Monthly Archives: August 2006

The Journey to Pondicherry – An Ordeal

The journey home was an ordeal. The trouble started even before we settled in the bus. The new Lexia bus started leaking after a slight drizzle. Passengers switched places. But as the bus started moving, the rain also became harder and almost all the AC vents started leaking. I managed to hold on for a while and then covered the vent with the window screen. If this was not fun, then came the best – or for those who suffered with me the worst – part

The incapable driver did not notice a huge hole on the road caused by the rains and drive the bus right into it. The bus came to a halt with a wild jerk. Half the people thought that the bus had hit some other vehicle. It was 1.45 am when the incident took place. The driver and the cleaner inspected the bus and found that the axle had taken the damage and a gear had to be fixed.

They tried to fix it themselves but in vain. At about 2.00 am the driver had taken the broken piece to the nearby town which was 15 km away. With the hope that he would come back I thought I will try to catch some sleep as I had not slept since the bus left at 10.30.

The indicator was switched on and the buzzer woke up anyone who had the intention to sleep. The AC was also switched off. After two hours it became really hot and the fan was switched on after a lot of fight with the cleaner.

I managed to sleep for an hour. When I woke up it was 5.30 and the day was dawning. Half the people had already left; a few were standing outside and cribbing about the service of Sharma Transport. A few girls were sitting in the rear seats and as usual, chatting things of their own interest.

We called the head office and the guy told us that if we assure him that if we all stay there, he would send us a bus. The bus would take a minimum of three hours to reach the spot and we had another four hours of travel. Tension was mounting among those who had patiently waited for over four hours.

Calls after calls were made to friend and parents and then we all decided that we leave by the first bus. In the mean time we had an intro session. I did not get the lady’s name. The other one was Ramya (Did I see her in Wipro??) and one guy named Srivatsan. The first thought on hearing his name was, is he the one who studied with me at Don Bosco with me and for most part considered the second best? The lady whose name I did not get even though she had mentioned it had earlier borrowed my cell phone to call someone whom she thought could help us.

Nothing happened. She then told we all would talk like this now and later use the same transport to reach back to Bangalore. She asked each one if we had booked the return ticket in the same bus. Most people did! However I was not sure which bus was booked for me. Then we got a local bus and two bus changes. I don’t know who was with whom, but I just wanted to reach home so did not wait for anyone.

I reached home at 11.15 am, more than five hours late than the scheduled time. A couple of them had gone to the office to demand a refund. But I doubt whether they would have made any progress.

The return journey was only marginally better. This time it was the bug infested bus. A poor girl had all her hand bitten and it was a horrible sight. This time the cleaner gave her a can of “Hit”. What a mess! I reached here by 6.30 am. And oh, what a relief.

The Distro Debate…

Today I happened to read a couple of interesting articles about that attempt to explain what the latest linux distro Ubuntu is and what it is not.

Makes an interesting read and a much more interesting debate though not like the Mac vs Windows or Windows vs Linux. This is about one distro vs another.

1. techanchor
2. linuxhelp

What I think is that a free OS, shipped free of cost to any country is definitely a plus. But connecting to the internet during the install and the installer dying for lack of connectivity (I had experienced this while installing Ubuntu) is a minus. I am not sure if there are others who have experienced this. Overall I feel it is a better distro for a noob. Read my complete experience with Ubuntu Linux at http://pbs.wetpaint.com/page/The+Dapper+Experience

What do you say?

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Also at http://my.opera.com/pb_subramanian/blog/show.dml/414183

Indian Independence Day – Aug 15

The great holiday season for the Independence Day celebrations is about to begin at the end of the day. Many people have already started leaving to their hometowns to join their family for the holiday. Others are busy making plans to go around the country and enjoy different cultures.

And taking into account, the foiled terror plot in London yesterday, everyone will be relieved if the day passess without any incidents

Salute the people who fought for our freedom and those who in the services who are keeping it intact.

Wish you all a great and safe Independence Day

How can I make my blog better?

My first blog post was sometime in June 2004. I have mostly been writing on my private blog and only recently I started writing a few public articles about technology that interests me. Now -more than two years later- a thought occurred to me. “How can I make my blog better?”. The first answer is obviously to “make an effort” towards making my blog better. I googled on how to make a blog better and stumbled upon two websites.

Please remember that my intention is not to write a killer marketing blog. But to write a decent blog and improve all the time. What really struck me was how could simple writing could have a tremendous effect on the reader. Just read the Professional vs. Amateur portion in the first link and you would understand the difference

The second link states in terms of a FAQ how your blog should be written. I would pick two things out of the list as the most important, 1) Is the topic clear to someone who only reads the headline and 2) Would someone who knows absolutely nothing about this topic understand this post? There is even a section on how to write comments on others’ blogs.

After learning all these and armed with the necessary information I set out from today to make each one of my post better than the previous one. And guess which is the first post after my enlightenment? Yes!!! Its this one 🙂

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Also on My Opera at: http://my.opera.com/pb_subramanian/blog/show.dml/384700