http://balajin.net/blog/ On happenings around me, that matters to me. en-us mt@balajin.net 2010-02-08T22:37:40+05:30 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2010/02/08/e75_and_calendar_sync.html I have a convoluted synchronization setup. I use Thunderbird as my primary mail client. Lightning is my calendar application and is configured to synchronize with Yahoo! Calendar. I also have iCal synchronized with Yahoo! Calendar. Finally using Nokia's iSync plugin, I synchronize my calendar to my Nokia E75 phone. Also at times, I synchronize my phone with Ovi.com and with Nokia Ovi PC suite. A few weeks back when I was upgrading the phone firmware, the calendar synchronization broke. I got this error message. [Y man] There was an error getting data from the phone. The synchronization may have been canceled on the phone. Device “Y man” synchronization failed. This seems to be a common problem but nobody seems to have found a working solution. I tried to locate the calendar database on the phone to see if deleting it would help. But could not locate the same. Was contemplating a hard reset and restore from backup when I accidentally discovered a working solution. Calander -> Select Any date -> Options -> Delete -> Before Date. This cleans up the calendar. A synchronization after this worked. Now you know what do when your calendar sync screws up. -- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. 422@http://balajin.net/blog/ Software 2010-02-08T22:37:40+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2010/01/20/freakonomics.html Why does drug dealers still live with their moms? What makes a perfect parent? With data and analysis, this book tries to answer some unrelated random questions. Freakonomics is divided into six chapters, each starting off with a question. On initial thoughts, the answers look obvious. Using tools to reliably asses tonnes of data, this books comes with interesting and often surprising answers. Rather than being a dull subject, economics here is applied to a variety of common topics with amusing results. The book drives on a set of fundamental ideas: Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. Conventional wisdom is often wrong Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle causes. Experts use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so. A must read if you are a curious cat and interested in knowing where have all the criminals gone. 421@http://balajin.net/blog/ Books 2010-01-20T22:51:53+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2010/01/10/the_now_silent_space.html One day I wandered into The Forum Mall and listened to Worldspace. They were playing a Haridas bhajan which was one of my favourites. Immediately decided to pick it up. My parents enjoyed having Shruthi for company. Especially my mother, who is an avid carnatic music rasika. Though I had mostly listened to only Shruthi, I would occasionally listen to other channels as well. KL Radio had some fantastic programmes on Saturdays and Sundays. We got back from vacation and figured Worldspace was not working. On reading the news and talking to a few people, we got to know that the India Operations is shutdown for good. It has been almost a week now and the house is so quiet, having a haunted feel. Hope a miracle happens and Shruthi is heard again in our home entertaining, educating and soothing me with its collection of carnatic music. It gave me company for almost 3 years. It helped me listen to some good quality music. It helped me in learning and identifying Raagas. It brought me some good interviews with stalwarts, It helped me in staying away from the idiot box. It was good while it lasted. Bye Bye Worldspace. 420@http://balajin.net/blog/ Music 2010-01-10T21:30:09+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2010/01/01/happy_new_year_2010.html Wish you and your family a very happy and prosperous new year 2010. 419@http://balajin.net/blog/ Life 2010-01-01T00:00:00+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/12/07/vimperator.html I discovered Vimperator about 3 months ago and I fell in love with it. Browsing with Firefox suddenly became so powerful and efficient. But a couple of days back, the status bar disappeared. Without the status bar, I felt crippled. Tried reading the help pages, asked around for tips, updated the extension, downgraded and what not? Nothing helped. Unfortunately, search did not help too. And finally I stumbled upon this tip in the mailing list. The status bar was disabled from the menu. How dumb? Interestingly, more than one person had faced the same problem but none had a solution. Looks like the mailing list is not archived and that is the reason why search did not help. Let us hope this blog post shows up soon in the indexes. 418@http://balajin.net/blog/ Internet 2009-12-07T21:27:34+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/12/01/idli_orchid_and_will_power.html The title looked interesting and I picked this book from the library. Idli - okay, but what has orchid and will power got to do with it? The book is an English translation of the autobiography by Vithal Venkatesh Kamat. It is about taking an idea, a dream to fruition. No matter what obstacles comes, what ever be the struggle, use them as stepping stones and move forward. The book is bubbling with his drive and energy to get things done. His presence of mind seems to have bailed him out more than once. He has also used his networking skills effectively to generate more business. The book is not without its pitfall. The size of the book is awkward and I did not find it comfortable holding it. The language is not all that great. This could have been because of the translation from Marathi to English. There is no clear flow in the book. I felt as if I was jumping back and forth with little coherence. But those few points should not take away some of the great learnings from the book. Interestingly this book was published by a so called "Orchid publications" and I could not find any information about this book online. I stumbled across Swaroop's post about this book and he also indicates the same. I am not sure if it is a marketing gimmick to garner attention. -- Where there's a will, there's a way. 417@http://balajin.net/blog/ Books 2009-12-01T22:35:17+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/10/27/bsnl_portal_on_firefox_-_updat.html A reader was kind enough to point to me that my Greasemonkey script for BSNL Cellone bill payment no longer works. This is due to the fact that the BSNL site changed the site URLs earlier this month. He had also pointed out the fix. It is updated now and available for download. Enjoy! 416@http://balajin.net/blog/ Internet 2009-10-27T22:11:04+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/10/25/ways_of_distracting_the_mighty.html 415@http://balajin.net/blog/ Running 2009-10-25T23:25:38+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/10/11/well_spent_evening.html It was the usual, "You look familiar" dialogue that started the conversation and after a few minutes, I asked him, "What do you do?". Coolly he said, "I run a chain of beauty salon and spa in Bangalore". I was taken aback and did not expect this from someone who passed out of IIT 20 years ago and just returned back to Bangalore. Another interesting conversation was with a gentleman showing some magic tracks. I first thought he was an assistant helping out with the sound system in the room. I was pleasantly surprised when he said he used to work as a traffic constable attached to the Indirinagar Police station and he has taken leave of absence from work. It was a colleague's 15th marriage anniversary dinner. I had to coax my wife to go since she was tired after work yesterday. All I told her was that he was in interesting personality (there will be a dozen or more who will disagree to that) and is fun to chat with. The side show of pictures showcasing the couple's 15 years of life was interesting and sometimes funny. The dinner was decent and the music was very good. Naren and Jyothi did a wonderful job with the Karoke, singing old hindi songs. And Had an awesome time. 414@http://balajin.net/blog/ Life 2009-10-11T12:58:32+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/10/03/road_running.html 413@http://balajin.net/blog/ Running 2009-10-03T23:28:53+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/06/12/run_maadi_run.html 412@http://balajin.net/blog/ Running 2009-06-12T22:59:25+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/05/25/things_that_i_learnt.html 411@http://balajin.net/blog/ Life 2009-05-25T20:46:07+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/05/09/ipl_predictions.html A cricket update for a long time. With Mumbai Indians refusing to put up a fight, here are my predictions for the semi finals. Delhi Daredevils Chennai Super Kings Deccan Chargers Rajasthan Royals Delhi and Chennai will go for the finals and I expect Delhi to win. Let us see how it goes 410@http://balajin.net/blog/ Sports 2009-05-09T00:26:35+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/05/07/humanness.html 409@http://balajin.net/blog/ Life 2009-05-07T22:35:02+05:30 http://balajin.net/blog/archives/2009/04/29/security_by_stupidity.html Airtel sent me this email today, with subject "Your Airtel Bill for Account XXXXXXXX, For the Period 26/03/2009 to 26/04/2009, Airtel Number 080XXXXXXXX" Dear Customer, Please find attached your Airtel Bill for, Airtel Number: 080XXXXXXXX Account Number: XXXXXXXX Bill Number: XXXXXXXX Bill Period:26/03/2009 to 26/04/2009 Please save it for your future reference. You need Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view this bill. Further down the email, I see this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Airtel e-bill is protected by a unique password, please enter your account number as password to open your e-bill. Password remains the same for every e- bill sent month on month. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who are they trying to fool? What is the point in password protecting the bill, when the password is provided in the email? How does one deal with such morons? 408@http://balajin.net/blog/ Internet 2009-04-29T20:29:54+05:30