Aajkal ke bachche

I knew that times have changed. I also knew that today's kids are much more smarter than what we (or maybe I) used to be at that age.
But until yesterday, I only knew that.

My nephew is 7 years old. I was teaching him a song. The conversation went on like this:

Me: Chalo beta aaj tumhe naya gaana sikhate hai.
Nephew: theek hai
Me: tera chehra sanam
Nephew: tera chehra sanam
Me: ek rubai si hai .. rubai .... rubayeee
Nephew: ek rubai si hai
Me: mere dil jism-o-jaan pe tu chahi si hai .. dil jism-o-jaan ...
Nephew: mere dil jism-o-jaan pe tu chahi ... chachu ... kaun?

for once I couldn't stop laughing. At the very least, I could convince him that she is Priyanka Chopra, and she stays closeby, and she's gonna come over for coffee once her movie is complete.
And thank god for that.

Human Test

Lot of sites ask you to type the characters you see in an image in their form submissions. For example, to put a comment on this blog, you need to do the same.
This test is called CAPTCHA. Its a technique to test for humanity, i.e. it makes sure that a human is filling the form and not some computer bot (automated code).

However, my experience with CAPTCHAs so far is that most of the times it is a test for humans with a 20/2 vision and IQ > 200. Most of these images are done so badly that I am unable to figure out what the text is supposed to be.

Don't believe in what I say? Check out this link for some of the unreadable CAPTTCHAs out there.

Sach mere yaar hai

Just remembered this great song. It used to be my and one of my friend's favorite in college. He used to sing it really well too and was famous in the hostel this song.

The last stanza of this song is in particular brilliant.

सुनते थे हम ये जिंदगी गम और ख़ुशी का मेल है
हमको मगर आया नज़र ये जिंदगी वो खेल है
कोई सब जीते सब कोई हार दे
अपनी तो हार है

My friend always used to sing this last line as apni to jeet hai and I would sing it as apni to haar hai.
And then he would say ki apni to jeet hai mere dost. And I would say, nahi apni haar hai.

Mere dost, apni abhi bhi haar hai.

Port Forwarding in Airtel Modem Beetel 200BX

Ever since I wrote the article to setup wireless router with the airtel modem, lot of people have asked me to help them with port forwarding. So here is the post to do the same.

When do u need port forwarding:
Typically when you want computers outside your LAN to access your computer. Some examples can be when u set up a ftp server on my machine for other people to access, or you are running a bittorrent client such as utorrent, or when you want to play Age of Empires on the network.

Steps:

• Put an internal static IP on your machine.
  
  
  
  • Open Network Connections. Right click on Local Area Connection and select Properties.
    
  • Now select TCP-IP and click on Properties. Put values as shown. The DNS Server values I have put are that of opendns. You can also put 192.168.1.1 to use the airtel dns.
    
  
  
  
• Configuring the Airtel Modem.
  
  
  
  • open url http://192.168.1.1/main.html
    
  • Advanced Setup -> NAT -> Virtual Servers
    
  • the Server IP would be same as the IP Address above, which is 192.168.1.10 in this case.
    
  • If you want to play Age of Empires, you can just select this from the dropdown (it is pre-configured). Click on Save/Apply and you are done.
    
  • In case the service isn't pre-configured, such as utorrent. Click on Custom Service. Put name utorrent (anything, doesn't matter)
    
  • You would need to put which port to forward. utorrent typically runs on 19556, so put 19556 in all the four text fields i.e. External Port Start, External Port End, Internal Port Start and Internal Port End.
    
  • Choose the protocol. In case of utorrent, and in most other cases, it would be TCP. Click on Save/Apply.
    
  • Thats all. Port Forwarding should start working right away. As always, please write a comment if you reach this step :-)
    

Please note that these steps are applicable only if you are not using any other routers (wireless or otherwise) with your modem.

Update: Yogi has described the process for Beetel 440 TX in comments. Thanks Yogi.

3 movies in 3 days

Shrek 3 on Friday, Shootout at Lokhandwala on Saturday and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on Sunday.

With the gujjar violence blocking all paths to Jaipur last weekend, I decided to utilize the weekend by finishing off all possible movies that I was interested in. I had already watched Cheeni Kum a weekend before.

Cheeni Kum invoked mixed reactions. It seemed to be as if it has been made with the sole purpose of showcasing acting skills of amitabh bachchan. I couldn't figure out another reason why I would go and watch this movie.

Shrek 3 was nowhere close to the original Shrek. Why do all these animated intended for children movies must have this "moral of the story" embedded in it. For that matter, why do they always need to be intended for children. Shrek 1 didn't really try to do all this teaching and I guess that is why it was so lovable.

Shootout looked pretty cool. Despite huge violence, Tushaar Kapoor and a so-so Vivek Oberoi (who seemed to have been promoted to Ajay Devgan's role after Company :-D), it has an impact on the audience. One of the good things about the movie is that it doesn't passes any judgements on anyone, just shows plain facts (or true rumors as they say :-D)

Pirates 3 - good but a pretty complex story. And the fact that I didn't remember most of the story of earlier editions added to my misery. Heck, I didn't even remember that Jack Sparrow was killed in the last movie. I think my kind of people should first consult Wikipedia before going for such a movie ;-)

Me the travel buff

I have always been a travel buff. Ever since college 1st year, I have been out to atleast 1-2 trips every year. I remember going to Ranikhet, Nainital, Shimla, Mussorie, Panchmarhi and Goa during college.

That continued in bangalore too, where I went to Kodaikanal, Coorg and Kerala with friends.
Then came a gap of almost 2 years in noida during which I only had one visit, that to Vaishno Devi with parents.
However, 2006 saw the end of all that when I made up all the earlier years going to as many as six places namely - Rishikesh, Mcleodganj, Damdama Lake, Nainital, Lansdowne and then the greatest of them all - Kashmir.

Keeping up with the enthu this year, I have already had 2 trips. First was in April to Singapore, making that my first trip to a foreign land. It was a whole new experience altogether, amazing infrastructure, an almost zero crime rate, great night life. A heavenly place for gadget lovers, I bought Canon Powershot S3 digicam to do some justice to my talent for amateur photography ;-)

The second trip was this month itself, it was to Mcleodganj again, this time with my company colleagues. Mcleodganj is a quiet place close to dharamshaala, and its the home of the dalai lama. Its a beautiful place with lots of natural beauty, and few treks to go out on. Even after going for the second time, I have not yet been able to fully explore the place. Its a highly recommended place for trekking and camping fans in particular.

Let the good times roll :-)

Blog backup service and an error

I just found out that I haven't completed 100 posts yet. The error came in because my Blogger dashboard currently shows "103 posts", while actually its 99 posts and 4 drafts.

So this is the official 100th post. For the record, I have also wrote 9 posts on Technical Advice.

I discovered this error when I was checking out this new service for backing up blogs. BlogBackupOnline looks pretty promising, and it backed up this blog in a breeze. It showed only 99 posts backed up, and thats what gave me the clue.
Check out its review by download squad here.