Ten Indian Stock Market Bloggers & Forums

While researching on the net for more information about the workings of the stock market and in-general for my personal knowhow came across some sites which I think would be useful for all…Do NOTE these are mentioned in no particular order…rather in the order I managed to find them.

Blogs:-

http://www.blog.happionaire.com/: The Happionaire Blog by Yogesh Chabria, author of “Invest The Happionaire Way” and “Cash The Crash”. I’m reading these books currently and do find them useful, although he does tend to get repetitive.

http://ranjanvarma.com/: Claims to be the Editor for India’s first online weekly on Personal Finance and seems to have built a Personal Finance Tracker called Rupee Manager Rupee Manager.

http://www.rupya.com/: Claims to the the first blog for Indian Financial Market

http://sagecapital.wordpress.com/: A blog that does trend analysis of Indian stocks.

http://www.thinkplaninvest.com/: A blog to plan your investments

http://blog.investraction.com/: The Indian Investor’s Blog

http://valueinvestorindia.blogspot.com/: A blog for understanding and applying value investing principles

http://www.stockmarketguide.in/: There seems to be a paid blog version as well.

http://www.beyouranalyst.com/: A blog on stock market and economic analysis

http://www.ventureintelligence.in/blog/: A blog that tracks investments and business opportunities in India

I’m sure there are many more out there, and if any of you have found them to be useful, please let me know and I will update the list.

Forums and Sites:-

http://www.vccircle.com/: A fast growing website that tracks the Indian investment economy.

http://www.traderji.com/: An online community for Indian Investors and Traders

http://www.theequitydesk.com/: Indian Equity Desk. Very informative I must say and the users seem to be specialists.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Technorati Tags: Ten Indian Stock Bloggers,Indian Stock Market,India,Stock Market,Venture Capital,Investing in India,Trading,Equity

My Current Flipkart Shopping Cart

Here are some interesting books that are currently on my flipkart shopping cart.

The Intelligent Investor: A Book Of Practical Counsel
by Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig

Crossing The Chasm: Marketing And Selling Disruptive Products To Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore

Inside The Tornado: Strategies For Developing, Leveraging, And Surviving Hypergrowth Markets
by Geoffrey A. Moore

Living On The Fault Line
by Geoffrey Moore

Out Of The Box : Watching The Game We Love
by Harsha Bhogle

You're Hired!: How To Get That Job And Keep It Too
by Nasha Fitter

Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight
by Rujuta Diwekar

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Technorati Tags: Flipkart,Books,Finance,Stocks,Benjamin Graham,Geoffrey Moore,Cricket,Harsha Bhogle,Jobs,Fitness,Rijuta Diwekar,Weight Loss

lifeMojo

Came to know about http://www.lifemojo.com from the BBC mailing list. One of the founders of this site is a member here and had mentioned about it in one of his emails.

Decided to check it out, and overall I think it’s pretty decent. It stores all the walks, runs, bike rides along with the daily diet (haven’t used this as yet) and provides graphical results.

I have been maintaining my records for over a month now and my profile is at

http://www.lifemojo.com/people/yogeshranade

Overall cycling updates:-

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 2100 Kms  approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 2666 Kms approximately

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Technorati Tags: Cycling,lifeMojo,Fitness

Storytelling Science and Arvind Gupta

Was reading through an interesting write up on cycling (was recommended by a BBC member on the BBC newsgroup. The article is here
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/~amit/other/iitk/cycle.txt

Found the article to be an amazing piece of writing, and seeing that it was hosted on IIT Kanpur’s servers, found that it was a personal site by Amitabha Mukerjee. Decided to dig around and was amazed at the works of Amitabha Mukerjee who teaches Computer Science at IIT Kanpur. For more details visit

http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/~amit/

Extremely interesting is the Storytelling Science page and it’s a must-read. It is an amazing set of stories, you must see it, read it and assimilate the gist of what Amitabha is saying. Read it here at http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/~amit/story/index.html

I actually made the paper helicopter and the paper cup, right here in office and am thrilled..I will be showing it to my son tonight for sure. Awesome.

While reading the Play God make your ferocious Gecko! article noticed at the end that Amitabha mentions that this is from one of hundreds of projects in the book “Ten Little Fingers” by Arvind Gupta. Was intrigued, so a quick google search on Arvind Gupta took me to

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/

What an amazing site, all of Arvind Gupta’s works and numerous translations are available here. Take a look, read, assimilate and circulate the amazing collection amongst the kids near you. I for one will for sure.

Heartiest Best Wishes to Amitabha and Arvind for the untiring efforts that they might have spent on this magnificent endeavor of theirs.

Cheers,
Yogesh

Technorati Tags: Amitabha Mukerjee,Arvind Gupta,Story Telling,Science,Technology

Trip to Wayanad (Part 3)

Part 1 and Part 2 of the series can be found here.

Before retiring for the night, we decided that we did not want this trip to become hectic. Mrs. Seetha mentioned that Kuruva Island had been shut down due to the rains. So we decided to head out to Lakkidi Viewpoint, Pookote Lake  and then try and make it to Soochipara Waterfalls the next day.

Three of us had a pleasant sleep and got up refreshed to the beautiful aromas of tea and coffee plantations. We were provided with hot cups of tea and coffee by Mrs. Seetha herself in our dainty cottage.

We then got ready and then all of us then gathered for a sumptuous breakfast. The boys were having great fun together playing and jumping around the estate. Spent some time clicking photos of the estate in daylight..and then headed out towards Pookote lake with Vivek guiding us.

 

On the way, we stopped at a Tea estate and it was snap time again.

With that, we again headed out towards Lakkidi View point,  the roads were beautiful winding ones, decked with mountains of green and the blues of the sky and the small waterfalls all along. We stopped at one of the small waterfalls and Arjun had some fun time there…Lakkidi View point is essentially one of the highest locations in Wayanad and the road was a ghat.

We then headed towards Pookote Lake, along the way Vivek showed us the Chain Tree. We reached Pookote Lake by around 11:30 am and spent time boating, taking nice walks around the lake and eating munchies (ice-creams etc) Overall a great quality time with family.

We then headed out towards Vythiri Resorts, it seems it’s the oldest resort in Wayanad and earlier Wayanad was synonymous to Vythiri Resorts for the tourists. Mrs. Seetha and Vivek told us to atleast visit and if possible have lunch there as well. Off we headed to Vythiri resorts, the resort is reachable by a motorable but extremely treacherous “kaccha” road, and although it was only 3.5kms it took us almost 30 mins to reach the resort. The drive was amazing, that if fuelled my ambition to buy a 4*4 sometime in the future (when I can afford one).

Vythiri Resort is a wonderful resort nestled right in the jungle with a river flowing right through it. Has nice cottages and as per the locals is an excellent place. The main attraction being the hanging bridge. Tourists who do not stay there can even go and explore the resort and if hungry can snack up or stay for lunch. I wouldn’t recommend dinner unless you are staying there, since coming back through that route in the night won’t be recommended for the family types…but mind you it would be one helluva experience. We decided to have buffet lunch at the resort, Sachin and family decided otherwise and headed towards Kalpetta. We decided we would synch up with them at Kalpetta. In a way, we celebrated Sawani’s birthday, alone as a family with excellent lunch.

We had a leisurely walk across the resort, spent quality time and then decided to head out towards Kalpetta. Once we reached the highway, we stopped over for some local purchases and then met the gang again at Kalpetta. It was about 3/3:30 and Vivek mentioned that Soochipara falls is open only till 4:30pm and that it would take us atleast 40mins to reach there. That would give us about 30/40 mins at the falls, which we all thought wasn’t time enough, so instead we decided to head out to Banasursagar Dam. Vivek mentioned that we could do speed boating there as well. It was about 30 mins drive and what an amazing place it turned out to be.  Excellent backdrop and backwaters and the scenery was just breathtaking. Btw: we had to again travel by a jeep for about 3 kms to reach the dam.

We then waited for about 45 mins for our turn to come on the speed boat. There was only one speed boat available which was kinda a sore point with so many tourists, the tourism deptt. could have done much better. We decided to split up since we couldn’t accommodate the 9 of us in a single ride, so the 3 of us decided to go first and then the Sachin’s would go in the next round. The speed boat ride was not thrilling really, but more relaxing. We sighted a herd of elephants in the adjoining jungles, we were lucky as per the local legend, since the rides earlier to us hadn’t sighted them and amazing they were brown elephants. It was our first time to see a herd of brown elephants. Even the boatman was busy clicking snaps on his mobile (guess it was his first time as well).

 

With our turn done, we then whiled away our time in the garden nearby waiting for Sachin’s ride to complete, and we were in for some fun moments. On their round, the speed boat had an engine failure, can you believe that, all the 6 of them were stranded in the middle of the lake on a dead boat. The local authorities took their sweet time to send out another boat (atleast 50 mins) to tow them back to safety, and the other boat also faced hiccups (stalling in the middle for some moments) it was crazy and hilarious. Sachin and team must have had one thrilling experience. By about 6/6:30 we headed out back to Ente Veedu and along the way in Panamaram I bought a nice walnut cake for Sawani and reached by around 7:30 pm. We then relaxed in the hammocks and the jhoolas to be again treated for some delicious dinner by Mrs. Seetha.

The next day  was Sawani’s Birthday and Mrs. Seetha arranged an excellent spread  of breakfast. Sawani cut her birthday with cheers of Happy Birthday from all of us. It was great and many Thanks to Mrs. Seetha for making it so special.

Later Sachin and team decided to visit Soochipara falls but we decided to head back. We decided to take Mananthawadi-Kartikulam-Kutta-Nagarhole-Hunsur-Srirangapatna-Bangalore route so we could travel through Tholpetta and Nagarhole (Rajiv Gandhi National Park). We headed out at about 11 am thanking Mrs. Seetha for her wonderful hospitality and thinking about the amazing time we had there and hoping one day to go back.

The return journey through the forests were amazing and this time around we were lucky to see herds of deer and elephants along with tons and tons of monkeys. The Nagarhole forest is an amazing jungle and to travel through it was a great experience that is difficult to pen down but rather something that one has to experience.

 

We were back in Bangalore at about 6 pm on 27th July to cap up a great weekend outing.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Trip to Wayanad (Part 2)..Ente Veedu

For the earlier post refer here

While on our way from Edakkal Caves to Ente Veedu we decided to do some shopping on the way. Ente Veedu essentially is located at about 3/5 kms from Panamarama which is about 35km drive towards from the Sultan Bathery to Kalpetta (State ?) highway.  We were told by Vivek that there were Gandhigram stores spread across Wayanad from where we could purchase local flavours. So we stopped at one of the Gandhigrams and did some minor purchases.

With the items in our kitty, we decided to head towards Ente Veedu. The drive was scenic and beautiful with Vivek giving us useful information of the locals. We reached Ente Veedu by around 6:00 pm to be welcomed into a beautiful home. Mrs. Seetha wasn’t there and we were told that she had gone to attend a cultural event nearby and would be back soon. Vivek showed us the place and provided us the keys to the cottage. We just loved the place, it was cosy, yup that’s the right word, a cosy little home stay nestled within the woods, away from the humdrum of the town, totally isolated, no crowds, no rooms and multitude of guests vying for attention, it was pure bliss.

We were served some delicious local sweets ..I forget the name, but essentially very similar to the Maharashtrian Modaks that we have, just flat, comprised of coconut + jaggery covered in rice flour engrossed in leaves. It tasted fantastic along with fresh coffee from the estate.

All of us were totally relaxed and we lazed around a bit. The estate is essentially a bungalow where Mrs Seetha and her husband Mr Raj live on the ground floor and they rent out the top floor. Adjacent to it, divided by an awesome badminton and common garden area (which is huge btw) are the 2 cottages. We had decided to stay in the bamboo cottages as opposed to the concrete bungalow to experience the jungle.

Along with there’s a nice lounge and a small birds nest where a wide variety of birds thrive.

The view from the home stay overlooked the beautiful estate owned by Mrs. Seetha herself.

We lazed around the evening and relaxed as the sun went down and darkness engulfed us.

The 3 kids were having a blast, enjoying cricket, badminton, carrom, running around and then relaxing in the hammocks.

Sawani & I relaxed on the jhoola talking to each other..discussing so many things. It was awesome.

Around 7/7:30 Mrs. Seetha arrived..what a gregarious and gracious lady. With the round of introductions complete, Mrs Seetha was a host personified. She mentioned that whatever we needed, we just had to ask and it will be available. With tons of freshly brewed coffee and tea available it was the epitome of relaxation and pampering. At about 9pm we were served with traditional Keralite cuisine for dinner. Later after dinner Mrs Seetha took us around the house, introducing her to the family and explaining how her 3 kids stay away from them and they manage the home stay. Felt wonderful and was amazed to see the resolve of the woman who oversaw the entire operations of the estate and the homestay along with her doting husband.

Later in the night we came back to our cottage and retired for the night. Felt great and all of us dozed silently and peacefully with the forest noises putting us to sleep. Day 1 done and over…

Day 2 and Day 3 coming soon..

For photos visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/yranade/WayanadTrip#

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Trip to Wayanad (Part 1)

Yeah, this one was long overdue.

Last month on the 25/26/27th of July we decided to go off on a family vacation. Sawani’s birthday falls on the 27th of July and we have decided to spend time away from home every year on her birthday. So about a week before, we started scouting for nearby places of interest. Typically being a weekend getaway, we didn’t want the place to be beyond 300kms of distance from Bangalore (sometimes it just gets too tiring travelling and quite a many times we felt more tired than relaxed after a weekend off). So we looked up Holiday IQ and based on umpteen discussions between the 3 of us we shortlisted 2 places…It was a toss up between Kabini River Lodge or Wayanad. Both the places looked equally inviting. But being July and with the rains in full flow, we came to know that Kabini river was flowing to the brim, and due to the rains chances of seeing wild animals in the awesome Nagarhole National park were bleak. Actually, it was raining in Kerala as well…so we were kind of thinking whether the trip would be a go. Anyways, my scouting out for a resort continued unabated. While going through Holiday IQ for places to stay in Wayanad I remembered the last time on our Coorg trip we had thought that it would be wonderful to stay in a Homestay and experience native hospitality of that particular region rather than live in a hotel/resort, so decided to look for an appropriate Home stay. Lo and behold, among the homestay’s that had the maximum of ratings turned out to be a nice place called Ente Veedu. Interestingly in Malayalam it means “My own home”. I called up Ente Veedu and a lady by the name Mrs. Seetha answered my phone and explained the facilities at Ente Veedu. She was so gracious and honest and mentioned that it was raining heavily in Wayanad and it would not be a good idea to visit at this time. We were disappointed but she mentioned that, we could do the booking, and she would call us if the weather cleared up…else she would refund the entire amount. Now where does one get this kind of service, in the extremely commercial world of today.  Still we were a bit unsure, and guess what, over the next couple of days, she mentioned that there was no need to make any upfront payment and we could just drive over. She would reserve a Bamboo Cottage (as per our preference) for us. It was amazing…So the destination decided was Wayanad, decked in the beautiful Western Ghats and we would be staying at Ente Veedu.

Meanwhile I also googled for routes and the best way to travel to Wayanad. Interestingly came across this site…http://www.hampi.in/bangalore-to-wayanad-by-road.shtml which gave amazing details into travelling by road to Wayanad from Bangalore, that I decided to follow the directions albeit with a little change. Instead of going by route A and coming back by Route C, as suggested, I decided it would be better to go by Route C and come back by Route A, reason being I was aware of Route C, right upto Gundlupet since it falls on the way to Ooty and having done Ooty a couple of times I was comfortable with the route. That way we would be covering 4 forests…(yeah I am aware it’s a single monolithic chain divided only by the official state demarcations)…on the way to Wayanad it would be Bandipur (Karnataka) and Muthanga (Kerala) and on the way back it would be Tholpetty (Kerala) and Nagarhole (Karnataka)…how about that eh…

So with all the planning done we started at around 6:30 am in the morning on the 25th towards Wayanad…via Mysore. The weather was perfect and it was great being in the car with family…chatting, laughing, joking…with Sawani and Arjun…

In no time (9 am actually) we reached Chennapatna, a small town before Mysore famous for it’s wooden toys.  We stopped for breakfast at the famous Kamat hotel on SH17 and had some delicious Idly and Wada. Sawani then indulged in some shopping in the nearby store and off we headed towards Mysore.

We crossed Mysore at about 10/10:30ish and headed towards Ooty on NH212. We rang up Mrs. Seetha and she mentioned that since we would reach Wayanad (Sultan Bathery) by around 12/12:30, it maybe better for us to visit Edakkal Caves on the way and then reach Ente Veedu by the evening, since she was not sure of the rains in the later part of the day. She mentioned, her guide would be available for us from Sultan Bathery and then he would take us to Edakkal caves. We agreed and decided we would have lunch at Sultan Batthery and then head out as planned. In the interim, our journey continued, the weather was nice and misty and we reached Gundlupet by about 11 am. From there we had to leave the road to Ooty and head towards Maddur and Sultan Bathery via the Bandipur/Muthanga forests. The journey through the forests was amazing with all of us silent in our cars, car moving slowly, looking out for animal sightings..unfortunately we were able to sight only monkeys…lot’s and lot’s of monkeys…but no deer/tiger/elephants. Oh well, the journey was awesome through the dense forests and we were thrilled. We reached Sultan Bathery at around 12:30/1:00 am and headed straight to the hotel recommended by Mrs Seetha for a sumptuous lunch of Chicken, Meals and fried fish ( I forget the name of the hotel…so much for penning down the travelogue after nearly a month..was it Jubilee..I think it was Jubilee)…We also met Vivek there, our guide from Ente Veedu..Being in Kerala we had to attack the fish, it was some local catch, fried in coconut oil..didn’t taste all that great really but we were famished and we must have chomped down a ton of rice (extrapolation personified here…but you get the picture) with amazing variety of veggies.

We were then told by Vivek, that there was another family also visiting from Bangalore to Ente Veedu and they will also be joining us for the visit to Edakkal caves. It was a family of 6 (2 kids, a couple and their parents), from Bangalore, and essentially we travelled and did the sight-seeing together. It was fun. One thing to note about Wayanad is that the places of interest are quite a distance from each other, min: 25/30 kms. Off we headed to Edakkal caves, what an amazing ride it was through treacherous mountainous pathways…The last 2 kms we had to go in a Jeep (Mahindra) since our cars would not do the climb, all 9 of us + vivek alongwith the driver were packed into a Jeep for the 2 km arduous climb to the base of the mountain. These caves are located within a mountain range, and we had to trek for about 30-45 mins to get to them. It was awesome, Arjun had a blast and he climbed the steep rocky mountains with elan. It was heartening to see him climb using the 3 point rock climbing technique at this age and without any special training whatsoever. Arjun made friends with the 2 kids and all the 3 of us were having a blast. It was one helluva climb. The caves were awesome.

 

Vivek then asked Sachin and I, if we were further interested to climb. The caves are midway through the climb, and the remaining climb was steep and dangerous for the kids, so our better halves decided to rest and soak in the view and the 3 of us (Sachin, Vivek and I) ascended further. It was one helluva climb and all of us were soaked with sweat. At one of the places, we actually had to climb a huge rock with the support of a rope. It was amazing. At about 3/4 the climb Vivek took us to an amazing spot and we decided to head back. Vivek was asking us if we wanted to climb further but we decided against that and started our descent back.

We travelled back to our cars, in the jeep and then headed towards Ente Veedu, it was 5pm and we were all famished to the core after the amazing workout and were looking forward to be welcomed by Mrs Seetha and Ente Veedu…

For photos visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/yranade/WayanadTrip#

More in Part 2

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Go Yogi Go…

Have been able to maintain my cycling routine through the first couple of weeks of July…4days in the week (6th to 10th) and 5 days in this week. Also managed a 15 km loop last Sunday (11th) - about 200kms of riding to bring my total to

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 1629 Kms  approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 2199 Kms approximately

Need to get a helmet and a cyclo-computer.

In these first 2 weeks of July also have (re)started my jogging routine. These are over and above my regular cycling commute to office. Here’s how i have fared so far:-

7th July: 5kms
8th: 5kms
9th/10th: Rest
11th: 4.5kms
12th: 8kms
13th: Rest
14th/15th: 5kms each
16/17th: Rest

Have got the inspiration from the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon training chart @ http://www.scmm.indiatimes.com/training.html and trying to follow this as much as I can. Am currently in week 2. Yeah I know I have been taking rest on Thursday’s so far…but hey..I’m also cycling alongwith…so cut  some slack…Lot’s of thoughts cross my mind regarding registering for the Mumbai Marathon 09. I would love to run a marathon (atleast once in my life) I’m already 35 and time is running out…literally…the older you get the difficult it becomes…but can I manage it…will i hold up…will i make the distance in in 4 hrs atleast…the max i have run so far is for about 1hr 5mins for a distance of about 11kms.. 42.2 kms seem so far away…maybe I will give myself another 2 weeks into the training routine and if I last through it, I will go ahead and register…;)

Current state: In 2 minds: do a 4/10km run over the weekend or go for a 120km + cycle ride to Nandi Hills on Sunday. Never done Nandi hills…have gone upto the BIAL..and hear Nandi is a must-do if one is into cycling long distances..

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

NEWS

Continued my regular cycling to work schedule in the last 2 weeks of June. Cycled for 4 days a week to bring my total tally by June end to:-

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 1429 Kms  approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1999 Kms approximately

Have pedaled 2000 kms, which if covered in a car that does 10 kms/litre amounts to saving up 200 litres of petrol, which in turn amounts to 200*42= Rs 8400/- saved.

The Government has hiked the petrol prices by Rs 4 and diesel prices by Rs 2 from today, so all the more reason to continue cycling. Unfortunately the rains seem to be upon us here in Bangalore which makes it difficult and dangerous to cycle. Haven’t been able to cycle on July 1st and July 2nd due to that. Left my cycle in office on the 30th and haven’t been able to ride it back as yet, have been taking the BMTC bus instead. Oh and I lost my newly bought lock for the bike, I left it at the bike (which I shouldn’t have) and someone wacked it. (: It’s raining here in Bangalore even as I write this post so not sure if I will be able to cycle back even today, but I will try for sure.

Cheers,
Yogesh

Cycling in Pune

If any of you are into cycling in around Pune region, you can register at the following groups...folks go out on cycling excursions...
http://groups.google.com/group/pune-cycle-pratishthan
and http://groups.google.com/group/pune-cycling-enthusiasts

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

2 weeks into June

My blogging has taken a big time hit. Just don’t seem motivated to sit and write down…don’t know why, have I hit the writer’s block….or is it just the fact that I don’t find the daily happenings interesting anymore to pen them. Oh well, no point brooding over it, have decided to just jot down what & when I feel like it. In any case, it’s not like I have a ton of readers subscribed to the blog and feel left out if I don’t write.

So what’s up…May and June have been a bit crazy for me. There are lot of happenings in the office, Some good and some bad…remember we are a small company in the telecom sector and business has taken a significant hit due to the downturn. Things are pretty fluid. I have been pretty tied up at work though, but have also seen quite some folks with whom I have worked and now become close friends decide to leave for better pastures. In a way it maybe good for them.

Am also trying to get my groove back into a thing called fitness…Can’t believe I could run 10kms sometime last year. Man, this thing has been hurting me for ages, I reach a certain level of fitness and then it all comes down…it’s like hitting a plateau as you are trying to climb a mountain and then you take a break, the break gets too long and then rather than further climbing the mountain you start the descent cos’ it’s too late. Yes, have been in this rut for a long time and don’t see a way out.  Am desperately hoping this doesn’t happen with my cycling. Have cycled 4 times in the first week of June and about 3 times in the second week to an overall cycling update of :-

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 1269 Kms  approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1839 Kms approximately

See the plateau problem, I covered ~1000 kms on my Merida TFS 100 V from late Feb to late April that’s about 2 months and in the next one-and-half months I have covered only about 270kms. What can I attribute this slump to…rut, the daily grind. Any work/other pressures that come along the way and my fitness regimen takes a hit. Somehow need to inculcate discipline, it’s not that I don’t know that if I do go out for a run/ride things get clearer…but hey, it’s still not happening. Hey maybe it’s the rains…the weather is much colder, the rains make the earth much greener and I just feel so good tucked in bed.

On the 5/6/7th of June, had been to Ooty along with my office buddies. We have a staff welfare club at office, all of us contribute a paltry 100Rs every month and then over a period of time spend it organizing trips, group events, passing out T-Shirts/Jackets…yes the fun stuff…it keeps the fun in the workplace concept going. It was hectic, we left for Ooty from BLR on Friday night, reached Ooty on 6th morning. Lazed around, went to Coonoor, came back to Ooty and headed back on the 7th. It was great fun, and kudos to the young organizers who did an impressive job. Oh forgot to mention, I went alone, my ever accommodating wife and son, had absolute no qualms in allowing me to go on a “bachelor” outing.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

2 weeks into May 2009

May has turned out to be pretty hectic this year. Unfortunately my cycling has taken a big hit. I have not been able to cycle as much as I would have liked in these 2 weeks gone by. I might have cycled maybe only a couple of times so I  guess there’s no point recording those details.

It’s been a month since Sawani and Arjun left for Pune and I guess my forced bachelorhood is coming to a close. It’s been interesting, man does life change. I have spent so many years alone while studying and growing up, but now it does feel a whole lot different. Maybe I will post a separate post on that sometime.

I am posting this from my home in Pune. Yes I travelled to Pune last Wednesday (13th May). My primary reason being to be at home with my parents for sometime and celebrate my 7th wedding anniversary (14th May) in Pune since Sawani and Arjun are also there.  We plan to then go back to Bangalore over the weekend. They were in Pune for almost an entire month. Both of them have had a lovely and wonderful time in Pune with family and friends although Pune weather hasn’t been that great at all. It’s consistently hitting 40+ temperatures during the day time. Pune has (de)morphed into something so totally different from about 5-10 years back. Temperature is soaring, roads are shortening, traffic is bursting to seams..the once laid back people of Pune seem to be caught up in the race of their lives…it’s getting apparent and extremely pulsating. Pune is about 850 kms from Bangalore and I normally travel by my car. This time around was also no exception. I travelled alone, started at 2:30 am on the 12th and reached Pune at 1:30pm on the 13th. A distance of 850 kms in 11:30 hrs. Now that’s something on Indian roads, although I might add, that the Mumbai-Bangalore NH4 is now way upto International standards barring a couple of 100 kilometers primarily in Karnataka.

Being in Pune has been fun so far. It’s a great feeling when Arjun hugs me and says he was missing me. In fact I have taken priority for him, than even his grand-parents now ;) Distance and being apart from your loved ones over a period of time does eventually get you closer to them. We plan to travel to Mumbai in the later part of the day today. My very close buddies Vikram and Nital have moved into their new home in Mumbai and we are going across to see their new pad. They have worked hard, and we know what having your own home means. It’s an awesome and indescribable feeling. We plan to be back tomorrow in Pune and then in the later part of the day head back to Bangalore. It’s going to be hectic but lot of fun as well.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Cycling Updates

April 26th: Went for a longish bicycle ride. Rode from Brookefields-Whitefield-Sai-Baba Ashram – Old Madras Road – Pai Layout – IndiraNagar 80 ft road – Manipal Hospital – HAL – Marathahalli and back home. For some reason mapmyride is not loading the Bangalore map. In any case considering this ride was an extension ride from the April 23rd ride which was about 35 kms and considering this time around, I cycled all the way till Indiranagar I guess this must be atleast a 55 kms ride approximately. With this ride I have completed 1000 kms on my Merida.

April 27th – April 30th (4 days)– 20 kms per day. Office and back.

May 1st – Being an Indian Labour day, we had a holiday for 1st May. I decided to do a small loop – Brookefields – Old Madras Road – Indiranagar – Domlur – Manipal Hospital – Marathahalli – Back home. Had some medicines to collect from Domlur so decided to do a ride. Did this in the later part of the afternoon. Started at 2:30 and was back by 4 pm to watch the IPL matches. This ride must be approximately 20 kms. I had 2 tender coconuts along the way. I definitely need to get a cyclo-computer.

May 2nd and 3rd: No cycling

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 1129 Kms  approximately
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1699 Kms approximately

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Femtocell on a USB stick

Came across a post by David Chambers on the ThinkFemtoCell blog that talks of a company trying to develop a GSM based femto cell on a USB stick. David has written an amazing post, introducing the company and their current device, their aim of extending this device into a femtocell device on a USB. He then goes further and explains the possible issues which need to be taken into consideration while putting up a femtocell on a usb stick. I whole-heartedly agree that this definitely is a potentially disruptive innovation technology and must be watched out for.

If this thing works; imagine the scenario:-

Form Factor:-
The way the femto works today, it involves a femto cell (cable modem type device) to be installed in each and every household. Yes they will be cheap, but it still involves a consumer going and buying a fairly bulky box from their local store. Imagine the whole of that box now on a USB stick ? Which would you prefer ?

Portability:-
Assuming this device supports the capability to just plug into a telephone jack and starts working, imagine the amazing potential. It would be impossible to carry around the current femto cells, but having them on a USB stick ? Who would not want to carry them around ?

Looks really good, but as David states in his blog, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Here’s the original article by David:- http://www.thinkfemtocell.com/Technology/GSM-Femtocell-on-a-USB-stick-coming-soon.html

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Blog Entries via SMS

I realized looking at the blog archive that I haven’t written much in the month of April. I guess it was due to quite a bit of activities happening..but that should have actually resulted in more blogs. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out to log onto the computer and then type and post a blog. I wish there was something more simpler to post blogs…I wish it could be done via the mobile phone. I mean via an SMS, I could just send out an SMS and the entry gets posted on my blog. Does it work on blogger ? I don’t think so. There’s a company that works on a similar concept via email/sms Posterous. I did open a blog there, but not sure that’s going anywhere since I am unable to set my phone to do that. In any case google folks should notice it sometime and may provide us with this useful capability.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Happenings…

Phew, what a last couple of weeks. Hectic, busy at work all alone back in the home. My wife Sawani and my little one Arjun left for Pune to be at home. Arjun was just waiting for his summer holidays to start so that he could visit Pune and be with his grand-parents (both paternal and maternal). They left on April 14th so it’s been like 2 weeks (almost) since they have gone and I can’t tell how much I miss them. It’s amazing how life changes once you get married and so much more so once you have a child. Evenings without my Arjun in the house, it’s pretty boring. But hey, I do get a call from them almost daily updating about the happenings in Pune and what he did, what happened..etc. so it gets be back into a jolly mood.

So quite a lot has happened over the past 2 weeks. On the work front have been working on the Femto Controller requirements and things are shaping up pretty well.

My cycling has continued to be intermittent due to quite a lot of happenings.

April 10th: 20 kms
April 11th and 12th: I’m not sure if I cycled on that weekend. I think not. I guess I will have to keep doing this more regularly lest I forget.
April 13th: 20 kms
April 14th: No cycling. The day Arjun and Sawani left for Pune. I went to office by bus that day, Sawani in the afternoon came by car to my office (My office at Aiport road is along the way to the bus stand at Kalasipalyam) and then we drove together to the bus stand and I drove back to office and then later in the night back home.
April 15th, 16th, 17th: 20 kms each
April 18th: Decided to go on a ride towards Sarjapur. Went all the way upto Sarjapur village from Whitefield and further about 5-6 kms and then headed back via Bellandur - Outer Ring Road. This turns out to be around 50 kms ride. Pretty good really I completed most of it in about 2.15 hrs. Had a stopover at an eatery near Sarjapur, had delicious piping hot and spicy Idli-sambar-chutney alongwith a cup of tea. Had another stopover at my friends place at Outer Ring Road later since we were planning for a night dinner at my place (me and my office friends) interestingly most of them also are alone (wife and kid gone home) types so we decided to cook, drink and be merry that night. Here’s the route map of my ride

Came back home in the afternoon around 1:00 am and then went out to buy some mutton. Got about 3 kgs of mutton. We were about 6 of us (Chandra, Abhijit, Ajay, Suresh, Sarvesh and myself) There was one more guy whom I had invited, but he didn’t turn up (Satya) Well he almost never does. Chandra got some delicious home made chicken (about 2 kgs) and we gorged on it. All-in-all had a gala time later in the night, watching the IPL cricket matches, drinking and eating.

April 19th: No cycling. Recovering from the previous days party. Nothing much happened. Took to relaxing.

April 20th: 20 kms. It started raining in the evenings in Bangalore. Got completely drenched while coming back home. My cycle doesn’t even have tire guards, so you can imagine where and in which places I was completely drenched. So how/which is the best way to cycle even in the rain. Tire guards won’t look very cool in on my Merida. I guess the only option in front of me, if I have to continue cycling in the rains, is a good wet-suit (rain-coat) I guess. I need to get that sometime.

April 21, 22nd: Decided to go by car, due to the weather. Riding in the dark, with the rain is not safe. Better safe than never and hence decided it would be prudent to swallow my pride and go by car instead. April 23rd was declared a holiday at office due to the elections in Bangalore. Concept being, everyone must vote and there should be no excuse (had to work) to not go and cast your vote. Well, did I vote, no I haven’t. Why, I don’t have an election card here in Bangalore. Did I get one done ? No..Did I try to get one done? No. Is this a good thing? No ? Then why not ? Well, I read about the harrowing stories about trying to get the election card and then making sure that your name is listed in the voters list, I just grew tired thinking about it. It’s a lame excuse, I know. Maybe next year. So since 23rd was declared a holiday, we so-called-bachelor folks again decided to party. A very last moment kinda decision and we headed out to Satya’s place this time around. Suresh, Chandra, Satya and myself again cooked some chicken/mutton alongwith some whisky (got it through back-door channels since the liquor shops were officially closed) and IPL matches for company. Came back home by 12:00 am and signed out for the day.

April 23rd: Being a holiday, I decided to burn off the calories that I had put over the past day and due to not cycling was getting a bit restless. Decided to take a different route, went from Brookefield-Varthur-Hoodi-Sai-Baba-Ashram-Old-Madras-Road-Pai-Layout-and back to Brookefield.

Here’s the map: Distance covered as per the map: 35 kms

 

April 24th: No cycling due to weather. Went to office by car. We headed over to KFC for some fried chicken and burgers. It was a Friday so we office friends typically head out for lunch instead of having it in our office cafeteria. Interesting day became more interesting, since one of the consultants called me up later in the night saying that one of the telecom firms would like to interview me for a Pre-Sales Engineering Manager position the very next day, ie. for the 25th.

April 25th: Nothing much happened other than some basic brushing up in preparation for the interview. The interview was more of a discussion with the System Engineering folks at that company. Went all-right, but am not sure will get the job since the position may not be an exact match. Anyways it’s an interesting opening, so thought what’s the harm in going for a discussion. The company is doing pretty interesting work and has notched up several million dollars in venture funding. Came back home in the evening and was disappointed to see Mumbai Indians loosing to Deccan Chargers.

April 26th: Today: Posting this blog. May go out for a ride later. Have an interview scheduled with another company tomorrow.

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 974 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1544 Kms

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

3GPP publishes worlds first femtocell standard

On 7th April 2009, about a week back from today, 3GPP in conjunction with Femto Forum and Broadband Forum officially published the first femtocell standard.

More details at http://www.3gpp.org/World-s-first-femtocell-standard
and
http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/pressreleases.php

All the related specs are available on the above mentioned links.

These are extremely interesting times, since I am bang in the middle of the Femto Gateway development at my company as a Primary System Engineer.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Technorati Tags: Femto,Software,Technology,3GPP,Femto Forum,Broadband Forum,HNB,HNB-GW

Cycling Updates

March 25th and 26th: 20 kms each
March 27th: Gudi Padwa holiday and Arjun’s 5th birthday. So no cycling
March 28th and 29th: Break from cycling

March 30th to April 3rd: 20 kms each
April 4th and 5th: Did not cycle on the weekend as well, since had caught a stomach bug late Friday night. Came home as usual and immediately after, rather while having my dinner my stomach seemed to give away. Most of the weekend was spent recuperating.

April 6th: No cycling. Had to go to office with my car, had some work lined up for in the later part of the day for which a car was needed.

April 7th: 5 kms. Started on my bike, but had to return from half-way back due to some family emergency.

April 8 and 9th: 20kms

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 769 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1339 Kms

Cycling was a bit intermittent for the past couple of weeks. Haven’t got my weekend runs under my saddle, due to various reasons… parties, sickness and work. Hopefully will pick up the slack again from this week onwards. I still haven’t got my Merida TFS 100 serviced yet. The brakes particularly the rear have become real loose. I need to call up Venky and get her serviced. I am doing my bit, regular chain cleaning et.al., although a once-upon-a-time mechanical engineer turned software junkie, i am still in a newbie state-of-mind when repairing a bike. Well I tried my hands on my Hercules, but would prefer the experts to handle the Merida. Venky has promised first 3 services free, so am keeping my fingers crossed. All the distance readings are approximate since I don’t have a cyclo-computer but I’m pretty sure that I am on the conservative side when calculating distances.

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Mind Mapping

Why don’t you mind map ? I think it’s an amazing concept. A graphical representation of your mind in front of you, let me tell you, may jolt you at first, but as you get the hang of it, I would think it would be an extremely useful productivity tool. Want to know more ?

What is a mind map ? Find it  here (Mind Map)

Want to know the various mind mapping software ? Find it here (The List)

Following look interesting of the lot:-

FreeMind: Famous, well-known

XMIND: Looks to have more sets of features than FreeMind and has support for Free Mind as well.

Personal Brain: Looks pretty interesting. Will check it out soon.

So when will you mind map ?

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

Desktop Makeover: Welcome BumpTop

Want to have a desktop makeover ? Hop over to BumpTop and see for yourself. Started by an Indian Origin Canadian Anand Agarawala, this is a real piece of interesting stuff.

Came to know about this at http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/07/bumptop-gives-windows-desktop-a-much-needed-makeover/

Cheers,
Yogesh Ranade

buzzINtown

Received a regular email from the i-mint program and noticed a promotion of a site called http://www.buzzintown.com Hopped across to that site and found quite a bit of interesting city specific events happening. I think this is a good concept that was very much needed, a consolidated view of all the happening events across various cities. Now what would help is really an event calendar across the entire country based on specific selection criterion ex: Books and Exhibitions. This would give a list of exhibitions across India, throughout the year, and the capability to go ahead and register oneself for it. That would be cool.

Cheers,
Yogesh

TED Ideas Worth Spreading

One of my colleagues at office pointed me to the site www.ted.com, a macro site for talks (essentially videos) by the world’s leading thinkers and doers. Do check it out. Seems extremely interesting

Cheers,
Yogesh

Technorati Tags: TED,Talks,Videos

Arjun turns 5

On the auspicious occasion  of Gudi Padwa, the Hindu New Year, on 27th March 2009, my son Arjun turned 5 years old. His growth has been nothing less than phenomenal for both Sawani and I and we have cherished every moment of it. It has been an absolute blessing and both of us thank the almighty profusely for giving us Arjun in our life.

This year on the 27th March, we celebrated Gudi Padwa in the morning hours by raising the traditional Gudi and praying to God for a happy and wonderful year ahead and thanking him for blessing us with the love and warmth of our parents, the joy and happiness of family and the amazing gift of raising a child. Arjun’s grandpa and grandmom (Vijay and Neela), my parents, came from Pune especially to celebrate and be an integral part of his birthday celebration. They actually undertook an uncomfortable 16+ hrs bus drive to be with us in Bangalore. Amazing. Arjun has been really enjoying their company and just loves it when they are here. Infact, in the night he needs to be tucked in with his grandmom every night.

In the evening, we celebrated Arjun’s birthday at our home in Brookefields in a nice homely fashion, with invitations specially made by Arjun to his little friends from the apartment complex. We got cake from a nice little cake shoppe at Indiranagar named CakeWalk, and other munchies (dhokla, gulab-jamun, sandwiches, chips, cold-drinks) and everyone had a blast. This year Arjun wanted a spiderman cake, so we got a spiderman mask cake made and I must say it was extremely well made. It was a fun filled evening, with music, cake, cold drinks flowing (literally) and the amazing kid banter.

For the night we had invited some of our next door neighbours for dinner. Sawani and my mom spent almost half of the afternoon preparing for dinner. It was a lavish spread of chicken, vegetables, shrikhand and a lot of other stuff. The chicken turned out especially well (I had some hand in it) and we partied till late in the night.

Photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/yranade/27March09GpadwaArjunBday#

Some videos are embedded below…

Video 1: Arjun’s Ovalna

Video 2: Arjun’s Birthday Cake

Video 3: Happy Birthday To You

 

Cheers,
Yogesh

Cycling Updates

Oh boy, it’s been a while since I posted. My cycling though hasn’t been as intermittent as my blogging. So here are the cycling updates:-

March 16th through 20th: 20kms to and fro each day
March 23rd and 24th: 20kms each

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 584 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 1154 Kms

My Merida is due for servicing. Oh and btw: March 22nd marked a month since I purchased my new joy.

Cheers,
YVR

Self Education Resource List

http://selfmadescholar.com/b/self-education-resource-list/

An excellent resource for self education. Great to review some of your basics as well.

Cheers,
YVR

To Bangalore International Airport and back in Rs 5/-

Embarked on my longest bicycle ride today. I decided to go from my house in Brookefields to Bangalore International Airport and back. I had no clue of the actual distance, but knew it would take 4 hrs minimum. I thought that I would keep going till I hit 2 hrs on my clock and head back. With this in mind, I woke up early at around 5:45 and was on the road by about 6:15am. Had a back pack in which I took 2 bottles of water and carried some cash with me. Decided to take the Brookefield-KR-Puram – Hebbal – NH 7 to BIAL. Was at the Hebbal junction at about 7:05 am. Decided to take some snaps around, gulped down some H20 and continued forward. The highway markers mentioned the BIAL was still 27 kms to go. The weather was nice and not very cold, visibility was clear, essentially perfect weather conditions for cycling (atleast in my mind). My mind was clear and fresh, decided to put on my radio. 91.9 Radio Indigo is an amazing aid with it belting out really nice numbers. From now on, my partner in crime was Radio Indigo. At 8:15 am, 2 hrs from start, I was about 4 kms away from the airport. As per the original plan, should have turned back, but the fact that the airport was just 4 kms away, I decided to go ahead (btw; this was my first visit to the International Airport). Reached the BIAL at about 8:30 am, to be welcomed by Army commandos at the airport. Chatted with them and asked if I could take a round of the airport, and they mentioned, I would have to ride along without stopping. My first impressions of the airport, atleast from the outside, it’s allright, nothing great though. Funnily the BIAL airport doesn’t even have a large billboard that states such (or did I miss it). Saw some Cafe’s on the sidewalks near the entrance, rode through, raising lot of heads, what in the world is a biker doing here ?

Stopped for another round of H20 and headed back. Journey back home was uneventful, V(R)ani Ganapati at Radio Indigo, giving me company. Heard numerous amazing numbers from the 70s,80s through the 90s. It was great. Rode nonstop till Hebbal junction (road is not that easy though, there all lot of climbs and downhills. It was fun. My legs felt fine and in general was feeling pretty good. The sun was not that harsh still, had a decent cloud cover so that made things a bit easier. Had another round of H20 and continued onwards on ORR. As I crossed the KR Puram bridge, stopped and had an ice-cream candy (orange flavour – 5 Rs) and reached home at 10:45. So overall time spent about 4:30 hrs for a distance of 86 kms (approx according to mapmyride). Here’s the map below…

For photos (none exceptional really) go on to http://picasaweb.google.com/yranade/RideToBIAL#

Reached home and gorged on some watermelon slices and had a nice round of khichri, hit the sack for about an hour. Overall am feeling a bit tired now, but should be ok by tomorrow, I think.

Cheers,
YVR

Life summarized in 4 bottles

Extremely interesting…

Came across this @ http://static0.blip.pl/user_generated/update_pictures/198204.jpg?1232704996

Cheers,
YVR

3GPP Specification Groups

Want to know the various 3GPP specification groups (TSG)? Visit http://www.3gpp.org/Specification-Groups

Cheers,
YVR

Technorati Tags: 3GPP,TSG

How to be a program manager

That’s the heading of a recent excellent post by Joel Spolsky at his Joel on Software blog. Here’s the link, read it, assimilate it and apply it.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/03/09.html

Cheers,
YVR

Ride on

11th March: 20 kms. The weather in Bangalore turned much cooler  due to the low pressure in the south of India. Felt awesome cycling with the cool breeze. While going back, the going got tough since had a heavy breeze going against. But I felt refreshed.

12th March: 20 kms. Weather continued to stay cool. Had my first flat (puncture) on the rear wheel of my Merida. While going down from Marathahalli bridge, I sensed the rear wheel jumping…Got down to check and didn’t find anything wrong really, it was dark, there was air pressure so continued…but the rear wheel continued to bounce. Got down again, and this time slowly rotated the rear wheel to see if anything is amiss, and lo & behold, a huge screw had penetrated the tire. I removed it and “fuss”, within 10 seconds the entire air was released. Walked along from Marathahalli bridge to Kundalahalli gate, to a cycle store nearby. The cycle shop was closing (it was 8:30pm). The guy first mentioned that we are closing, and I said oh, and then he said he will do it, since tomorrow (Fri) was a holiday and the shop will be closed. I thanked him, had some doubts asto how the puncture will be repaired and while doing so will it damage my rim (it was a Merida for god’s sake). The young chap at the shop asked me “Isko stand nahi hai kya ?” meaning, doesn’t the bike have a stand ? And I said no. But he got down to business, removed the tire and the tube cleanly. Found the area of puncture, fixed it with a sticky gum and a round-shaped patch. I asked him will this hold up at 50psi pressure ? He said it hold pretty much car punctures at 35 psi …Ok..what choice did I have rather than to hope it holds up at 50 psi as well. He finished up in less than 5 mins, charged me Rs 10/- for the job and off I was. Reached home and sunk in my sofa in front of my LCD.

13th March: 20 kms (have covered 10 so far, in my office as I write this post.)

Cheers,
YVR

Excla.im

Trying to get my tweeter and gtalk setup using Excla.im Have followed all the steps successfully and have added tweet@excla.in in my gtalk friends list. Waiting for it to accept my connection and test this thing out..Hope it works..

Cheers,
YVR

Brain Buzzed

Recently setup my twitter account. Tried to setup such that I could update my tweets using my BSNL Cellone phone. Unfortunately, the activation code/number that tweeter provides, when I try to send a SMS to that number, it fails to reach. Looks like the BSNL SMSC doesn’t have a clue about the said number. That doesn’t help..since I would have loved to use Tweeter..

In any case, I tried plugging the “Twitter doesn't work with BSNL Cellone” on google and the first site that showed up was …www.techbangalore.com/tag/bsnl 

Visited the site and unfortunately it didn’t have any content related to the actual query. In any case, the search did bring me to an interesting site…and that too from Bangalore. It looks to be hosted by a techie from Bangalore named Prashant. Seems to be generating quite a bit of traffic. Went to the “Blogs I read” section http://www.techbangalore.com/blogs-i-read/ and followed 2 bloggers, more so since the name of the blogs caught my attention

http://worldthrumyeyes.wordpress.com/: A girl who blogs about the world as she sees it through her eyes. Blogs on varied topics and has a decent amount of traffic

http://thejeshgn.com/: A blog by an Infoscian techie/hacker. Talks about various items he works on.

http://eventsbengaluru.com/: A site dedicated to the events happening in Bangalore

http://jerrymannel.com/blog/: I like the way the blog is designed. Check out the header at the top and the disclaimer at the bottom. Pretty cool design.

http://fundubytes.blogspot.com/: Lot’s of stuff in here. While was at it came across here that there are twitter IM bots which can update your twitter status. While doing so also found out a neat widget that places twitter updates on your blog/website. Already installed that, see it on the right. Now trying to play with the IM bots and see if they work for me.

Also came across a very comprehensive site called Digital Inspiration. It’s maintained by a professional blogger named Amit Agarwal and is voted among the top 40 blogs in the entire world.

Phew, what’s happening around here …Google has really changed the landscape and I working in a telecom firm for the past 10 years have really had no idea…still working primarily on using C/C++…and look where the world has headed.

Brain buzzed…

YVR

Online Cycle Shops

Here are some of the online cycle shops from where folks on the BBC have bought stuff. It seems these ship to India…No hitches and no glitches

www.chainreactioncycles.com

http://www.evanscycles.com

Cheers,
YVR

Technorati Tags: Online Cycle Shops

Last Sunday Ride

Went out on a longish ride on my bicycle last Sunday. I biked from my home in Brookefields-Varthur-Sarjapur-Bellandur-ORR-Marathahalli-Brookefields. Was not sure how much distance it would be, hence logged on to mapmyride.com and tried to draw a map of the loop. It reports around 33 kms. I think it maybe off by 1 or 2 kms, but overall it does seem accurate. Here’s the map embedded below.

Number Crunching:-

6th March: 20 kms
7th March: Relax. Went to the BBMP office in Mahadevpura and paid the property tax for the year 2008-09 for my flat. The tax rates have increased this time around to almost 2x times to that of for the year 2007-08.
8th March: 33 kms ride (listed above)
9th March: 20 kms (office and back)
10th March: 20 kms (office & back)

Total Distance Covered on Merida: 298 Kms
Total Distance Covered on Cycle: 868 Kms

Cheers,
YVR