Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

This weekend was fun. Surabhi & Vinit had come over from Bangalore for a meeting/conference. So I got to go receive them at the airport. Surabhi came at 7:20 pm and I had reached the airport at 6:55 so I got to spend 30 mins sitting in the car waiting for her to arrive. Good thing that now I can read books on my phone, otherwise it would have been painful.

Vinit arrived at 1:20 am but thanks to Surabhi being impatient we reached the airport at 12:15am. So we got to spend one hour in the car. Thankfully there was a Narula’s express counter in the gas station where we were waiting so the wait wasn’t that bad. By the time Vinit arrived it had started raining so we got back pretty late.

On Sunday we went for a late dinner at this restaurant called Panjabi Pindi. Where the food was excellent and the prices were reasonable. Would have also watched a movie but nothing good was playing so we came back home and they both crashed as they have to get up early in the morning.

I watched the First episode of the new season of Dr. Who. I Loved it. The new companion is a lot better than Martha and thankfully they won’t have that stupid love interest this time with the new companion like they tried last time. So far I like this companion, though Rose was a good companion too… When I was reading the comments on the latest episode I saw this comment made by a user:

drewmit: But, by not being in DW, Billie Piper can instead do season 2 of Secret Diary of
a Call Girl. A series in which she appears nude. I think she should keep her
current job, don’t you?

It made me laugh.

The Second season of Torchwood has ended. Liked this season a lot better than the 1st one. Lot of good storylines this time. Actually make that: they actually had story lines this time… Too bad it ended.

Now I am off to bed. Long day tomorrow…

– Suramya

Today I finally decided to install Linux on my Laptop. Though I have been running Linux on my desktop since 2000. I have never installed it on my Laptop, primarily because I needed to run Windows for work. So for the past year I have been using Windows as my primary OS with Linux serving as a storage server and used for tasks where I needed to do some scripting/automating.

I used the Kanotix LiveLinux Cd to install Kanotix on the laptop, primarily because I wanted to see if all the components would be detected without issues. So far everything seems to work great. I didn’t allocate enough space for the Linux partition (I had only given 2 GB) so I will try to resize the partitions. Hopefully that will work ok. Obviously I need to backup the system before I try it. So I will not be doing it immediately.

Almost every component of the Laptop was detected without issues and they all are working without me having to manually configure anything.

The sad part is that since its been so long since I have used KDE (I used the command line for working on the desktop) that I have to relearn a lot of the workings, esp the configuration screens etc. Ah well, atleast I am learning some new and interesting stuff.

Other than that life has been fun. Busy but fun.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

My laptop has decided that it has had enough of the Internet and started to boycott it. Basically what that means is that my network connection has stopped working on the laptop. Initially I thought that it was a software issue so I reinstalled Windows on the system (which is something I wanted to do anyways). Unfortunately that didn’t fix the problem. 🙁 So I booted into Linux using a Live Linux CD and had the same issue over there.

Now the wireless card probably works but I don’t have a wireless router at home. I am currently debating weather I should just get the laptop fixed or go buy a wireless router. In anycase I would like to have the LAN port working so I can use the net where there is no Wireless. So I am leaning towards getting the port fixed.

Currently I am using my desktop to access the web and its a pain. Oh it works fine and all that, its just that the stupid monitor has gone whacko since I last used it. Now half my screen has a purple tinge to it, so working on it for too long gives me a headache.

Ah well. Lets see when I can get the thing fixed. Then I will have to install all the software on it again. Re-installing windows is a pain. Applying all the patches etc takes so much time and you can’t just start the update and leave it unattended. In Linux you can perform an update and install all patches with a single command (In Debian its apt-get dist-upgrade).

I might just put linux on it. Dad probably won’t like it, as he is used to of windows but I think I can convince him that its not that hard to learn.

Well this is all for now. Will post more later.

– Suramya

A few of you might have been wondering where I have disappeared to these last few days.

Well I have been here struggling to identify why I couldn’t get to the net from my laptop. First I thought it was a network cable issue so I replaced all the cables with new ones (yeah I have a lot of them lying around). That didn’t solve the problem. The funny part was that my vonage was able to connect to the web and computers in the server room seemed to be able to connect to the web sometimes. I thought that it could be an issue with the Vonage router, as the rest of the house was going through it to get to the web. So I took out a linksys switch I had which was gathering dust and took the Vonage router out of the picture (The DSL modem was now acting as the router).

Unfortunately that didn’t fix the problem either. So I decided to move the entire system (router, modem and switch) to my room so that I could get net access there. Unfortunately over there even the vonage system lost net access. I couldn’t even ping the modem from my system. So I called Airtel and they sent a guy over to replace the modem. After they replaced the system it worked for a little while then something went wrong with its powesupply. It kept restarting randomly and ofcourse I couldn’t browse the web without frequent disconnects. So I called them again and they replaced both the router and the power adapter. So far it looks like its working.

In the mean time I found out that the network jack on my laptop is acting up… I could browse the web if I used the USB network jack I have but the net kept going down if I was using the built in network port. It might be a problem with Windows or it might be a hardware issue. I will probably be re-installing windows soon and if that doesn’t solve the issue I will get a wireless router.

Now I seem to be able to connect to the web. Lets hope it stays that way. *Crossed fingers*

– Suramya

Attended Sandeep’s wedding in Jhalandar on the 20th. Jhalandar is about 400 Kms from Noida and we had decided to drive there. Vinit, Surabhi and Pranav arrived in Delhi on the 18th at ~10:30 pm. As usual I had to go pick them up from the airport, by the time Pranav got out of the airport it was almost 11:30. On the way back we stopped over at Umang’s place and chatted till almost 5 am. Then also we only left because we had to leave for the wedding and Umang had to go to work.

We got home by 6am, had breakfast and crashed for a little while. Originally the plan was that we would leave after a few hours of sleep but by the time we got up it was almost 12:30. So we ended up leaving at 1pm. Then we got stuck in traffic while trying to get out of Delhi on the NH-1. That part took us almost 2 hours. After we got out of that the road was pretty good and the speed limit was a sensible 90 kms/hr. So we were driving at ~90-110 (with peaks of 120). Got to Jhalander at about 8:30 pm (we did take a 45 min break for a late lunch in the middle)

The wedding itself was fun. We first had the sangeet on the 19th night. All of us danced a bit, had dinner and then met everyone from Sandeep’s family. After that we all were tired so we crashed. The wedding day itself was nice and warm. The event was decent. The dance group they had organized was good. The wedding did go on till very late. The phera’s started at 12:30 and don’t know till how long they went on.

The next day we left our room at 6:00 am. The roads were empty so drove pretty fast. (Topped off at 160). Wanted to eat break-fast at macdonalds but all the ones on the road were closed. One for renovation, one opened at 9 am, and the third we have no idea about. Finally ended up having sandwiches for breakfast with Ilachi flavored milk. Plus Uncle Chips. What can I say… breakfast is the most important meal of the day. 🙂

Got home by 1pm. So the total drive took us 7 hrs. This included multiple stops, plus one hour of Delhi traffic. Over all a fun trip. Had been wanting to go on a road trip again for a while. So the wedding was a good excuse.

Well this is all for now. Having some internet issues (The home LAN is flaky for some reason) so more updates will be delayed till I fix that.

– Suramya

Yesterday was a ‘fun’ day. I got to attend three weddings on the same day. The day started off with me, mom and dad driving almost to Gurguan to give Bhaat at my cousin’s place. It took us almost 1 1/2 to get there thanks to the traffic and we got there about 12:00 pm. The function took till about 2 pm and once we were done we left to attend another wedding clear across town near Gaziabad. It took us a bit more than a hour to get to that wedding. Had lunch over there then left for the second wedding which was another hour’s drive from this place. Got there at 4:30 pm and stayed till 5:30.

Then we drove back home to rest and change so that we could drive back to Gurguan for the third wedding. Unfortunately (or fortunately) by this time the mild cold I had been nursing for the past day had blown up into a major cold with a slight fever so I got out of attending the third wedding. I am sort of glad about that. Mom and dad were there till 5 am. If I had gone for the wedding I know I would have fallen sick big time.

As it is, my head hurts and my eyes keep watering. Though I am feeling a lot better than yesterday after a full day of rest.

Well this is all for now. I am going to go listen to some music now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

Went to the International book fair being held in Pragati Maidan, Delhi. It is a huge setup with stalls setup in ~17 halls. I visited about 7-8 of them before leaving for the day. I was not wearing the most comfortable shoes so my feet were killing me.

Bought 7 books for Rs. 490. Which is a little more than the price of a new paper back (~Rs 300 – 350) Will definitely go there again. The fair will go on till the 10th so I still have some time. This time though I will wear sneakers. The best part was since I went on a weekday not a lot of people were there so I got to talk to a lot of the stall staff and they helped me locate some really good stuff.

Also got the addresses and locations for a couple of the shops which had the best books and now after the show is over I will visit them and see if I can get some good deals/stuff there.

Well this is all for now. I am off to enjoy my bounty 🙂

– Suramya

Spent my new years with Friends at Yash’s place where he had thrown a party for all us friends. About 25 of us were there and it was a fun night. I got there at 9pm as that was the time he had asked me to show up. As usual I was the first one there, though 5 mins later Rahul and Udit also arrived. A little later the rest of the group started showing up.

We burst some fire-crackers to celebrate the new years and I think we must have woken up every one in the area. One of the guys was trying to be smart and was lighting the crackers in his hand and then throwing them. He kept doing this inspite of being warned against it and sure enough one of them burst in his hand. We had him lie down after giving him first aid and the funny part was that his wife was panicking more than him.

After the new years we decided to try out our singing talents (which sadly don’t exist) playing karaoke. I don’t think I have laughed so hard ever. Some of the songs we sang and the way we sang it were really funny.

Got back home at about 3:30 am. Over all a great night. The cartoon below pretty much sums up how most of us felt the next day 😉

Didn’t take that many photos this time as Yash was taking lots of pics. Will post them online once I get them.

– Suramya

Wishing all of you a very Happy New year.

– Suramya