting Machines and a Linux enthusiast died on 27th Feb.

I am a great fan of Sujatha. Though I haven't read much of his novels, I like very much the way he
simplified and explained the complex stuff in various areas, right from Neurology to Computer science. He had always been curious about how things are working and explaining it to people such that everyone understands. He has made countless contributions in various fields.

May his heart rest in peace.

Time to fork?

2008-02-20T08:18:00.001-08:00

I was thinking about this for a while - whether to separate work-related blog from personal blog?
I think it's a good idea mainly because audience are different and I would like to submit the feeds of my work related to some well-known websites.

Soon the announcement will follow :)

Catching up!

2008-02-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

More than 50 days since my last blog. Was little busy, mostly personal stuff...

Moved into my new home, settling down slowly (I'm a proud owner now :)
Some of close friends got married, was attending weddings/functions almost all weekends.
It took a while to get Internet connection at home.

Need to get charged up and have to do a lot better..

FOSS.IN/2007 experience

2007-12-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

FOSS.IN is one of the premier FOSS events that happens in Bangalore, India every year around November/December. I remember the days when I attended the first ever Linux Bangalore event LB/2001 (FOSS.IN then called Linux Bangalore). The event has grown by leaps and bounds; not only focusing specifically on Linux, but also on all other FOSS technologies. The venue this year was IISc, Bangalore during Dec 4 - Dec 8.

Along with the usual Main Conference, BOFs, Expos, two new additions to FOSS.IN/2007 are:

Project Days and
HackCenter

"Project Days" are inspired by mini-conferences - full day sessions on a single FOSS project, led by the lead developers/contributors (e.g. KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice etc).

"HackCenter" is basically a large area provided with power, switches n/w, Internet, tables and chairs where people can get together and work on a FOSS project as a group.

Sponsors of the event include Sun, Google, Red Hat, IBM, HP, Citrix, Zimbra, ABB, Akamai, Trolltech, SpikeSource, Geodesic Information systems Media Partners (Dataquest and PCQuest) and others. My employer's event absence was heavily questioned and I was tired diplomatically answering those question.

The main conference started on 6th Dec with the inaugural talk by Atul Chitnis, the man behind the event, that was followed by Naba kumar's keynote on Anjuta DevStudio.

James Morris gave a talk which is aimed to demystify the Kernel development process and encourage contributors. Last year, we had Christoph Hellwig talking on Kernel development mostly covering the same aspects. Though the information was nothing new and was talked about by Greg KH in his "Kernel development HOWTO" or Randy Dunlap's "Kernel development: Getting started", his talk was filled with interesting self experiences.

The talk I most liked was by Rusty Russell on lguest, the hypervisor written using paravirt_ops. I tried to setup lguest on my Thinkpad during the event in the "HackCenter", I got stuck because of some scsi issues with 2.6.24-rc4 vanilla kernel. The next interesting talk was on Union Mount, VFS based Filesystem Namespace Unification by Bharata B Rao. After the talk we had an unplanned BOF on Union Mount since there was a lot interest.

Kamalesh Babulal gave a talk on Linux kernel testing, a nice talk covering almost all aspects of Linux kernel testing. He correctly pointed out the need for developer's contribution to test cases and the low test case coverages given the number of lines being added per release.

The project days this year covered mostly with the basic stuff. There were a few interesting talks. One among them was on "ZeroConf networking with Avahi" by Lennart Poettering.

Most of the sponsors had a stall including Sun, Google, Red Hat, Citrix, Zimbra, IBM, Akamai, Spikesource, ABB and others. Almost every stall happened to be a recruitment booth. Sun had few interesting demos on Open cluster, Grid computing, Glass fish, OpenDS and so on. IBM had a demo of System tap.

There is a global perspective that Indian software industry is a big consumer of FOSS projects and contributes very less, given its size and international presence. This is a sad truth. I should say FOSS.IN is a concious effort to change that perspective. It may a take a year or two or may be few years, but lam confident that the number of Indian FOSS contributors will surely grow.

What's The "Fuzz" All About?

2007-11-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

As part of my day's work, I was trying to adjust a 'fuzz'[2] when I tried to patch [1] manually. Since I have never encountered much of fuzz while patching earlier, I didn't think of a better way of adjusting fuzz than doing manually.

For e.g. while patching you might get a message like:

"Hunk #3 succeeded at 717 with fuzz 2 (offset 7 lines)."

This means that patch had to adjust the location of the change (in this example it needed to move 7 lines from where it expected to make the change to make it fit). The fuzz factor as we see in this example is 2. This factor determines how far from its original line a hunk is allowed to match. The default is two I suppose.

Manually fixing the fuzz is a pain if the patch results in multiple fuzzes. This seems a simpler way to me if you are using 'quilt'[3] to manage patches:

1. quilt new # the patch name can be different from the original patch
2. quilt add file1.c file2.c # files that are changed by this patch
3. patch -p1 < ../file.diff # Apply the original patch using patch command 4. quilt refresh # creates the new patch that is fuzz adjusted This can also be done manually by applying the original patch and recreating the patch without quilt as Jony pointed out. However, if you are working on a patchset it is difficult to manage without patch managing utilities like quilt.
] when I tried to patch [1] manually. Since I have never encountered much of fuzz while patching earlier, I didn't think of a better way of adjusting fuzz than doing manually.

----
NOTE: There seems to be a much simpler way using quilt for adjusting fuzz and handling rejects.
$quilt import
$quilt push

(a) If there are no rejects, quilt applies the changes and doing a
$quilt refresh
ensures that the patch is and fuzz adjusted and updated.
(b) If there are rejects, quilt will not apply the changes by default, you need to force quilt using
$quilt push -f'
to apply changes and it create file.c.rej files which gives details about the rejects.
Now look at the file.c.rej file and manually edit the file to reflect the changes.
$vim file.c.rej file.c
Once done with the changes, do
$quilt refresh
This ensures that the rejects are being handled and the new patch reflects the change. So simple, right?
----

This comes in handy when you need to create patches for multiple versions and you have multiple patches to manage.

Be warned that a 'fuzz' could indicate that the source has changed and the resulting file after patch adjusts may or may not be OK. Double check to be sure.

[1] - A patch is a file containing the delta of changes between two different versions of a source tree. Patches are created with the "diff" program and they are so common in *nix world.

[2] - Whenever patch utility applies a patch that it had to modify a bit to make it fit, it'll tell you about it by saying the patch applied with 'fuzz'. When patch encounters a change that it can't fix up with fuzz it rejects it outright and leaves a file with a .rej extension (a reject file)

[3] - quilt allows to manage a series of patches by keeping track of the changes each patch makes. Patches can be applied, un-applied, refreshed, etc.

Are you Right or Left brained?

2007-11-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

I had thought about this subject a couple of times sometime ago. But, never did any research on this. Shankar's post - Right brain or left brain prompted me to do a little research on this subject. Going by this quiz it seems I use more of my Right brain.

Here is the result:

You Are 40% Left Brained, 60% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

And this test too confirms this!

Being Happier!

2007-10-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Becoming happier requires being Active,
Changing what we can change, Accepting what we cannot change,
Trying not to blame others or circumstances for our misfortunes,
Valuing what we have and developing a more positive attitude to our lives.

I don't know where I picked up this quote a few years ago. I like it very much and read it once in a while. Atleast, it has made me a little more active for sure ;-)

More Impressions!

2007-10-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. I never thought it would take this long to write the sequel of the previous blog. I was tied up a bit. Thought of finishing this one before my memory fades..

The next morning we started from Prague to Spicak, 4hrs journey in a Train. The journey was good especially the scenary.. If you want to take a look at how good it was, check out my album: http://picasaweb.google.com/sureshjayaram/Spicak?authkey=-bHvQ9rxsi8

The view from the my room in the hotel in spicak was awesome! Look at this picture.

After 5 days of hardcore technical sessions and discussions, we went to a resort to relax a bit. I never thought Europeans are this adventurous. It all started with the Lizard stone event (more like what we call Treasure Hunt) . We started hiking from 9am in the morning on Saturday and it continued till 8pm in the evening. It was surprising that I survived and could finish it. Almost all of us finished, even people in their mid-forties! The fun part of this event was we were supposed to find out a gem which we called "Lizard Stone" as part of the game. When we started we had no clue about where the stone is hidden. As we proceeded, we got subtle clues. As we couldn't get all the clues right, we couldn't find out the stone. But, I am happy that one of the teams found the stone. Though the event was physically tiring, it was fun. Couldn't roam around the City much since I didn't have much time while coming back. Overall, the trip was very nice - Learning + Fun + Adventure.

Initial Impressions

2007-09-11T22:27:00.002-07:00

This time SuSE Labs Conference 2007 is happening at a mountain resort in Spicak in the sumava mountains in Czech Republic. I started on 8th Sep from India. This is the first one Iam attending after joining SuSE Labs and I am really excited about it.

As usual there was a big queue before entering Bangalore International Departures. Something has to be done to avoid people standing outside and getting drenched in rain sometimes in the airport before getting in to the International terminal. Luckily it didn't rain when we went, otherwise it would have been a pain.

When I reached the Franfurt airport and I couldn't resist comparing it with the Indian Airports.. Take at look at rail tracks inside Frankfurt airport..

Frankfurt airport is huge, it is the third largest in Europe with multiple concourses and there are mono rails between them.

Ah, forgot to mention, I watched the movie Ta Ra Rum Pum, starring Saif Ali khan - Rani Mukerjee during the flight journey. Movie was a good entertainer.

I saw this Internet access terminal in the Frankfurt airport. I was tempted to connect to Internet and check my e-mails ;-). Alas! I forgot nothing comes for free.. It was a pay-per-use Internet access terminal.
After reaching Prague, I checked in a Hotel which later I figured has chain of hotels in almost every European country. When I entered my room, this is what I saw in the TV in the room.

I thought, oh cool.. they have got a interactive TV. Later when I tried to browse the on demand movies, I figured out a fee of 450Euros will be charged if I want to use. No way I am going to pay that much to watch some crap movies ;)

In the late evening, we joined other SuSE folks, one from Austria and one from Italy, and went out for dinner. Those folks were very generous and suggested that we will have food in a Indian restaurant because it would be difficult for us to eat in any other restaurant. As usual, it was very difficult to find a vegetarian or a Indian hotel. When we finally found one, the door was closed. Despite our repeated attempts knocking the door, waving hands etc. the door wasn't opened and we were quite sure the restaurant was open because we were well ahead of the closing time. We felt very wierd and I had to convince them this is not the way restaurants in India used to respond to customers..

Watch out for more impressions...

The Virtue of Being Observant

2007-08-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

I think during my childhood days, I was an inquisitive but, not so observant child. Even during my school days I was not a very good observer. Some people are more observant than other right from childhood. Recently, I realized the subtle power of being observant which led to this blog entry.

A lookup for the word observant resulted in the following:

Adjective: observant
1. Pay close attention
2. Quick to perceive
3. Diligent in observing

Being observant helps to a great extent in both in Personal and Professional life.
In personal life,
* You pay close attention to your near and dear ones, you'll know their feelings, wishes, dreams and thoughts; the relationship cherishes. I'm sure most of the Mom's pay close attentions to their kids. So they know the best about their kids, right from what kind of food they like to what kind of girl/guy they would want.
* By being more observant and aware of your surroundings, you memory gets sharper.
* There is a great chance of you saving yourself from a mishap if you're really attentive and mentally active. I think doing something while dwelling on something else is really bad, though most of us would do that once in a while.

In professional life, the benefits are obvious. Any professional who is more observant will excel at his/her profession for e.g. an artist, manager ;-)

Most of us I think are more observant in professional life than personal life. Sometimes we're becoming too self-centered that we are always focusing on our problems and needs and failing to pay attention to our beloved ones. Well, neither being observant nor paying attention costs you anything at all except your energy.

I would like to end this heedful note with a bit of humour.

A lecturer teaching medicine was tutoring a class on ‘Observation’. He took out a jar of yellow-colored liquid. “This”, he explained, “is urine. To be a doctor, you have to be observant to color, smell, sight, and taste.”
After saying this, he dipped his finger into the jar and put it into his mouth. His class watched on in amazement, most, in disgust. But being the good students that they were, the jar was passed, and one by one, they dipped one finger into the jar and then put it into their mouth.
After the last student was done, the lecturer shook his head. “If any of you had been observant, you would have noticed that I put my second finger into the jar and my third finger into my mouth.”

Rebirth

2007-08-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to start Blogging couple of years ago. As most of my thoughts were related to work which involved proprietary projects too, I thought it wouldn't make sense to Blog. I know.. that sounds like a lame excuse :-) Now things have changed!! These days I am getting more interested towards a host of other stuff like music, cartoon, poetry,humour, travel, fitness and so on.. So, I think, this probably is the right time to start blogging and keep going.

And more importantly I work full-time on the most interesting Open source project - 'The Linux kernel'.Ok.. Ok.. I know some folks might have a disagreement. But, to me this is the most interesting project. I have started working for SUSE Labs, Novell (which contributes to ~10% of the whole of the Linux kernel development efforts). This, I think is a great opportunity and I could not have asked for more.

I feel 'Kernel development' is Fun, Fun with added responsibility. The Fun part is you make changes to the "Perpetual OS", any part that interests you. The added responsibility is making the Linux kernel better and better coping up with its "Rapid development" (when I say rapid, I mean it). Here, You get flamed for your bad code, you'll learn how not to write code. You follow the mailing list religiously, you'll know what's the best design. Technical merit matters and not individual decisions or politics.

I am getting all the motivation I can get and determined to do a fair job. I hope this opportunity will make me a better developer, a better thinker, a better communicator and a better person.

Feeling elated! As my boss pointed out, this probably is the start of a new life!