Considering to buy a new Laptop? Which one to choose? Thanks to the Internet, you have easy access to almost all the details you need to look into before finalizing your buy (technical specifications of a laptop, features, its cost, comparison between models). Well, not entirely. Most of the websites that you’ll refer before buying a new laptop (or any electronic device) will give you technical specifications, features and reviews about the product. But, they don’t really give all that you might be looking for.

So what do they miss out?

Here’s a list of the 10 things that the laptop specifications are least likely to tell you.

(I have composed this list after my experience of purchasing a Dell Inspiron N5010 based solely on its technical specifications and features . In the past 5 years I have used HP6515b, Compaq 510, Dell Inspiron N5010, Lenovo G460)

1. Quality of the Touchpad

One of the primary input devices of of your laptop, a touchpad must have almost negligible friction when you glide your finger. That is, your finger must not stick to the touchpad when you use it. Plus, the left and right click buttons must require minimum effort to get pressed. Some of the newer laptops, do not have a good touchpad.

(The touchpad click buttons of Lenovo G460 are not very click-friendly. In case you happen to buy a laptop with a similar touchpad, you will always want to use a USB mouse instead of the stock touchpad.)

2. The Quality of the Screen

While you might be thinking about LCD or LED or OLED, here, I’ll focus on a much basic characteristics of the screen – its finish. You have two choices – Matte or Glossy. Most of the new laptops have a glossy laptop screen. The picture quality is good and the brightness is also better than the Matte screens. But, glossy screens can be very annoying since strong lighting causes glare on the screen which may cause eye-irritation as well. So, I suggest you decide whether you want the richness of the display or ease of reading.

(My Dell Inspiron N5010 has an irritating glossy screen whereas my HP 6515b has a very comfortable-to-read matte display.)

The next two are related to the cooling system of your laptop.

3. The Placement of the cooling vents and fan

The heat produced in your laptop is dissipated to the surroundings using a fan and cooling vents. Basically, the fan pushes the air out through the cooling vents. If the cooling vents are placed on the bottom side of your laptop, the vents will be covered when you place the laptop on a table or your lap. This will lead to inefficient cooling and hence, overheating.  To avoid this, always make sure that the vents are on the sides and not on the bottom of the laptop.

(My Dell Inspiron N1510 has cooling vents on the bottom as well which makes it very hot while using on a table. Hence, I had to buy an additional laptop cooling fan to cool my laptop effectively.)

4. Is the Cooling system good enough?

These days, most of the laptops come with dedicated graphics memory. This creates an illusion in the buyer’s mind that he will be able to play graphics intensive games/applications on the laptop. While it may be true according to the technical specifications, the performance is not guaranteed. If the laptop does not have a good cooling system with adequate cooling vents (and positioned correctly), the laptop will end up getting overheated almost every time you play a  graphics intensive game. That means no Call of Duty or GTA IV on your new laptop.

(My Dell N5010 used to shut down every time I played GTA 4 even though the specs were sufficient. I had to get the heat sink and fan replaced along with a better thermal paste to allow proper cooling of the laptop. )

Others things that the manufacturers are known to neglect:

5. The number and location of USB ports

USB Ports – One of the most commonly used feature of Laptops. Some of the laptops have only 2 or 3 USB ports. As I have found from experience, I make use of 3-4 USB ports most of the times. Plus, I find it more convenient to have the USB ports on the sides (as in most of the properly designed laptops) instead of having them behind the screen (as in my Dell N5010).

(e.g. HP6515b, Compaq 510 and Lenovo G460 have USB ports on the left. Don’t know what the Dell guys were thinking when they positioned the USB ports on the back side.)

6. The quality of charger wire ends

Most of the Chargers malfunction because of damage to the wires at the connector end. Hence, ensure that your laptop’s charger wire does not have inadequate protection at the connector end.

7. Primary functions of the Fn keys

The people who have always used F2 key to rename and F5 key to reload/refresh find it very irritating when those keys are given some other primary function, like “WiFi” or “Presentation Mode”. So in these laptops, by default, an F2 results in Wifi On/off instead of the Rename function. (For renaming on a Dell Inspiron N5010, you have to press (fn) + F2 which I find very stupid.) Similarly,  some of the new laptops try to merge multimedia functions with the Fn keys in the process of which they assign different primary functions to F1, F2, F3 and F5 which some users may find very irritating.

8. The extent to which the monitor can be tilted.

There are a lot of people who like using their laptop by attaching it to their workstations. Restricting the tilt of the screen makes it very uncomfortable to view the screen when the laptop is attached to a workstation.

9. Ease of Removal of Hard Disk

There might be some (experienced) users who like the freedom of being able to replace the laptop’s stock hard disk with their old laptop hard disk or self-upgrade their laptop to one with a higher-capacity harddisk. In these cases, it is always better to be able to remove the harddisk without dismantling any other part of the laptop. (My HP6515b has a externally replaceable harddisk whereas my dell N5010′s harddisk is buried deep below the keyboard and can be removed only after dismantling the keyboard.)

10. The after-sales service

Each Laptop seller will pronounce his brand’s after-sales service to be the best. But, it is always better to check out reviews for that brand and closely examine the services they offer. (I always look for the availability of on-site warranty and replacements along with accidental damage protection.)

To save yourself from getting trapped with a laptop having one or more of these problems, I suggest that you always physically check out the Laptop you intend to buy. That will give you a better idea about it. Plus, check out reviews to make sure the laptop does not have any other problems.

These are among the most annoying things I have discovered after buying a new laptop.

Have you come across a similar situation when you neglected a feature while buying and later regretted it? Or Do you know other things which are important but the specifications don’t mention them? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

In an attempt to introduce you to my blog, I thought of presenting to you some of the special posts/articles from this blog. Although this post should feature only 10 such posts, but I cheated and added another 1 to do complete justice to the award titles. Without wasting much precious time, here are the 6 titles which represent these posts:

• The posts I enjoyed writing the most
• My Most Helpful post
• The Post with the maximum number of visits
• A Post with a Title I am proud of
• The posts I wish more people had read
• The posts which ended up teaching me something

and here are the 11 special posts according to the above titles:

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The posts I enjoyed writing the most

Unlocking Tomorrow’s Traffic Gridlock

This was a post which was written by me after being inspired by a TED Talk from Bill Ford and an article from the NY times followed by reading several articles related to this in local newspapers. What I enjoyed most while writing this post was the sheer fact that my view of possible solutions changed as I read those articles and that helped me understand the problem in a better way. Although, this post does not answer what the ideal solution would be but it attempts to analyse the current systems in place and which ones would actually be feasible and successful in a developing country.

This IS how we study – The 5 Phase Study Cycle

This stick figured comic was sketched in a tribute to the college days. This comic illustrates how an average college student studies during his/her exams. Might remind you of your college days.

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Achieving the best fuel economy from your vehicle

In this era when oil prices are beating all previous highs, I wonder why no one spreads awareness about the simple ways in which we can get the maximum mileage from our vehicle. In this post, I have put together a few things to keep in mind, while driving, which would ensure that you get maximum fuel economy from you vehicle enabling you to save more money and lower your carbon footprint. When I applied these things to my driving, I improved my car’s mileage by as much as 30%. Surprised?

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My Most Helpful post

Remove Radio files from GTA San Andreas

This one has been, undoubtedly, the most helpful post for most readers. Not only because of the number of people benefited but because this provided a solution which was available nowhere else on the internet. If you go through the comments on this post, you will notice how glad some of the readers were. Though this post was written about 2 years ago, it continues to get some traffic from GTA forums which have linked to this post. and I must admit, that finding the solution to this problem wasn’t easy at all. It took me months to finally get a solution. But in the end, I was glad that I was able to cook up a solution for it.

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The Posts with the maximum number of visits

HP Battery Check for Windows 7

When I wrote this post, I never expected it to get 34000 visitors to my blog (June09-Jul11). In fact, I had published this post without giving much thought. But as it turned out, this post was the only one which provided the solution to successfully install and run HP Battery check on Windows 7. As a result, HP support forums (plus some other forums) were linking to this post and sending a lot of traffic here. Two years from then, it still continues to get some visits (about 33% of its peak traffic) but, I believe it will die out in another year. Anyway, it has contributed well enough to this blog.

BMW Themes for Windows 7

Since I like BMWs, I compiled a theme comprising of BMWs for my laptop. I thought, ‘Why not share it?’ and I published a post featuring this. Over a period of 1 year (Jul10-May11), it managed to get 6300 visits. Decent. So in June11 when I updated my BMW theme with better backgrounds and reshared it on the post, something went wrong and the traffic has tripled since then. I still can’t figure out what I did differently this time which triggered this (except the number and quality of themes). Anyway, I have no complaints.

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A Post with a Title I am proud of

How to remember a Billion Passwords

Well, there’s nothing to be ‘proud’ of this title except that I was trying to be creative about the post’s title. In this post, I have discussed a methodology which would help you remember the infinite number of passwords you have for your online and offline accounts. and yeah, this will be achieved without using any software or diary or similar things. The only place where you will store all of these will be your brain.

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The posts I wish more people had read

10 Major Challenges that the Republic of India Faces today

Since we, the youth, are the architects of India’s future. I feel each one of us should know what problems our country faces so that we can actively work towards finding a solution for them. This post attempts to put together a few challenges that our country faces.

How to Recycle WordPress.com Blogs

Being a blogger on WordPress.com, I have faced moments when I could not get suitable easy-to-remember subdomain names for my secondary blogs since they were already taken by someone else. The irritating part was that these ‘someone else’ had merely abandoned the blog and rendered that subdomain useless when it could have been put to better use by someone else. But since even Regular bloggers can’t recycle a blog by default, a lot of WP.com blogs end up abandoned. This post has made an attempt to spread awareness about the Recycling of the blogs, provided the current owner of abandoned blogs takes a few simple actions.

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The posts which ended up teaching me something

The two posts mentioned under this category were not written by me. I received these as forward mails and thought of sharing these on this blog.

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

Carrot, Egg or Coffee??
When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? How do you handle yourself?? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Do you feel any other posts deserves a mention as well? What do you think about these posts?

Liked this post? Share it with your friends. Subscribe to get similar posts delivered to you.

Featured Image is a modified version of this image. This post was inspired from the 7 Links Challenge

Alternate title :  How to save abandoned WordPress.com blogs?

If you didn’t join WP.com early enough (by 2005 or 2006) even you might have faced something similar when registering your blog’s address. You must have noticed that almost all good and easy-to-remember blog names were already taken by someone else. This would not have been irritating if those blogs were being used. The problem was that most of these blogs had not been touched for years! Some of them, amazingly, still have their only post as ‘Hello World!’.

Ever since I tried to get my second blog on WordPress, I have found this idea especially ridiculous that even unused WordPress.com blogs cannot be recycled automatically according to the T&C of WordPress.com. I checked up the WordPress Support Forums and found nothing which could help me. Anyway, when I had finally managed to start my second and third blog, I realized that even I had committed the same mistakes! In my attempt to find suitable, easy-to-remember names for my blogs, I had managed to abandon 2 blogs. (What!!?). Plus, I had stopped updating another 3 blogs completely. Yes, I was one of those who had made it difficult for new-bloggers to find a suitable blog name by consuming 5 viable options.

In my bid to fix this, I ended up coming across the “Transfer Blog” option in “Dashboard >>My Blogs“. Making use of this, I laid out a plan that would fix it all. Here’s what is needed to be done,

1. Open the dashboard of the abandoned blog.

2. Create a new Page with an advertisement to “Adopt the abandoned blog”.

Name this page – “Adopt this Abandoned Blog!” and the page template as “Full Width”.

Then put an eye-catching graphic centred on the page,

(actual size 806×401 px)

and then follow it up with the text,

“This blog has been Abandoned. If you are interested in adopting this WordPress address, leave a comment below giving the reasons for acquiring this WordPress address. If found genuine, the blog will be transferred to the blogger. Cheers!“

(Alternatively, you can copy the following code and paste it in your post-body in the HTML mode.)

<p style="text-align:center;"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://genobz.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/adopt-abandoned-blog.png" alt="This blog has been Abandoned. But you can adopt it!" /></p>
<strong><p>This blog has been Abandoned. If you are interested in adopting this WordPress address, leave a comment below giving the reasons for acquiring this WordPress address. If found genuine, the blog will be transferred to the blogger. Cheers!</p>
<p>If you have an abandoned or unused blog that you want to put up for adoption, <a href="http://wp.me/pinhe-mB" title="Save WP blogs! Recycle them!" target="_blank">check this link -  bit.ly/saveWPblogs</a></p></strong>

Since, the ability to post comments on this page is a necessity, Enable comments for this page.

Now, it is essential that this is the first page that a blogger, who is looking for a suitable blog name, comes across. Hence, make this page the blog’s homepage. To do this,

3. On the Dashboard,  Settings >> Reading.

Change the Front Displays to a static page – “Adopt this abandoned blog”.

Now, assuming that a blogger might be interested in adopting it and hence, leaves a comment on the page. After verifying that the comment is not from a spammer, the blog can be transferred.

4. Dashboard >> My Blogs. Upon hovering over the address of the blog, the option of Transfer blog is displayed. Click on “Transfer Blog”.

5. A “Big Important Warning” comes up. Select “I understand, now let me continue”. Then, Enter the username or email address of the blogger who is interested in adopting that blog.

6. Upon receiving the confirmation email in the registered email inbox (your’s), click on the confirmation id.

The Blog will then be transferred (Non-reversible) to the new blogger. This will be confirmed by a mail received by the new owner of the blog which looks something like this -

Pls remember that this confirmation will be received by the new owner of the blog. The old owner of the blog will then have no right or access to the blog.

As a fair warning, I suggest you use this only for blogs which were not used at all. This would make sure there are no misunderstandings from your blog followers (as mentioned in the T&C).

If, in case, you intend to transfer a used (but abandoned) blog, then delete all posts, pages and content before transferring. This would make sure your data (posts/pages) doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.

Good Luck!

Here are the abandoned blogs which i have put up for adoption. You can check them out and if interested you can adopt them as well.

group blogger .WP.com

catalytic thoughts .WP.com

made me mad .WP.com

streaming lyf .WP.com

jagarati .WP.com

red catalyst .WP.com

If you have abandoned any blog, you can do this as well. This will help in reclaiming unused or abandoned blogs and make them available to other bloggers who can put it to a better use.

If you do follow this approach to find a new blogger for your abandoned blog, I suggest that you share the links to the abandoned blogs in the comments below. Additionally, you can link back to this post (bit.ly/saveWPblogs)to help in the adoption of the above WP.com blog addresses.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope this helps in saving a few abandoned blogs.

What do you think about this? What else can be done to rehabilitate abandoned blogs?

Alternate title :  How to effectively solve the problem of ever growing traffic?

There is one thing which I have noticed while driving around in Kolkata – Most of the Privately owned cars are driven by hired-drivers instead of the car owners. This applies to people owning Audi Q7 as well as Tata Nano. May sound unbelievable, but a good number of low-end cars are driven by hired drivers while the owners prefer to sit comfortably on the back seat. Why? Ask a person who owns a vehicle and he would not hesitate to blame it on the pathetic state of roads and disgusting traffic. And this isn’t false.

But if we try to look at the bigger picture here, to identify the root of the problem, it is not difficult to rule out bad roads and bad driving sense as the major culprits of strenuous driving experience  that the drivers face today. The actual culprit is the ever increasing number of privately owned cars.

According to an estimate, there are around 6 billion people worldwide today and the number of cars on our planet is around 800 Million. By 2050, the population is expected to rise to 9 billion people whereas the number of cars on the planet are expected to double. Considering the present scenario, when traffic management is becoming increasingly difficult worldwide,  it is quite unimaginable as to how our present traffic management tools  will be able to cope up with that much traffic. What is demanded is a Revolution and a change in the way how things work today in the transport industry.

Even though different people will suggest different solutions, the most successful solution is bound to be based on public transportation. As everyone knows, public transportation brings down the vehicle-to-passenger ratio hence reducing the number of vehicles on road. But, the present public transport system isn’t capable enough to cater to the current needs of commuters, let alone the increased requirements of the future. Hence, this calls for an innovative  solution with  public transportation at its heart.

In one of the recent TED talks by Bill Ford, who is the Executive chair of the Ford Motor Company, shared the same concern. In his talk, he demonstrated how we are addressing the problem of ever increasing cars in the wrong way. He calls for the development of technology which will enable inter-vehicle  communication which will lead to a more uniformly distributed traffic along all routes.

At the very same time, when Americans suggest to solve this problem with better navigation and smart vehicle networks, the Europeans have chosen a different way to control this. In London, each car driver is required to pay a ‘congestion tax’ which is very much like the Toll tax except that there is no toll booth. Elsewhere, government regulations have put the maximum speed limit to around 10-20mph in city while completely restricting cars from entering several roads. All of this has been done to promote public transport and to prioritize the pedestrians.  (Read – Across Europe, Irking Drivers is Urban Policy)

While the western world is busy devising their ways to tackle the imminent traffic gridlock, our country is cherishing the prospect of a proposed Metro Rail Project in some XYZ city. This is when, Metro Rail Projects are very expensive, can never recover the initial capital costs from their incomes, and are capable of serving only a fraction of the population since they are not well spread out in the city. The attached link (Bangalore – Metro is not a solution) explains why Metro  Rail is not as successful as it is in cities like London. This document also compares the effectiveness of Metro Rails with that of expansion of Bus Networks. Further, as the effectiveness of Metro Rail was criticized and was considered too expensive and time-taking to setup, the possibility of setting up Monorails came into picture. As of now, Mumbai will be the first Indian city to test the concept of Monorails  in the Indian Scenario. Chennai, where the construction of Metro Rails is still on, seems to be next Indian city where Monorails will be constructed. ( Read - Monorail or Metro Rail: the pros and cons )

In my opinion, I feel that using BRT (Bus Rapid Transport) systems is the best solution at hand for the developing nations. In India, this system was tested in Delhi where it has gained appreciation as well as criticism from the public. The reactions are obvious. People who travel by buses on BRT corridors appreciate the service whereas the car owners, travelling on the same route, criticize it for reducing the space available to them for driving hence causing even worse traffic jams. But the idea is simple. The ultimate objective is to benefit maximum people, which is being done as more people are transported by buses on these routes as compared to cars, and to prioritize public transport. The latter is very important since it provides an incentive to the public travelling by private vehicles to switch to public transport. BRT is also a more viable solution since it can be brought into existence with minimum gestation period and less amount of capital involvement as compared to the Metro Rails and Monorails. Plus, BRT corridors offer flexibility since a normal vehicle can also run on that track, when required, hence can be helpful in providing a faster track to Ambulances, Fire trucks and School Buses. But I will also state that the current BRT system has some faults which need to be worked upon before this system is applied elsewhere in the country.

What do you have to say?

(For more links on the same topic, check here)

Today, India possesses the fourth largest economy in the world and her prominence in the global economy is increasing even further. If predictions are to be believed, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) will surpass the US economy by 2020 even as India overtakes Japan to become #3. It goes further, with predications that India will overtake the US by 2050. It is only natural that we, being Indians, will approve these predictions. After all, these are in our favour. The experts, from around the world, have given obvious reasons – Second Largest Population, Increasing Business Opportunities, High Economic Growth, Power of Democracy (to overtake China)…  and the list continues. The experts, from India, sing on the same tunes, though some of them also highlight the biggest challenges that India faces. Obviously, we prefer to hear people praising our country and hence, Indian media shows the same picture.

However, I believe that we, the youth, are the architects of the India as we see it 30 years from now. Yes, we have to our advantage those points, which were pointed out by experts worldwide, which will help us in achieving that. But, these favourable points are not enough. As architects of Modern India, we need to know and address the grave problems that our motherland faces today.

To Help us understand and address these problems, Ramachandra Guha, a historian and biographer based in Bangalore, listed the 10 major challenges that the Republic of India faces today, which should be overcome if we want the above predictions to hold true.  Though this list is not exhaustive, it still states some of the serious problems.

The entire talk given by him can be accessed here,

In case you intend to watch the video, which I strongly recommend, here is some info which might come handy:

• The video is 1 hour 23 mins long
• Ramachandra Guha starts explaining the 10 major challenges from 12 min 30 secs onwards.
• After he finishes explaining them, he lists them again. (at 1 hour 2 mins 20 secs)
• The Round of Queries begins at 1 hour 8 mins

But since the talk is quite long, I will give you a brief highlight of the same below. There is also a brief description for the points which may not be entirely clear by the headlines itself.

1. Left Wing Maoist Insurgency (includes tribals, naxalites etc.)

2. Currently recessive but ever present Right Wing Religious Fundamentalists (includes BJP, the RSS etc)

3. Decline and corruption of democratic centre and Conversion of Political parties into family firms.

No person in our country is a stranger to the corruption that prevails in our country today. We may be trying to set everything right using tools like LokPal but the required efforts go much beyond that. At the same time, everyone is familiar with the family business called ‘Political Party‘. While, these Parties were born with genuine problems to be addressed, their heirs seem to have somewhat lost track. (e.g. Kanimozhi, suspect in 2G Scam, is the daughter of DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi)

(Interesting Read : The Curious Case of Rahul Gandhi )

4. Degradation of Public Institutions

5. Growing gap between the Rich and Poor

6. Rapid pace of Domestic Environmental Degradation

Some of which include

• Rates of pollution in Indian Cities amongst the highest in the world
• Major Rivers are dead
• Short Sighted agricultural policies which have led to groundwater  level depletion below safe limits.
• Waste disposal (which includes Nuclear Disposal)

7. Apathy of the Media

The Indian media, which had a major role in nurturing nationalism during the time of Independence and in furthering the idols of Indian Democracy post-independence, plays a less than optimal role in addressing the present day issues. Media is more concerned about readership, TRP and wealth and concentrates unnecessarily on Celebrities and Superstardom.

8. Political Defragmentation & Policy Incoherence

Though, it is justified to say that two party or three party system cannot take care of each community and represent each problem effectively. But today, because of the huge number of such parties, at the time of election, it is very unlikely that a single party will form a clear majority. Hence, the parties require coalition with smaller parties. These small parties tend to ask for most profitable ministries in return of the coalition. The Multiparty coalition is a constraint against rational far sighted policy making. It merely becomes the gateway to corruption in the government.

9. Unreconciled Border lands

While the majority of Indians are proud to call themselves Indian, there are few people from states like Kashmir, Nagaland and Manipur, who are more inclined towards converting these states into independent nations.

10. Extremely Unstable Neighbourhood

It is natural that quite a lot of us will tend to disagree with these problems classifying them as not-important or not-critical or an exaggeration of a nominal issue. But, Mr Guha is not the sole person to believe that the road to superstardom for India faces these many challenges. There are many other notable figures, like Amartya Sen, who have stated similar problems.

(Read Amartya Sen questions India’s title as “knowledge superpower” | Financial Times)

Similarly, an interesting perspective has been presented in the Economist, where the GDP of Indian states are compared with GDP of nations.

(Check it out here - Comparing Indian states and territories with countries | The Economist)

Hence, addressing these problems is the first step towards building the Modern India that we dream of. Since, most of these problems can only be addressed by the state, the role of the citizens is to choose the right people to represent them i.e. the right politicians. Additionally, The citizens and the media need to create awareness about the same and ensure that due attention is given to it by the state.

Do what you can to contribute.

Help spread the words.

Calcutta, West Bengal

7PM. It had just stopped raining and I was driving towards the Vegetable shop with my mom. Just as I dropped her off in front of the shop, I drove off to look for a parking spot. Unusually, there was hardly any place to park my car, so, I stopped by a spot which was occupied by two (Cycle) Rickshaws parked next to each other. While still in the car, I called out to the Rickshaw driver,

(The conversation was partly in Hindi and partly in my pathetic Bengali, but for the sake of respect for Bengali, I’ll use English)

‘Dada (Bengali for Elder Brother), Can you please move your rickshaws a bit so that I can park my car here…’

The young rickshaw driver resisted and called the older rickshaw driver, who was even more stubborn, to convince me to drive away. But, as the younger guy got a customer, he cycled away on his rickshaw, which gave me enough space to park my car. It took me about 5 minutes to reach the shop, from the time I had dropped off my mom there. By the time I reached the shop, my mom had already purchased the vegetables. As she moved towards the Fruit shop, I stood there in front of the fruit shop with the vegetable packets.

About a minute later, I see a man, in his fifties, walking through the mud pool which was in front of the shop. He stopped by the carton which had Litchis in it and picked up around 5 of them. He looked around and found that I was looking at him. He removed the skin of one of the litchis, those that he had picked up, and started eating it while walking towards the shop. With his casual attitude and walk, one would say that he part-owned that shop. My mom stood in front of the fruit shop with a lady standing close to her. The fruit seller was engaged in calculating the amount of money that my mom was supposed to pay for those fruits. The old guy stopped when he was just behind my mom. I looked away to keep a check on my car, which was parked some distance away. When I looked back, towards my mom, she was handing over the cash to the fruit seller. The old guy, as he ate the last litchi he had picked up, walked back towards the litchi carton and picked up 3 more, keeping 2 of them in his pocket. He looked up, and saw me looking at him again. Still confident, he simply walked away in the opposite direction as he ate the last litchi.

As I walked back towards our car, with my mom, I pointed towards the Cycle Rickshaw which was still parked behind my car.

‘Mom, The driver of that rickshaw just came to the fruit shop and took away more than a hundred grams of Litchi without paying for them..!’

*****

and you thought that every person pays for what they consume??

Poverty, as seen above, is  one of the main reasons of corruption at the grass root level.

( 1kg litchi = 100 Rupees (as of now) = 35 Litchis. You can do the rest of the Maths.)

Featured Images – Rickshaw

Alternate title :  Few things to keep in mind while getting around in Bangalore

Hi! I have been in Bangalore for almost 5 months now, and I felt like contributing in some way for the benefit of the people who have arrived in Bangalore for the first time or who will be coming here in the near future.

Here are a few things I have learnt about getting around in Bangalore:

Just arrived!

If you have just arrived in Bangalore, try and go for a prepaid Taxi or Auto. Avoid random Taxis and Autos at all cost, unless of course, you are ready to shell out up to 2 or 3 times the actual travelling fare. If you do not have a lot of luggage, you can also use the BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) buses.

[@ The Airport] Take either Prepaid Taxi or a BIA(S) bus. If you are looking for a cheap way out, use the BIA(S) bus service. If you are unsure which bus to take, just talk to a conductor and he will be glad to help you out. Do NOT fall prey to those Cab Drivers who might try and lure you for a City drop at 200 or 300 rupees. Those are shared Taxis and you never get to know before hand who will be travelling with you. So, Avoid it.

You can also pre-book a Taxi from one of these Tele-booking Services.

Meru Cabs ( Online Booking | 080 – 44 22 44 22 )

Just Dial ( Online Contact | 080 – 69 99 99 99 )

Commuting around the City

If you are going to a place for the first time, I suggest you look up the route beforehand on Google Maps and decide the best mode of transportation accordingly.

(Bangalore is the one of the few Indian Cities to have bus routes available on Google maps)

Own a smartphone?? Use it!!

If you own one, it could be of great use! Use Google maps on your smartphone to get Bus routes on the go. You can plan your travel accordingly.

Here’s something else you might find helpful while travelling around the city…

By Bus

If possible, take the BMTC Volvo as they are faster, safer and more comfortable. If you do not have an idea of the Bus routes, you can use the following links

(BMTC Route Search | Official BMTC Route Search | BMTC Bus stops )

Download : BMTC Route Maps in PDF | BMTC Bus Stops and Bus numbers (xls)

By Auto-Rickshaw/Taxi

Most of the Auto Rickshaw Drivers will not leave an opportunity to rob you. The Actual Rate is approximately 8 rupees per km. So try and bargain accordingly. It is highly possible that the Auto driver will merely drive away on hearing your bargain. Don’t be offended, it’s their style to say no!

Consider the normal charges are Z rupees, they will ask for 1.5 x Z after 10pm and before 7 am. In fact, the union has approved the 1.5 times charge post 10pm, so it is fair. Though, that does not mean that their Rate meters are in perfect condition. You can expect that the actual fare will turn out to be 25% more than the true fare.

After 10pm, if you have to travel at least 8-10km, take a cab instead. The Cab is likely to charge 150-160 bucks for 4 people whereas the Auto will demand about 200 (1 Auto). Again, the cabs I talk of are the pre-booked ones. If you use services like the JUST DIAL ( 080 – 69 99 99 99), you are likely to get a cab within 10 mins of booking. So use that instead. It’s much safer as well. At all costs, avoid the shared Taxis, like the Tata Sumo and Indica which stop at quite a lot of bus stops for pickup.

Here are two contrasting experiences involving Auto-Rickshaws.

Humanity still exists… But with a twist 

Scary Auto Experience

Outbound?

When using buses to travel from Bangalore to another city, travel only in KSRTC buses or VRL travels. Both of these have well maintained Volvo buses which ply on time.

KSRTC Online Booking | VRL Travels

By Train

Oops! I haven’t travelled by Train to/from Bangalore so can’t give a firsthand guide to that. I guess the only links I can give are IndianRail.gov.in and IRCTC.com.

Let me know if I missed something…

(For exhaustive info on travelling in Bangalore, Check WikiTravel )

Featured Images – Traffic | BIAS Volvo | MeruCabs | Fare Meter

A simple question,

How do I make my readers subscribe to my posts simply by clicking on a link??

This question has struck many bloggers, specially on WordPress, like me.

Here is how I have tackled this problem :

Post a link to the Subscription Widget so that the reader is redirected to the widget where he can click on ‘Subscribe me now!’ to get subscribed successfully. 

(Thank you WordPress Support Staff. Specially, Mr Blake W.)

Here is how you do it - 

View the source code for the page (generally the homepage) which has the Subscription Widget

Google Chrome – Wrench Menu > Tools > View Source
Internet Explorer 9- F12 Developer Tools > View > Source > Original
Mozilla Firefox – View > Page Source

For demonstration purpose, check the source code of this page.

Use Ctrl + F to find this – widget_blog_subscription

You should get a result similar to the one shown in the following image.

Check the id as shown in the figure

As you would have seen, the id for my Subscription Widget is blog_subscription-5

Hence, the direct link to my subscription widget would be:

http://genobz.wordpress.com/#blog_subscription-5

Try it out by clicking here – Subscribe now!

Similarly, you can get the direct link to your subscription widget which you can, then, use in your posts to make it easier for your readers to subscribe to your posts.

FAQ -

Don’t I need to inform my readers before hand that they would be redirected to a widget on clicking that link since they might not be expecting that?

Yes, you might want to do that. Read the Next page to know how to do that.

Just as I had updated the Arsenal Themepack for Season 2011/12, I thought of updating the BMW themepack as well. Hence, I looked over the Internet for some decent Wallpapers and turned them into a theme Compatible with Windows 7. Here,  have a look:
(Download the themes by clicking on the corresponding thumbnails.).

However, I would recommend you to download the following theme which consists of the best backgrounds taken from the above four themes plus some more backgrounds.

Features:

• Slideshow desktop
• Picture position = Fill
• Wallpaper changes every 10 seconds.
• Shuffle = yes
• Theme colour is Black. (Can be changed upon installation)

Other Information

BMW-5Series-Official consists of 21 High Quality Backgrounds (1920×1200) available for download from BMW.com official website.

BMW-7-Z4-M3-Official consists of 19 BMW Backgrounds in 1024×768 Resolution available for download from BMW.com Official website

BMW-Fans21 is composed of some of the best BMW wallpapers available. It is a collection of 21 Wallpapersin varying resolutions. If a background appears as stretched when applied, you can un-select it from Personalize> Desktop Backgrounds

BMW-Sedans is the old theme shared by me. It is composed of 38 Wallpapers with a mix of 5Series and 7Series Sedans.

BMW-Recommended is composed of 35 High Quality Wallpapers composed out of the above three themes. This is the best of the five themes mentioned here.

(To download the themes, click on the thumbnails of the themes )