My Snuffbox

Samsung Galaxy S2, the eye-popper and mouth-gaper phone! I was never a fan of Samsung phones, I was the "Cell endraal Nokia" (If its a cell phone, its gotta be Nokia) types. But android was simply too irresistible. And everyone was going gaga over the Samsung Galaxy S2. Launched in India, sometime in May 2010, I had to spend a solid 4 months in making up my mind if I'd to invest $600 (30k INR) for a phone. Then after some good amount of thought, I went for it. Now i know its worth every penny. So! Samsung Galaxy S2!! What does it have to offer? A 1.2 GHz dual core processor, ok, sounds cool! A Super AMOLED Plus screen, supposedly a scratch resistant Gorilla glass (good for careless fellas like me) An 8 MP megapixel camera, huh... hmmmm.. ok..  Full HD recording and playback! Wow! Thats happening! 16GB internal memory expandable upto 32GB with micro SD.. so thats where all the HD videos go An ultra slim and light weight phone, it took me sometime to get used to t...

Hey! Mc Donalds is giving away Kung Fu Panda 2 merchandise for happy meals. They include cool figurines of Po, Tigress, Monkey, Viper, Shi Fu and the villain in the new movie. Hurry! Offer valid till stocks last!!!! This is in Hyderabad, India.

Shell petrol stations have the brought out sale of model Ferrari cars again.... the last time it was in January 2008 and it has come back after nearly 3 years!! But there are no new variants, the same 6 models as the last time... A Grand Prix Ferrari Ferrari Spider Enzo Ferrari Ferrari F430 and two more The last time in 2008, they were priced at Rs 100 each (INR) This time, its up by a 50 bucks and they are priced at Rs 150 each (INR) So, if you are a Ferrari lover, what are you waiting for? Head to the nearest Shell petrol bunk/gas station and collect 'em all!!!

Been working on linux systems very recently.. the system arrived with all the fun configuration that could be expected but the surprise was in store when i opened the firefox browser in the Linux OS. The browser when opened for the first time takes you to the mozilla page where it talks about the Mozilla foundation and the firefox project and stuff. And all i saw was a "Firefox could not establish a connection" page! :( Oh great! No proxies! So it was basically a known problem. Without a second's passing, i clicked on Tools in Firefox to configure the proxy settings. And this was what my reaction was when the Tools menu showed up! There was no Options at all!!! So i was under the assumption that i had to be some super user or an administrator to have the privileges to change and configure the internet settings in firefox on linux. Almost a week passed before i realised that the 'Preferences' is under Edit menu in Firefox as against Tools menu in Windows . I felt ...

We'd been to Warangal in AP, India last summer. Only when we reached there, did i realize the treasure trove that our motherland truly is. Lying in ruins in front of our eyes, were the reconstructed remains of a once flourished dynasty of kings, under whose patronage was spawned a variety of hair rising architectural concepts. Displayed here is a picture of a beautiful sculpture of an elephant giving birth to a calf and the bull helping it when its in labour. And we're talking about this detail not in a huge piece of rock, but in something that was barely 2.5 feet by 1.25 feet. In the pic, it is seen that the two elephants are standing back to back, separated by a pillar. The way the elephants are using the pillar for support is well thought of. The bull and the mother are pulling the pillar in opposite directions (towards each other) so that the mother exerts the force needed to deliver the calf by pulling the pillar, held in place by the bull. Whether the bull is using anot...

the title Problem Solving is an all encompassing concept, so all encompassing that it can never be dealt with at a comprehensive stretch in any book. Problem solving can cover anything as simple as finding out ways to solve problems in day to day life to identifying a design pattern for a big software project. Now that's a range!! Well, in my recent work experience in a maintenance portfolio, I was involved in a lot of bug fixes and debugging. I was able to find out a protocol for finding fixes. 1) Replicate the problem There's use in finding a solution only if the problem is replicable. Solving an inconsistent problem does not make any sense despite the choice of something waiting 24X7 for a trigger to happen. If the problem is happening in prod or cert, make it happen in dev. You're not just recreating the problem but are also recreating the environment in which the problem occurs. If the problem is not replicable, then may be some anomaly is missing in the environment. ...

So your bike insurance got expired just out of the corner of your eye and you're waiting for the weekend to take it to the insurance folks to get the insurance renewed? So what till the weekend? You sneak behind cops, acting normal but have the rush cos anyone may stop you anytime and ask you for your vehicle's papers... so why all the fuss? Vehicle insurance renewal has got easier like never before. Wanna know how? The answer is the nearest " Reliance Fresh " store you can locate. They have an ICICI Lombard Insurance counter where you can go and get your vehicle insurance renewed across the counter. Points to note: Right now, I am not aware if this is spread across every Reliance Fresh shopping centre. But there are two shops at my place and both have the counters. You'll need to take your vehicle to the agent for inspection in case the previous insurance cover expired. You'll need a photo copy of either your RC book or your earlier insurance. They also hand...