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