Prakash Advani's Blog

This is something that I have been saying for a while “Kodak isn’t going anywhere”. I read an article on Wired which re-iterates that. Recently when I bought a digital camera, I didn’t even consider a Kodak. My older Film camera also gives me better results with a Fuji Film.

Being an old economy company, its too focused on Film Roll where they have a near monopoly, they need to re-invent itself as a digital camera company by producing better cameras. Or they should focus on providing Digital Camera related accessories such as Memory, prints, web site, etc.

Finally I have a Spam free (nearly) mailbox. I tried this utility DisSpam. What this does is as follows.

– It connects to a pop mailbox.
– Checks for spam emails by comparing with Spam Assassin (the best spam control tool).
– Deletes the spam mail from the server.
– Then you start your mail client and download only the clean messages.

To increase the effectiveness you can also train spamassassin in case it didn’t identified some mails as spam.

I also use another tool: popcheck which shows all your email header and lets you delete directly from the server.

I came across this article – Why Bother with a Digital Camera?

I had similar thinking while deciding on buying a Digital Camera and I am still not completely convinces about the costs.

The cost of buying a new digital camera is more than my photography bill for 10 years! So cost isn’t really a good argument, yes convenience is, specially if you need to publish the photos on a Web site quickly or need to email them.

I recently purchased a Canon Digital Camera SD100 online. It was really simple, here are some links which others may find useful.

Site to check prices:

Pricegrabber.com
Cnet-Shopper
Pricewatch.com

some of these sites have reviews too, the end customer reviewers very quite helpful and accurate.

Happy Shopping 🙂

A friend recently asked me what would be my Dream PC, so here are some thoughts.

– All hardware should be Linux compatible.
– CPU should be preferable AMD Athlon 64 (64-Bit) or Intel P4 Hyper Threading.
– 800 FSB along with DDR 400 Memory.
– Display card should be Nvidia high end graphic card. If the card is on-board there should be an AGP 8X slot also available.
– Hard disk should be Serial ATA with 7200 RPM speed. – Raid controller would be nice to have.
– DVD ROM with CD writer or better still DVD writer. I have found Plextor to be a very good and reliable CD Writer, Pioneer is suppose to be the best in DVD players.
– 100 Mbps LAN on board.
– Mimimum 4 USB 2.0 ports 2 in the front and 2 behind.
– 15/17″ LCD Monitor.
– 3 Button or Scroll Mouse.
– Cabinet should be as small as possible preferably like Mini-ITX.
– Low Noise. System should be as low noise as possible.

I recently got a Hathway Cable Internet at home. Its 64 K, definitely faster than the Dial-up that I used to use before but not very fast. I get a maximum download speed of 7 K.

Incidentally it works faster on Linux, I wonder why but its good 🙂

I often find, people (including me) forget to attach files in their emails. This happens if you think you will first finish writing the email and then attach at the end. Invariably you forget to do do that before you hit the send button. Your reflex action is trained to hit the send button after composing. What I have started doing is that if I am composing an email, and I need to attach something, I stop midway, attach the file and then continue writing.

If you happen to be a person who reads each of your emails once again before sending them then you wont face such a problem.

www.globalrichlist.com is a site where you input your annual income in US$ and it tells you how rich you as compared to the rest of the world.

After seeing the results, I have less reasons to crib 🙂

A friend of mine, sent me this.

1. The number of companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, at more than 6,000, is second only to NYSE.
2. Four out of 10 Silicon Valley startups are run by Indians.
3. With 800 movies per year, India’s film industry overshadows Hollywood.
4. The organised lottery market in India is US$7bn (2% of GDP).
5. India consumes a fifth of the world’s gold output.
6. Indians account for 45% of H1-B visas issued by the US every year.
7. Growing at 6%, in 25 years Indian GDP (on a PPP basis) will be at the same level the US is at today.
8. Six Indian ladies have won Miss Universe/Miss World titles over the past 10 years. No other country has won more than twice.
9. Bank deposits in India roughly equal 50% of its GDP OE again, among the
   highest in the world.
10. Indian Railways is the largest railway network in the world under single management.
11. India has the third-largest army in the world, nearly 1.5 million strong.
12. India is the largest producer and consumer of tea in the world,
    accounting for more than 30% of global production and 25% of consumption.
13. India is the world’s premier center for diamond cutting and polishing.
    Nine out of every 10 stones sold in the world pass through India.
14. India has the highest number of annual bulk drugs filings (77) with
    USFDA.
15. India is home to the largest number of pharmaceutical plants (61)
    approved by USFDA outside the US.
16. India’s Hero Honda is the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, with 2002 production of 1.7m units.
17. Other than US and Japan, India is the only country to have built a
    super computer indigenously.
18. Indian Railways is the largest employer in the world, with a staff of
    1.6 million people.
19. It is the second-largest cement-producing country in the world,
    producing more than 110m tonnes.
20. Of the Fortune 500 companies, 220 outsource their software-related work to India.
21. There are 8,500 Indian restaurants in the UK, 15% of the country’s
    total dining-out establishments.
22. India is the largest democracy in the world, with nearly 400m voting in the last national elections.
23. India has the second-largest pool of scientists and engineers in the world. 24* India has the third-largest investor base in the world.
24. According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds.
25. The Kumbh Mela festival, held every 12 years in the city of Allahabad, attracts 25 million people OE more than the population of 185 of the 227 countries in the world.
26. The Indian city of Varanasi, also known as Benares, is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.
27. There are 3.22 million Indians in the US.
28. Indians are the richest immigrant class in the US, with nearly 200,000 millionaires.
    India is ranked the sixth country in the world in terms of satellite launches.
29. There are over 70,000 bank branches in India – among the highest in the world.

Sounds nice so I posted it but what is important to note is that we have a long way to go.

Business Week has a good article on the benefits of meditation in the workplace. I agree with this and urge all the organisations to try it out and see the benefits. You would notice increase in productivity due to reduction in work related stress.

I have been doing Vipassana Meditation for the past 6 years and Netcore the company I work for encourages it too by giving 5 days of paid leave to people who go for a 10 day Vipassana course.

HBS Working Knowledge has an nice article about: It’s India Above China in New World Order

I often spot mistakes in newspapers and movies, specially Times of India and Hindi movies. These are glaring ones and I wonder how others don’t seem to notice it, may be I have an eye for details.

I was watching Gadar on Sunday with my folks and this time my mom spotted the mistake! In that movie there is a scene where Amisha Patel and Sunny Doel are hiding/running for days, then they are escaping Pakistan by Train and they have lots of fights en route where Amisha Patel is in the Train Engine putting coal to fuel the engine. Soon after that she gets shot from one of the villian’s and in the next scene shes in the hospital, unconscious, dying… At that point my mom started laughing.

Amisha Patel is in the hospital with complete make up! lipstick, blush ons, eyeliners, etc. When did she get time do all that during the running? Cant the movies be more realisting by avoiding such glaring mistakes?

Here is something a friend forwarded. I have read it before but found it really worth reading.

Here’s a story….

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about
to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question,
while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the
student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I read the examination question:
“SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT
OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER.”

The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the
building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and
then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of
the rope is the height of the building.”

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he
had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the
other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to
a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in
physics, but the answer did not
confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the
student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that
the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of
five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to
give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was
just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting
him and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read:
“Take the barometer to the top of the building andlean over the
edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a
stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2,calculate the
height of the building.”

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He
conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving
my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that
he had ther answers to the problem, so I asked him what they
were.

“Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the
height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For
example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and
measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and
the length of the shadow of the building, and
by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the
building.”

“Fine,” I said, “and others?”

“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement
method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and
begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off
the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the
number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building
in barometer units.”

“A very direct method.”

“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie
the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and
determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the
building. From the difference between the two values of g, the
height of the building, in
principle, can be calculated.”

“On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of
the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the
street, and then swing it as a pendulum.You could then calculate
the height of the building by the period of the precession”.

“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving
the problem. Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the
barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door.
When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows:
‘Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine
barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will
give you this barometer.”

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the
conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but
said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors
trying to teach him how to think.

The student was Neils Bohr (quantum theory & physics & mechanics,
hydrogen atom guru etc ) and the arbiter Rutherford.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!!

Bombay, now know as Mumbai, was a cluster of 7 Islands more than a 150 years ago. Then Mumbai was not beyond Mahim and neither was the western surburbs, where most of the population (including me) lives today. There was no bridge to connect Mahim with Sion. The cost of building this was estimated to be Rs.100,000. A lot of money then and the government didn’t have that kind of budget. When Lady Avabai Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, wife of the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy heard about this, she felt this was needed. 150 Years ago she had the vision that Mumbai would be beyond Mahim where more than 10 million people live today.

To fulfill her vision, she donated the entire sum from her personal wealth. The only condition was that no toll would be charged to citizens for its use by the government. Initially the cost was estimated at Rs.100,000 but as the work commenced in 1842 the cost escalated. When the initial sum was exhausted and the work was about to stop, she extended her gesture of goodwill by donating an additional Rs.57,000.

One visionary I must say, I have great respect for people like her who do things for others without expecting things in return. A lot of people may have the money and the capacity to do such things but how many can leave behind their selfish desires and do things for the society?

Exactly 30 years ago on this day, Ethernet Was born and 31 years ago I was. Thank you Bob Metcalfe for giving us this wonderful technology which connect most of us today. Ethernet was inferior to other technologies such as Token Ring at that time but became sucessful because it was an open standard. Bob calls these other technologies “Godzillas” in an Interview.

For a technology to succeed its not necessary to be the best, its is important for it to follow open standards and being adopted by the Industry as well as the consumers. Take the example of Linux too, it is giving a lot of Unix companies a run for their money and Bill Gates sleepless nights.

Microsoft has developed an Operating System which powers the BMW Cars. And this is what happens when you drive cars powered by Microsoft Software.

Govt. Official Trapped in Car After Computer Fails
Mon May 12, 2003 07:08 AM ET
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Security guards smashed their way into an official limousine with sledgehammers on Monday to rescue Thailand’s finance minister after his car’s computer failed.

Suchart Jaovisidha and his driver were trapped inside the BMW for more than 10 minutes before guards broke a window. All doors and windows had locked automatically when the computer crashed, and the air conditioning stopped, officials said.

“We could hardly breathe for over 10 minutes,” Suchart told reporters. “It took my guard a long time to realize that we really wanted the window smashed so that we could crawl out. It was a harrowing experience.”

Do you want to get trapped?

I ready today on Slashdot about the Electrolux Robot Vacuum Cleaner. This is a cordless battery powered device that goes around and vacuum cleans the house. If its battery gets discharged, then it finds the charger and charges itself and resumes the cleaning. Sounds like a pretty good idea and despite its limitations someday it will get more popular and cheaper. Technology excites me and I would surely buy these gadgets but…

In India where I come from, maid servants do all the house hold work. Appliances such as washing machines, dish washers and vaccum cleaners are a threat to their livelyhood. They are generally not educated or skilled enough to do other high skilled jobs. The last time I spoke to my maid servant and asked her what she spends her earning on. Apart from food, etc., she spends a considerable amount on her children’s education. Thats important, to ensure that her children get the education, can do more skilled jobs, earn more and improve their quality of life. I hope people realise that and think before they replace their maids with vaccum cleaners.

A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.

Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs … but not downstairs.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

It’s physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.

The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building. (Just for your information: The Hopkins Library has a three-storeyed basement 🙂

A snail can sleep for three years.

No word in the English language rhymes with “MONTH.”

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!

The electric chair was invented by a dentist. More scared ??

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

“Go,” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow 🙂

Some interesting numbers from the processor market.

” In the past 16 years, AMD has had eight profitable years and eight in the red. Total net earnings since the end of 1986, including acquisitions and sell-offs, comes to around $350 million, about the same as Intel earns in six weeks.”

Read the Full article on news.com.

Market Share:
AMD’s: 16.6 percent
Intel: 81.7 percent
Others (Via Technologies and Transmeta): 1.7 percent

Read the Full article on news.com.

Spam is the killer application since it kills your mail box by flooding it. If you publish your email address then you get so many unsolicited emails that you won’t be able to distinquish your geniune emails from junk. If you don’t publish, then people won’t know how to contact you.

One of my mail boxes gets a lot of spam, since I used to write online articles where that email address was the published address. Recently the hosting company which is hosting that website enabled Spamassassin on the site. Spam assassin is able to identify more than 99% of the spam mails correctly. It does a very intelligent scanning, gives points for each of the criteria of a SPAM mail. When a mail exceed a certain points, it gets marked as a SPAM. Its totally flexible where you can define the number of points as well as define your own criteria or ask it to ignore some. It also puts **SPAM** in the subject line so you can configure your mail client filter out emails if the subject has **SPAM**

So far this is working well, better than I expected. I don’t even wait for my mail client to catch it, I log in to the Web based front and delete all mails marked as spam. If this works well, I hope to get this working on all my mail boxes so I have a spam free world. Good bye spam for now.