This one came in the mail:
2005, Sep 05
2005, Sep 03
Thank you, Orange
I have an Orange prepaid account as my mobile service provider. Recently, they decided to change their GPRS access rates, from a flat of Rs. 99/- per month to Rs. 49/- per month with 10p per 10kb of transferred data. There is a rant about this, check the archives.
Well, since I did not want to foot the BIG bill that would arise if I continued my subscription to GPRS, I decided to discontinue.
Today, I receive this from Orange in an SMS:
Wef Sep 1 monthly charges for GPRS have been changed to Rs. 49. Since you have paid a monthly rental of Rs 99 in advance, Rs 50 has been refunded by increasing the balance on your Orange account. Thank you.
Now, I did not pay a single paisa in advance for my GPRS, this monthÂ… Maybe there is something wrong with the Orange billing softwareÂ… Wonder how that happened? Atos, you reading this?
But, in the end, it works out nice and good for me, an extra Rs. 50 worth of talk timeÂ…
2005, Sep 02
Google Earth
It’s been over 24 hours, and the machine works! Life is, suddenly, very good!
Downloaded Google Earth today. Awesome tool, that.
The map resolution for India is not that very great, about 10-20 km. But still it’s great fun tracking down rail and road routes. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway, for one, is very clearly visible. You can actually see it go inside tunnels and stuff… Tracked down the Konkan Railway, and the Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail.
Map resolution for other cities, such as those in US, or Europe is superb. You can see individual buildings, even cars on the road, when the satellite picture was taken. Street names, restaurants, ATM machines, train/bus terminals, all you have to do is ask for it. There are supposedly many user layers too.
However, in the Indian context, there is still a lot of content missing.
Some issues: The Dahanu Thermal Power Plant is visible in great detail. This concerns me. Not very difficult for someone to plan an attack. I give this example, since I did not bother to check out other utilities. But am sure, they are equally visible. In the US maps, Google has been asked to not publish air force bases and other military installations. That they have done. Some bridges are missing too, just as security measures.
Which brings me to the real issue: Google Earth is a pretty kewl tool, only if one uses it right. It gives any desktop user awesome power, and if not used responsibly, it has enough bang to do something wicked.
This blog post was published from within Microsoft Word using the Blogger Word Integration Tool. Pretty awesome feature. Allows me to publish anything, offline, and at my convenience. Plus, I get all the features of Word, such as spell checker, and an interface that I am familiar with.
Yes, there is no HTML hacking, but for blogging, it’s a great tool. Way to go, Blogger!
2005, Sep 01
It’s up and running!
Well, the PC is back online.
Went to Lamington Road today, and got myself the CPU retention mechanism. Cost me 75 bucks!
Anyway, that’s what this post is all about.
Hopefully we shall see some uptime records now… Till then, move along, nothing to see here.