The waiting

The daily rush of work was winding down. And pretty soon, Sameer would be heading home. But, before that he would come face to face with a beautiful, tender feeling.

Sameer logged out of his office communicator app and closed his Thinkpad's lid shut. The fan slowly whirring to a stop from its noisy run. Arranging his laptop, headset and wireless mouse in his bag, Sameer took off with his bag to the restroom. He had to take a look at himself in the mirror and set everything right before his meeting.

At the mirror, looking back at him, was an unassuming figure of a mid-30's IT software developer. His daily routine clearly responsible for the grey in his hair. Too early by Victorian standards, but not so surprising by today's. He combed back his hair with his wet hands and tried to push back the lone strand that disobeyed his directions. He was ready!

After the mandatory tag check at the office main door, Sameer headed off in the direction of the nearby bus stop. Countless, uneventful journeys on this walkway, each as bland as the other. Others like him walking past him, very much like him, slightly bent with the weight of their laptops on their backs, brooding in their thoughts, if the hand did not hold up a smart device to occupy them.

The government had come up with spanking new shelters at the bus-stops in the IT district. The white painted cement block with a large glass window revealed a row of chairs inside. A water cooler to the corner for those hot days of summer and astonishingly, an air conditioner to boot, pointing to the affluence of the government in pampering its high tax paying herds.

It did not take long for Sameer to drift in to the thoughts of the oncoming meeting. Every weekday for the past two years since Sameer took up this job, he has awaited this moment. In the beginning, there wasn't much interaction. Soon a light touch of the hand, a rub of the shoulder, and the warmth of being so close to each other had turned in to a personal obsession of sorts. The fact that none of his friends knew about this made it that much more special for him.

Sameer had been a loner all his childhood. Talking to his toys, wandering in to the dense growth behind his ancestral house in the village searching for pets. He liked to keep things to himself. This was probably his most cherished secret. The daily meeting, started from his office bus stop and lasted till the moment Sameer got off the bus. The meeting would end, but Sameer's thoughts would get back to the next day when he would meet her again.

The bus honked Sameer back in to the world from his reverie. This was the bus. His heartbeat took a fast turn. He could hear it in his ears, throat, everywhere. He should control it. What if she heard it? What will she think of me. Does she also feel like this? These were the thoughts that ran through Sameer's head while he climbed the bus.

He shuffled slowly towards the middle of the bus where she sat. Her beauty lit up his eyes a shiver ran down his spine. The fair colour like no other. Her soft skin soothed his fingers as he caressed her. The stitches, well formed and outlined. The contours of the body inviting. That is when Sameer became one again with his love, Seat-A!

​

16GB USB drive recovered

​​

I am so happy, I have won at recovering

​​

the failed USB drive. Now

​I

 think all those failed USB drives

​I

 have thrown away in the past could have been recovered. Anyway. Here is what I did.

ChipGenius - was mentioned on the forums to detect what is the VID/PID of the USB drive. Attached. It gives the chip number SSS690 in this case.

Ultranet USB Flash Sorting and mass production utility - Also realized that this is used by manufacturers to flash the drive.

​S​

o

​I

 did

​Googled 

for the SSS690 version of this file found in some forum (http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=146975) <---available here but needed a membership which was on invite only. So I google further using SSS690 (http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GPEA_en___IN316&q=sss6690&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=).

Clicked the 8th Link..dunno why.. there it was all russian!!! (http://flashboot.ru/index.php?name=Files&op=view_file&lid=223)

I did not even translate. I used my uber internet experience to click the Cka4aTb and it gives me a code for verification, I enter it and it make me wait 5 seconds and gives me "SSS6690_USB_Flash_Sorting_v4.010.rar" 

New Phising Scam

Be Careful, as I just noticed that this email came to me.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/google-account-phishing-scam-hooks-users-fake-google-drive-login/#!TAN2t

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--

Siraj

The first phone

People now a days take for granted the mobile telephony services. It was not like this always. I was born in to a home without a telephone. It was not until I was 8 years old that we got connected. And it was a major event in the household.

The process was long and cumbersome. Apply for a connection. Line man comes home to check feasibility. Comes back another day with adequate tools and material to provide the house with a telephone line. No internal wiring in those days, the line man actually attached wood strips and laid the line on them till the table.

The family discussion was another entertaining activity. Where to place the phone because, once placed it would be difficult to move it around (no cordless phones then). The line man completed his job of laying the line. He then asked the question to my father, “What type of phone would you like?”

“What options do we have?” asked dad

“You can either have the older phone with a rotary dialer or the newer model with push button dial pad”

With this, my father asked the children of the house, including me, “Which one shall we pick?” We were astonished, after some mumble jumble, we knew it was the newer model that we would love to have.

Note: I thought I had lost my first edit of this blog, and wrote up a completely new one. Refer the next post for the conclusion of this post.

The First Telephone

I starkly remember the day our house got connected with a telephone. My father came home and announced that our application for a telephone connection has been approved and we will be getting a telephone shortly.

Our wait started. Within a week the telephone company lineman visited our house. He asked us where we wanted the phone in the room. When we pointed out place he did some inspection and said that he will connect it there. Soon, he got out some wooden planks and went hammering away to lay the line. These wooden planks had metal ties to hold the telephone wire reaching our house.

After he finished the installation he asked us a question.

Will you be wanting a normal telephone or a push button telephone!!

My father looked at us and asked our opinion. WOOO!! Of course, we want a PUSH BUTTON TELEPHONE!! YAYY.. it was such a futuristic concept back then when the connected homes had only the circular dialer phone.

And again the wait started for the arrival of our telephone piece. Once it arrived (in all its maroon and black glory) and got connected, we called whosoever’s number we had and informed them of our new number. The whole of my class also got to know that I now had a telephone.

Now when I look back at those times, they are still fresh in my mind. The time we used to dial 161 to make the telephone ring to adjust the ‘ringtone’ volume or the tone itself. Also used sometimes to wake people up saying they got a phone call. Sometimes used to play the April Fool prank. Don’t think anybody uses a normal landline phone to do such things anymore.

Aldiko eReader

As I had earlier mentioned that I am now in possession of the beautiful Nexus One (Have been for a while), I’ve wanted to share my opinions about the applications (apps) available on Android. No better app to start off with Aldiko.

This brilliant app is an e-book reader. Very good interface. Supports multiple formats, especially the current e-book standard format of .epub.

While you are reading the book you can change a number of settings, a few of which I love:

1. Fonts – Some inbuilt fonts come with the app, but they are not the best, you can get a few more as a separate download and there are some beautiful/ pleasing fonts in here.
2. Brightness – you can change the brightness by simply swiping down on the left edge of screen. Amazing shortcut and this feature has crept in to few other apps as well
3. Go to page and Bookmarks – awesome features, must have for e-book reading!

So, Aldiko comes with a couple of books in the open domain, one of which is White Fang by Jack London. I simply loved this book. They way the author makes you the center of the novel by being the protagonist, the Wolf called White Fang. You can download this app just for this one book.

Hopefully, I will write about more apps in the future.

Speed thrills, but kills

No better example than what happened to Azharuddin's Son, Ayazuddin. My heartfelt condolences to a budding young cricketer's death. He looked so much like Azhar too. Inna Lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajioon.

Bikes are meant to be raced. Getting one as a gift, a youngster is bound to try to find a place where you can rip the beast. Everybody knows as much. Then what could be the solution. Where will a youngster go?

A race track, of course! If only there were enough race tracks in Hyderabad, Ayaz would have had a place to race his bike without inhibitions. He wouldn't have needed to break the law and enter upon ORR which turned out to be his and his cousin's death trap.

A controlled environment for racing with all the safety precautions taken care of is a healthy need for this generation where bikes and cars are easily accessible and are faster than ever. Eventually, India will be richer with racers like Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandok and the likes. That's all I have to say about this. Peace!