Abhinav talks about Fedora Helper, which is a utility to install all those plugins / packages that you need like Flash, JRE, codecs, but are not available / intalled by default. I bumped across easy ubuntu when I was trying to install and configure Dapper on my laptop. Few clicks to install all those packages that you wanted. And all packages are fetched and installed as debs. Cool. Saves me a bunch of keystrokes so that I can write this blog entry. :-)
June 2006 Archives
Me and Pratheepan were having coffee yesterday at a nearby darshini, when we saw a vendor selling drumsticks. Its been a while since I cooked, so we decided to try it out. With some expert advice and assistance from Pratheepan, we managed to cook some yummy drumstick sambar and lady's finger fry.
I have never managed to get lady's finger cooked properly before. The key is to wash it properly, cut it into smaller peieces and let it dry for about 30 minutes. This helps in removing the watery substance that oozes making the vegetable sticky. Then stir fry it in a pan, keeping the flame in simmer.
It took about an hour to cook and we enjoyed a great lunch. Cooking is fun and does not take much time. Being a lazy bum, I would like to doze or loaf around, rather than spend some time in the kitchen. I am in a double mind now thinking if I should cook or eatout while Synaptic is pulling down the latest updates for Dapper.
Saturday's and Sunday's are for me to sleep. I hate to be disturbed in the morning when I am asleep. And I wake up anywhere between noon - 3PM depending on how hungry I am. But this Saturday was different. I was up at 8 in the morning. Partially because, I went to Sriram's place in BTM the previous night. But the other reason was because, I have heard a lot about YEFI working with Parikrma Foundation in running a school for the underprivileged children. I wanted to understand more about what they do and in what little way I can contribute. I reached the school in Jayangar at about 10AM to see all for myself.
A bunch of Yahoos were already there interacting with the kids. The moment I entered there, a few of them came running towards me, to ask my name, to shake hands with me, to grab my helmet and try it, to play with me. Some of them were very shy and ran away. Others would come and ask you a dozen questions. They will start of a sentence in English and then would suddenly stop, trying to form a sentence in their mind but unable to find the right word to use. After a bit of coaxing, they will complete the sentence and to ensure that you have not misunderstood, repeat what they said in Kannada or Tamil. It was amazing to be there and interact with me. These children live in a different world and the time you spend interacting with them takes you to their world. The couple of hours or so I spent with them was one of the happiest moment in the last couple of months. Damn, I did not take my camera along.
I still have a lot of questions to get answered. I will do so talking to people internally who have been associated with YEFI for a while. But this was one Saturday morning well spent, apart from sleeping.
Does anyone find this program, "Dhuniya Goal Hai", funny? This is telecast between matches and I find it irritating. But the only good thing about this program is when Varun gives that fabulous gift to the person's mom who answers the question correctly. I love that one :-)
Damn. The rain saved them this time. And then Lara seems to have played a pateint innings. Hopefully in the next two tests will produce a result, in India's favour.
I was wondering about the dual stance Jeff Crowe took in the first test. Or how could have he let off Lara was his behaviour on the field and fine Sehwag for celebrating a dismissal without appealing to the umpire. Siddhartha Vaidyanathan writes about this double standards here. If Jayawardene was fined, even after apologising for knocking over the stumps in frustration, how can Lara be let off?
Atlast India seems to be salvaging some pride in the second innings. Jaffer has just a hit a double hundred and Dravid has gone. The lead now is 223. If Yuvraj and Dhoni can show some fireworks and get the lead to 320+ in 20 overs and if they can put in West Indies to bat for about 25 overs and get a few wickets, the game might tilt our way. Too many if's but let us watch and see. Dravid sometimes can get too boring. Yes, he has steadied the Indian innings but 62 runs in 177 balls. Come on guys, the strike rate can get a lot better.
In the England SriLanka series, Murali took eight wickets to level the series 1-1. 104/1, 125/6, 153/9. And a battle by Plunkett and Panesar took the score to 190 all out. SriLanka won by 134 runs.
Atlast, I have a DataOne connection at home. I applied for a BSNL connection during Dec 2005. After a few visits to the local BSNL exchange, I gave up, thanks to their bureaucracy. But when BSNL announced their unlimited plan, a few weeks back, I did not want to wait anymore. I found the lineman who services our area, who was immediately willing to do all the needful, in favor of some quick bucks. Overnight, I had my connection. Last Tuesday, I applied for DataOne and a couple of days back a gentleman called when he could drop down for setting up the connection. Since he did not have the modem in stock, he said he will come on Saturday.
He came down today, with a Huwaei MT841 and a PCMCIA Wireless card for the modem. Did the installation in flat 10 minutes, provided me with details for configuring and it was done. When I asked him, if there was a way to test the speed, happily pointed to Airtel's Customer care site. Amazingly efficient. If only BSNL also outsources all its services and gets rid of the "babudom".
Various speed tests shows the download speed between 20-40 KBps. Will need to play around more to see how it goes.
