Friday, October 07, 2005

...Main Hoon Na...

In my last post I talked about Kal Ho Na Hon..

…Main Hoon Na…. is another such nice song that I like…

…again, such songs bring out sense of support that you wish to lend to your family…or to others who look to you for yours …
..to start with your family, your kids look for your support in the form of approvals…it is not suggested here that you give support for all their activities…and for that matter, at least in the Indian context, they will not seek or look for your support at the activities that they feel will be reprimanded by you…they are looking for your support where they feel uneasiness, may be due to severe competition, nervousness again due to any reason, loneliness, weakness or other difficulties….

…it is important that you feel that they need you and therefore, learn to accept them and be with them…

…we all know that your child has to travel path of life journey on his own…but human child need support of their elders, particularly parents, for varying periods, depending on the need…and the constant need of theirs for support…particularly for psychological support, cannot be overlooked or ignored…

…after all culture is nothing but learned traits transmitted from one generation to the other and therefore it is a cumulative sum of traits…and … won’t you like to pass on the traits which are based on love, passion and compassion?...we can definitely …

…and when I hear this song, beautifully sung by Sonu Nigam, I get a renewed vigor in me to be nice with everyone in my family…and also work hard for them…

Kal Ho Na Hon

…Kal Ho Na Hon…This is one of the very few songs that moves me….for that matter I always think many might have been moved by the song……Main Hoon Na…. Is the another song that I like…and again it appears that such songs are liked by many……such songs bring out sense of support that you wish to lend to your family…or …the work that you will like to do for your family … how you will be remembered when you are no more there……most of us like our old Hindi songs…they are unforgettable…unlike the new ones…but I am amazed at people who keep on talking about the greatness of our old hindi songs disregarding certain new songs…agreed, old songs are great….but please don’t belittle many new songs, like two I have just mentioned…they are two of the great new songs. …
..it is rightly said that you are not going to carry anything with you when you will leave this abode…money, property and other things will not accompany you anywhere… people will, slowly and surely, forget you….may be for your near and dear it will take sometime to forget you…but time waits for no one…

…”yaaden”.. ”remembrances”, “ memories” will be there, however…

...so dear friends, do such things that you will be remembered for good deeds that you did...

… all of us know, or rather have a general complain that our children do not listen to us…or they pay a scant attention to us…however, please remember that this is an universal phenomena (ubiquitous) ….and age-old too… you ad me can not do anything about that…and remember how much attention did you pay to your father when you were kid?...

… we are not sure if we can give all good things in the world to our children but surely you can leave behind good memories for them to cherish when you are not around…

…and this is important from another angle: socialization…the process of making your kids know the path to be followed…so that they can leave behind their kids good memories…

…and when I hear this song, beautifully sung by Sonu Nigam, I get a renewed vigor to work best for my family…and before that to be nice with them…

MTNL and Tri-Band

MTNL and Tri-Band

Ever since MTNL announced their ADSL Internet service I was longing to have their connection. And when they announced Tri-Band offer under DSL-NU plan I booked one on 5th July,2005.

Since then they were at their best…in their age old game of not offering service to their clients . To begin with, after having booked a connection on my existing phone line, I was told that they will start the service in another 10 days. After about 15 days their personnel came and put up an ADSL modem and went back saying that they will start connection in two days…number of calls after two days and their technical personnel arrived and checked the connection only to announce that the line was not stable and it may need some sort of tweaking…

...he goes and a call comes from MTNL declaring that there is a “Cable fault” and the fault will be rectified when the whole bunch of cable fault complaints in my locality is attended….few calls after a week and I get a reply that “don’t you know that there was a flood-like situation in Mumbai and water has sipped into the cables…we will be able to correct the fault only once the water is dried up…”

…The Mumbai rains has helped MTNL to shun from responsibility towards their customers… it rained again throughout the Gaesh Utsav and even during the last week of September 2005…

…come 30th September, 2005 and I get a call from their Exchange enquiring about Tri-band…only to be amazed to know that my Tri-band connection was never established… I was promised a visit by their engineer on the same day…I realised that local MTNL exchange have to send a quarterly compliance report by 30th September and hence the call to me…again a long wait for us (by deferring all work that day)…

… next day, the 1st Oct. , at 11 A.M. I got a call again and the so called technical personnel promised to come by noon…the person arrives just 15 min short of 6 in the evening…probably their closure time..he makes few calls, here and there, only to tell me that cable lines in my locality are not good enough to handle broadband connection…he calls up again someone in their (sub)local office and asks the other person to look into the matter by replacing the pair of cable with a good available pair…and there was again a promise of starting a tri-band on Monday, the 3rd Oct….my son who had arrived earlier on Saturday night from his campus continued to stay back at home on Monday, just to see how fast the Tri-band works (as these are the kids who are more interested in having a faster connection…obviously for downloading) only to be disappointed later in not seeing the light at the tunnel…pity scene,uh?...

…till date, 6th October,2005,after three months MTNLs adbill is burgeoning in tall claims only at the expense of not delivering the promises …

…you may say what happened to their Compliance Report dt. 30th Sept or 1st Oct. ?...I am sure that my grievance was attended to …at least in their report…

…after all “Raat gayi, Baat gayi…”

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Using USB MP3 player/recorder for text transcription

Few months back I happened to read the following post on CEO of "Goal Free Living":


"Here is a photo of Stephen Shapiro’s high tech car from his 2003 trip — well, at least back then it was. With a desk built into the passenger seat of the car, he used GPS tracking on his PC, cellular internet access (with streaming Internet radio…often listening to the BBC), voice recognition software, and a digital tape recorder that transcribes directly into MS Word.

"Having read the post I wanted to ask Stephen for success rate of such transcription. After some six months I sent him a mail and got a prompt reply :

"Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I found the success rate to be unacceptably low. After a number of experiments, I found it faster/easier to listen to the recording and then manually type what I wanted. To get a high rate of success with the electronic transcription, I would have to speak too slowly, announcing punctuation, for it to be practical. I wish I had better news for you."

Bad news, isn't it?

Anyway, one of the use of such compact recorder lies in recording speeches at my local club. A speech will be recorded as a file and speeches can, therafter, be distributed to other members, as an attachment who could not made it to a certain meeting or it can be archived. Of course, one can go through the speech at leizure to use it in your next bulletin.

Prashant

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

...how best a notebook can be put to use?

.....Something......

..well, few hours back I wrote a blog after a very long period...after seven months.....then decided that I shall try to scrib on something at least once a day....that time I was at my office...having done a night shift duty and was on my back to home in our office vehicle....and I had many ideas in my mind then....back home and after having spent few hours....definitely not more than 4 hrs...I do not remember what were those things about which I wanted to write...afterall now I am 45 and forgetfulness is the order of day for me,it appears...

...one of the thing that I wonder, these days, is what to do with this IBM Thinkpad that I bought a month ago?....actually, I wanted to go for an HP/Compaq Celeron, which is available for something equivalent to US$700 as it has nice features for general purpose like firewire port,6 in 1 card reader,S-video output etc.....however, when I asked my son, who is doing his 2nd year Bachelors' degree in engg., which one I should go in for he suggested or rather insisted on buying a Centrino....and that's how I got this IBM for US$1000...

...I think I am digressing....the point is what should I do with this notebook?....basically, I thought of learning,seriously, Technical Analysis that can be used for buying/selling common stocks...with notebook I thought of pondering on charting software while commuting to and fro office which is 1 and half hour one side...

...however, by god, I have not started using any charting software in that way...I still do not have updated data to be able to use for the charting software....and first of all I will need to read thouroughly a good book on Technical Analysis....

...secondly, carrying the notebook to office seems to be not-so-worthy a proposition...for unnecessarily being admonished by my colleagues...

...having said that, I wonder what are the things that can be done using this notebook...I mean all the time I am repenting my decision of purchasing the notebook...I always have this feeling that my wife may be (secretly) cursing me for spending $1000 (I am sure I may be more than 100% wrong as she doesn't mind spending anything for me)....which is a lot of money in India....

...I asked this question to my son also...what to do with this notebook?...I asked him to take it with him to his college (he is 100 km away from home and stays in a hostel) but he doesn't like a notebbok as he likes to play games only...

...if there is any reader to this blog and he/she is kind enough to let me know what should I do with this notebook....I mean, how best I can use it....I shall be thankful for his/her suggestion(s) ...

-Prashant

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Suddenly.....

Suddenly….

….while browsing…or surfing the internet you invariably stumble upon someone's blog…
…today morning i.e.4th Oct 2005, when I thought of checking my blog what I found was that I had not posted anything in seven (7) long months…
...what happened to me?…was I so busy that I could not get time?…or simply that typing takes a long time and therefore you get bored?....or that it takes quite a long time for you to gather your thoughts?….yes, both the thing in my case, it seems…..but slowly I should be able to handle it well to manage writing blog evry now and then ....afterall perseverence is the name of the game...anyway it’s nice to have your blog….it’s the way to give away....or empty your emotions or thoughts ....and preserve....and then to reflect on these thoughts yourself sometime later....and many times you wonder and laugh what you were thinking then..
....okay.....at last I have written and posted something....it may be silly....and I don't expect anyone to read except me...
Amen.....