Malligai En Mannan Mayangum-Great song

A visit to Saibaba Temple Shirdi from Bangalore

I was thinking of going to visit Shirdi Sai baba temple. I have just started collecting some info related the travel as Shirdi is in Maharashtra and I was searching for the various travel options through Google.Parallely I was enquiring to visit  some of the popular travels. When I enquired I come to know getting tickets to such a distant place was not so easy.  Also as I was planning to Visit Shirdi alone no travel operator nor through the package travel options was not possible for me. The cost of the package trip would cost approx 3600Rs and for a Deluxe journey Rs4400.

So I have decided to go by train 2627 Karnataka Express an express train which goes to New Delhi. I have tried for tickets it was wait listed 94 and then again I have tried tickets through Tatkal it had cost around Rs750 for sleeper class. I have planned to stay one night at Shirdi and for my return travel my train ticket was waitlisted at24 andI thought the ticket would get confirm. I tried to book some hotel room calling from Bangalore no one was ready to accommodate a room for me as I was travelling alone. Even hotels like Sai leela initially confirmed me to come then after coming to know that I am single they refrain to accommodate me. In that moment I have prayed to my Lord I have decided to have a Darshan to you  even If I happen to sleep in the street of Shirdi also I would be very happy the holy place where your foot was touched.

The train reached promptly around 2:00Pm next day and was searching for an auto to Shirdi from Kopargoan.The shared auto drivers are very reasonable and they charged Rs20 per head.In the Auto I have met another devotee from Bangalore. We have got a accommodation in a small hotel near to Sai baba Temple itself.The crowd was continuously flooding as it was a holiday and there was no blockage and  the line continue to move fast and had Darshan within an hour.We have planned for one more Darshan in the night and had at around 10:00PM.The crowd was very less.

The next day morning I was trying for kakad Arthi an early morning Arthi to Sai around 4:30Pm.Normally for that some special tickets will be issued only for VIP and Government officers.I woke up around 3:00, ‘O clock and gone to temple around 3:40am.There was a huge crowd waiting to have Darshan .I couldn’t able to make a direct Kakad Arti  Darshan as the crowd was so huge I could see that through only Tv.We had Darshan at around 5:40am after the kakad Arti.Then I had bough some Prasad sold through the co operative stores and had purchased some more laddu as well stored in a Gate 2 at northern part of the Ashram. Bought 2 packs of Laddu(each pack cost 10Rs).

  

While on the return journey my ticket status was WL 8 and I could manged to get a seat and  come back safely to Bangalore due to the blessings of Sai baba without any hassles.After the Darshan you would be relieved with your mental stress if any.

My actual travel expense all inclusive was around Rs3000/-

 

Tips:

• If you go with family or alone avoid taking risks and don't go without having a confirmed booking.Try for a Tatkal booking you need shell aroundRs1500 for To and fro and it is reasonable to travel than an hectic and long bus journey.
• Try to book through some good hotels like Sai leela who have booking facility at bangalore itself.
• To have early morningArti darshan wake up early around and go to the Q around 2:30Pm.Without the special or VIP privilege you shall get Darshan.

Movie maker Jumping /skipping movies while publishing?

Movie maker is a wonderful media utility we can say as a blessing for the Microsoft vista users with enhanced features.

Recently, I have recorded some TV programs and was occupying a memory size of around 3.5 GB size.I want to publish some clippings in YouTube I was trying to remove the TV commercials in between the program.

When I publish the movie after dissecting the options in the movie maker and tried publishing the video then I have observed that some of the movie portions were cross jumping and was very much  confused to fix the issue.

I have searched various options given in the various Microsoft forum but couldn't find any useful solution.

It is the inherent problem the movie maker have when handling some of the big files and when we try to chop and then publish that wont work properly again it is a slight limitation with the movie maker.

 

What you needs to do to avoid this jumping movie/skip movie?

The only solution is cut the bigger file in to smaller ones there are some freeware tools available to dissect the portion of a video clip.You can think of considering the  free video dub tool to dissect the mpeg TV video files and then publish using movie maker(.Free studio manager4.1.1.1 you can consider installing) .Please do share if you come across my experience like if any.

How to recover the deleted file from recycle bin?

 

If you have accidentally erased any of the important files and mp3 or mpeg or jpg files then the simple and the free solution would be recuva recovery free tool.It is a product from Piriform.They are the producer of the famous registry fixing and temporary files cleaner tool of CCleaner.

The restoring job is very user friendly.If you have difficulty in restoring the files through normal scan then you need to select deep scan.It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

In my test I was very happy about its performance.

To restore the files you need to provide

• The format of the file
• The path of the file.

The recent version of this tool has launched on 28,November 2008 had the following features. 

 

Improved recovery of orphaned JPG images in FAT32.
- Launch wizard button now working properly in all cases.
- Improved scan canceling on large files.
- Fixed bug that caused Wizard icons to not be displayed in 16 bit color.
- Check for updates now included in tab-stop.
- Various minor UI tweaks.

You can download this tool from the following link.

About Seismic Zone and the earthquake resistant building in Bangalore

In my several of earlier posts I have raised my concerns about the consideration of the seismic factors on the high raise apartment has been taken care or not.I just browsed to find out the seismic zone where Bangalore is placed.

Seismic Hazard of Karnataka

Source:

http://asc-india.org/seismi/seis-karnataka-goa.htm

The seismic hazard map of India was updated in 2000 (5) by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). According to the new map, the state of Karnataka lies in Zones II and III. The coastal districts as well as the northern interior districts along the border with Maharashtra, lie in Zone III, where a maximum MSK intensity of VII can be expected. The remaining districts, as well as the city of Bangalore lie in Zone II. Interestingly, the Bellary region, which experienced a strong earthquake in the 1840's has been downgraded to Zone II.

The 1984 BIS Zoning map had placed it in Zone III. It must be noted that BIS estimates the hazard, based in part, on previous known earthquakes. Since the earthquake database in India is still incomplete, especially with regards to earthquakes prior to the historical period (before 1800 A.D.), these zones offer a rough guide of the earthquake hazard in any particular region and need to be regularly updated (See also: GSHAP Hazard Map for Karnataka & Goa).

See my earlier posts:

http://eastindian-mike.blogspot.com/2008/10/recent-collapse-of-high-raise-apartment.html

http://eastindian-mike.blogspot.com/2008/09/lifestyle-greenage-apartments-bangalore.html

Interestingly  an article in Hindu written by  CVR Murthy has drawn my attention( dt 10/06/2006).

Quake-resistant buildings needed now

Many unprofessional players in the real estate area exploit the common man's ignorance on this aspect

About 60 per cent of India's land area is under the threat of moderate to severe seismic hazard. Nine earthquakes in the Indian tectonic region over the past 17 years have provided constant reminders of the vulnerability of Indian construction.

It was the Bhuj earthquake of 2001 that stirred-up maximum concern on the vulnerability of Indian constructions, particularly the modern reinforced cement concrete (RCC) constructions.

The Indian public is under-informed and under-educated on earthquake resistant design and construction. Let us highlight the seismic vulnerability of the large number of a class of reinforced concrete multi-storey buildings being constructed in the urban areas.

These buildings have open ground storey to accommodate parking and 230 mm size columns in the ground storey.

The typical RCC buildings in India are made of frames consisting of vertical and horizontal members. The former are called columns while the latter members consist of (a) slabs, that is, the flat, plate-like parts of the building on which people stand, walk and conduct themselves in the building and (b) beams, that is, the stiff, rib-like parts of the building running under the slab but between columns which support the slabs.

Stilt structures

The typical buildings being built in India accommodate parking in the ground storey. Most buildings having parking in the ground storey have no masonry walls built between any columns.

While having parking in the ground storey is not the concern, having all masonry walls removed and leaving the columns bare is the crux of the matter. Such buildings are abruptly flexible and weak in the ground storey and perform poorly during earthquakes.

Many unprofessional players in the real estate development industry are doling out substandard civil engineering products and exploiting the ignorance of the common man on many technical aspects of civil engineering. For example, most RCC frame buildings in the present context use the same 230mm (9-inch) wide columns in them irrespective of the number of storeys they support above them.

Let us focus on the use of 230 mm wide columns in a special class of buildings.

A stark feature of these columns and also the most unsafe aspect of the buildings they hold is that their size is fixed - 230 mm. Irrespective of the overall height of the building (1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 14 or even 21 storeys), the location of the building (in severe seismic zone or in low seismic zone), the type of soil strata underneath the building (soft soil or hard rock) and the distance between adjacent columns (2m, 3m, 4m or even 5m), the column size is unbelievably the same: 230 mm.

The person who built your apartment may not necessarily be qualified to make earthquake-resistant buildings. This is because quake design has not been taught in any college at the under-graduate level since Independence; graduates from government colleges in Gujarat passing out in 2007 will be first set to have basic knowledge on earthquake resistant design .

Open ground storey buildings have consistently shown poor performance during past earthquakes across the world; a large number of them have collapsed.

The presence of walls in upper storeys makes them many times stiffer than the open ground storey. Thus, the upper storeys move almost together as a single block and most of the horizontal displacement of the building occurs in the soft ground storey itself. Thus, such buildings swing back and forth like inverted pendulums during earthquakes and the columns in the open ground storey are severely stressed.

If the columns are weak (do not have the required strength to resist these high stresses) or if they do not have adequate ductility they may be severely damaged or even lead to collapse of the building.

Neglected

In the current design practice, stiff masonry walls are neglected and only bare frames are used in design calculations. Thus, the inverted pendulum effect is not captured in the structural design.

There are several features associated with the open ground storey buildings with 230 mm wide columns that make them vulnerable during earthquakes. The vertical members in buildings support the horizontal members. So, vertical members must be stronger than the horizontal ones.

After the Bhuj earthquake, the Indian Seismic Code IS: 1893 (Part 1) - 2002 has included special design provisions. First, it specifies when a building becomes soft or weak. Second, it specifies higher design forces for the soft storey.

C.V.R. MURTY

Mumbai attack and the questions

The recent terrorist attack at Mumbai brings a lot of sad and a grief feeling to the mind. The brave ones who fought against the terror and who lost their life. Also for the victim civilians who died due to such an attack. We should pray let their soul rest in peace and would always remember with the historic tragedy.Those who have lost their life  for the war against  terror  should be given importance in the history books like any other war this country underwent in the past.

It has proved once again that human life is very uncertain and no one knows that they are alive tomorrow. Unimaginable attack. The way TV live broadcast in the channels clearly shown that a situation was like a war happening in an English movie. I was just thinking and it made me to think that historical invasion would have been always like this.

I was just drilling down with my own questions about the people involved in the terror and the tackling of the issue:

• How dare they are to come to a place whose sea route itself they are not aware off?
• The lads were very young what has been driving them to commit suicide?
• Are they not aware they are damaging?
• Are they not aware the purpose of their life is to destroy?
• If they are not aware what else is the compelling force made them to involve in such kind of activity?
• Who are there parents? Are they not aware of about their son what he is doing? Are they willingly surrendered or sold their son for money? If they sold them for money means for destruction which means they are aware?
• By doing destruction what they are going to achieve?
• Has God given this life to destruct some body?
• The intelligence agencies should be aware of such a possible attack(Even chairman of Taj Hotel confirmed that). Why a tough action has not been taken?
• What was the gap between the intelligence reports and the law enforcement and the security agencies?
• Assuming the limitation to governmental workforce why public has not been made aware to report such clandestine activity?
• Why government should not use the public intelligence and propagate its theme against terror that the citizen responsible?
• There is definite responsibility for the Government to give a feeling of security to the human lives. But are they looked up seriously?
• We have enough history to know that we are always vulnerable for attacks why the coastal guards couldn’t track such movement?
• Are we protective or shielded against any more vulnerable attacks?
• Our satellite and the intelligence reporting gadgets doesn't have the system to analyze the movement of such an explosive material from one place to another?
• Have they monitored the internet traffic and the key suspicious information's searched through search engine? 

Is it possible?

Every citizen of the country should be made aware and to be cautioned to share the knowledge about the unwanted social element in the system to the governmental intelligence agencies .

When I mean it is the responsibility of the citizens. The informer citizen shouldn't have any hassles to provide the information and they should be protected.

  I would strongly believe that the investigating and intelligence minds are equally very stronger than any other country.I am very well aware that when the government gives appointment orders to some of the senior positions like IAS,IPS or a DSP post there is still a process to check the personal credentials of the people.There is a social engineering method which is practiced by CID of  the government and personally to assess a person without his knowledge and a report will be submitted to government before an appointment. The same method was literally adapted while nab one of the sandal wood smuggler in south India by name Veerappan whom he not even aware off.

Some of the highest interrogative minds of the world are there in our country and I am doubtful whether the government uses them effectively or not?If we just give a full hands and power to such minds they would even map the minds who have such possible motive.

The government shouldn't ignore the intelligence reports it is again 1 out of 100 kind of feeling.Nothing has happened as reported so we keep silent that attitude.If one happen out of 100 then we have seen the worst at Mumbai incidents.We should aware that many of the incidents have been prevented through the intelligence reports.

Now all the system are awake  this anti social elements will rest and watch every thing to settle and  when the system is weak and wait till such time to  sleep (including the public like you and me), the they will try for a possible attack. It is like driving a long night  journey through the car and if the driver by chance nap for some seconds it would be a mess and ends up with accident.The government playing the role of a driver and let it not mess again.

How to monitor the internet speed ?

If you are on look out for one then online eye an internet speed monitor that is able to measure ,track and analyze the connection.

We could view the following

• Speed of the data being transferred at the real-time.
• Shall analyze and view the historical trend data with bar or line graphs
• To monitor your internet LAN connections.

• Track your internet upload and download over a period of time .Helps us to analyze the usage over a period of time.
• You would precisely able to find the number of MB the data transferred and should check within the limit if your broad band connection charges for any additional upload or download.

• You could also set an alert or caution to your limits.
• Today the cost of broad band connection is cheap and people who have taken unlimited download connection need not think of having this feature.

Otherwise it is a could tool to consider.