Tech Grandmasters - Team TECHNORAGE!

Hi all,

Big Synergy, the makers of landmark shows such as Kaun Banega Crorepati, India’s got Talent, Dus Ka Dum, Mastermind India and University Challenge are pleased to announce a challenging new television quiz show to be aired on NDTV Good Times, based on technology, testing participating teams on their knowledge ranging from latest gadgets to the greatest inventions and innovations, titled ‘THE TECH GRANDMASTERS‘.

They are inviting all tech savvy’s out there between the age group of 16-35 years to come and participate in ‘The Tech Grandmasters’, a contest where two teams battle it out over three grueling rounds of questioning by none other than the Gadget Guru himself, Rajiv Makhni.

I, along with Pavan Kulkarni of 7th IS, decided to take part in this quiz. As a part of the application process, we needed to create a 3 minute footage introducing my team. We shot in a camcorder first but later had to re-shoot the entire video in a Samsung Wave as converting the Mini-DV cassette to digital format was a tedious and expensive process.


The following video is our entry for the quiz:

Hope you like it :) We wanted it to be funny and geeky and it turns out to be a bit sillier than we intended it to be :P  Please log in to your Youtube account and like it or tweet it or share it on Facebook.


Thanks to Abhishek Joshi, Vijay Koppad, Manoj and Vinayak for helping us.


Feel free to comment below!

My New RIG!!!

Whoopie!!!

I got a new rig fellas!!!

That is the reason I've been busy for more than three months. Careful and exhaustive googling was the preparatory exercise I went through in order to have what I have now. And boy, am I pleased??!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before I bore you with the details, there is another thing which I want to share. You already know I am in the SJCE Editorial Board and in this semester, we are holding a cool fest, a literary extravaganza, called || shabd ||. The whole JC-Ed is working hard to make this a successful event. We have been preparing for this since August itself, when the college hadn't even started for me. So, if you want to know what all this is about, then visit here or here. The motto is "Expression of the soul". Join us and let your creative juices flood!

There are a few more stuff that happened to me. I was selected to become a member of an exclusive club of online security enthusiasts under Symantec called Norton Inner Circle. And through me, my father too ;) I got free copies of their premium flagship products Norton 360 v3 and their latest offering Norton Internet Security 2010 for free, among lots of other goodies. Had dinner twice in the Taj Residency, Bangalore as a part of the meets held :P.

Wait, there's more. I signed up to host an online launch party for Microsoft's latest release, MS Windows 7, due to be launched on 24th October 2009. And I was selected for that too. And so, I got a big package from MS, which shipped all the way from US, containing their Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 32 and 64 bit installation discs. And yeah, it was a signature edition with Microsoft's current CEO, Steve Ballmer's signature. They gave me a poster with backgrounds from Win7 and also a few plastic bags. A pack of napkins with their logo were included too!! Thanks MS, for all the freebies.

Cool!! I now have the autographs of rivals : Steve Ballmer and Richard Stallman. :D

Now, here is the real deal. I blew up about 27 grands INR for my rig. The basic config is:

CPU : AMD PHENOM II X2 550 Black Edition

RAM : 2 CORSAIR XMS3 1333 MHz 2GB DDR3

(i.e 4 GB in total. Currently overclocked to 1600MHz. Later will OC to 1800)

MOTHERBOARD : ASUS M4A785TD - V EVO

HDD : SEAGATE 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache and 1TB FANTOM external HDD connected via USB.

CPU COOLING : COOLERMASTER HYPER TX2 Heatsink (Air Cooling) w/ Stock Fan.

GPU : Integrated ATi RADEON HD 4200

( DirectX10.1, 128 MB of Sideport Memory @ 1333 MHz, Shared memory till 896 MB, Dual Independent Display Support, HD Support,OpenGL 2.0, Shader Model 4.1 )

AUDIO : VIA Sound Card (Supports simultaneous multi-streaming i.e can chat on headphone and play game music on 7.1 surround sound speakers simultaneously)

LAN : REALTEK Gigabit LAN Card.

USB Ports : 12 USB 2.0/1.1 ports.

DVD Writer, KEYBOARD, MOUSE and MONITOR : Picked up from my gran' ol' machine. Got a wireless mouse and 2 GB pen drive too from Norton. Thank you, Norton.

Due to my careful planning and a bit of luck, I managed to get a dream PC. I easily unlocked my Dual Core processor into an AMD Quad Core Phenom II X4 B50 Black Edition (i.e with unlocked multipliers for easy OCing) processor, courtesy my wonderful (and beautifully coloured) motherboard. Now, I am running a stable air cooled 3.1 GHz, 7 MB cache 45nm processor which runs super cool. My processor runs at a cool 50 degree Celsius even when under a torture test using Prime95 stability testing program, i.e under 100% load conditions. I have even managed it to OverClock it to 3.5 GHz, though I didn't check the stability. I am yet to learn OCing properly. It is good that my motherboard overclocks it to around 3.4 GHz just by the touch of a power button and also is capable of underclocking it to just 800 MHz when not required. It even overclocks my GPU, automatically. It looks uber cool with the stylish heatsinks and colour scheme.

I am now trying to install MS Windows 7, OpenSUSE 11.1, Ultimate Edition 2.3 and Hackintosh OSes in my PC. All are 64 bit since I've a 4 GB RAM Kit running in dual channel mode.

Feel free to comment below!

Poem : Her & Me.

Hi fellas!

My college kept me really busy since my last post with a spate of seminars, quizzes, tests, reports and what not! Well, now I am done with my II sem-end exams and so, I'll be updating my blog frequently. It feels so frustrating to apologise and/or make(?) excuses every time you can't take time to blog! I don't have access to net from my hostel, so it just makes it so much harder than it already is. Probably I have to start MoBlogging :P.

[PJ:

Q: Why do they call Mobile blogging as MoBlogging?

A: WHY??!! Try doing BileBlogging. YUCKK!!!]

OK, OK, I know I digress. It was just a futile attempt of mine to catch up with the PJoKings of our class. I guess they are on a different level altogether. Don't even dare to ask me about my lecturers ;P.

SJCE's ( i.e my college's) magazine titled 'Jayzine' got released during the college fest 'Jayciana'. I had my two poems published in it. ( Had? I am in the Ed Board, remember? :D ) Well, one was my lengthy, lonely, sad and angry poem - 'Perfidy', and the other was named 'Her & Me'. I also did a part of the achievements section and collected the one-liners for filling up. I thought of 'Her & Me' when I just sat outside my home in Bangalore gazing at the hazy stars. She had visited my home only a couple of weeks before. I completed the poem while shuffling between B'lore and Mysore.

Her & Me.

She stepped out of the car

Avoiding the puddles with care.

Soft lips curved as she saw

Me looking at her face fair.

Beautiful glittering eyes looked into mine,

Joyful tears dissolving in the rain.

As I lifted her up in my arms,

She enveloped me with her charms.

The fragrance of the pink flowers

Bedecked on her soft hair

Refreshed me like a cool shower

And knocked me out of air.

We played together,

We laughed together,

And when we danced

It was I who tripped.

Sometimes I was a horse, sometimes an elephant,

And a victim to many an endless rant.

Funny that a cute tiny child three feet

Can tame a wild man six feet.

The source of inspiration for this poem was my very little cousin, a cute toddler, Vaishnavi who bounces around for a whole day whenever she sees me.

PS: I am not six feet tall. Her father is that and more :) .

Feel free to comment below!

PHEW!!!!!!

Sorry pals!

I know I have sinned and committed the Himalayan blunder of the blogging world. I should have posted a simple "Hi fellas" at least. But I had my reasons - my sis's engagement, my sem-end exams, her marriage, monthly tests and a bit of laziness on my part have all conspired against me and kept me away from my own "thoughtful self" ;-) Well, I am glad its all over now.

Now that I went through my blog again, I saw that I have loads to upload and I really don't know where to start from. Well, that Stallman's speech was awesome. The special thing was that there was a hoax call telling that a bomb will explode at 1.30 pm that day but the seminar went on without a hitch, except for the cancellation of the Q session. Anyhow I only got to know about the bomb at 1.45 pm ( after I got his autograph - "Happy Hacking!!" ;-) and questioned him outside about Microsoft's infant Open Source OS - " Singularity" but he did not have any inkling of what it was ). Anyways, I am hale and hearty now - so don't worry! I am in one piece too :P !

Then, my sister's marriage!! Well it went on real good and it was a lot of fun - at least for me ( my parents were relieved when it was over :-) Boy! They were so tired! ). Of course, they had so much on their hands and I was of not much of a help staying in Mysore. The strict attendance rules of our "Autonomous" college prevented me from being of any significant help. Well, I would not be of any help anyways, being as lazy as I am ;-P .

My exams went ok too, though not too good. The recent test went well. Well, in the meanwhile, I managed to win both the tech quizzes held by LCC ( Linux Campus Club) of my college. It was a lot of fun. I managed to learn a lot and keep apace with the seniors in the CS dept. I still have to learn a lot though. I had no idea of the things the organisers deemed elementary while asking questions.

And here is good news! My article titled "Mobile Operating Systems" came in the IEEE magazine "INTERFACE"! I will post it shortly. It was just an intro to the various mobile operating systems making waves today. And I made it to the Editorial Board of my college magazine "Jayzine". I am in the English section. I hope I can improve my creativity by mingling with the great minds of my college.

Oh, I have written a couple of poems too though not for the magazine. I shall post it when the time is ripe.

Well, that's about it. Stay tuned for further updates :P.

Feel free to comment below! Complain, criticise, slam me, pat me, praise me - just do something.

Richard Stallman!!

Guys, Richard Stallman is visiting our college.
Oh, by the way, my college is SJCE, Mysore. I now remembered that I have not yet mentioned that in my blog!! Sorry for the lapse. I was so busy, courtesy this autonomous system - with all its accompanying horde of projects and spate of assignments that I could not update my blog keeping pace with all the developments.

I am so excited. I am really looking forward to bunking classes and listening his lecture on FSF and FOSS. God!! I am speechless!! Richard Stallman - The GURU of GNU/Linux. For those who are in our college, don't miss this diamond oppurtunity.

Feel free to comment below!