November 24, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Fun, Google, GSOC, Hosting, Internet, LAN, Life, Linux, Shell

I CAN HAZ VPS HOSTING

AFTER HUNTING FOR A CREDIT CARD FOR ALMOST ONE DAY, I GOT A MASTER CARD FROM KIRAN M (UG2K5). BOUGHT THE MASTER CARD ITSELF. WAS TOO FRUSTRATED TO REQUEST FOR THE CARD NUMBER AND PUT HIS MONEY ON RISK. FINALLY REGISTERED FOR A VPS HOSTING ON SLICEHOST.COM FOR A 256 SLICE. I CAN’T EXPRESS MY HAPPINESS. I AM TOTALLY OUT OF WORDZ. MORE LATERZ.

November 21, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life, Linux

Long Time No Post , Quick Update

I have been too busy to write a post on this very blog 🙂 Here are quick update.

Released a few versions of youtube_cache in last couple of weeks. Youtube Cache now supports caching videos from 10 websites. A few ISPs are using it.
IntelligentMirror also received updates.
Placements are here. And I am still f**cking with this caching thing. Too addictive.
Inclination towards higher studies as more and more companies decline campus recruitment. How tough GRE can be?
Sudden fear of losing all the friends sucks big time 🙁
Proxy war with a professor. Just kidding 😀
No outing in last two weeks.
Mahaveer’s Compete India is doing really great 🙂

Rest laterz.

November 11, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on Camera, Google, Hacking, Hardware, Life, Tips n Tricks

Camera Recovered

My new camera fell down on Nov 5, 2008 from a height of almost 5 feet in switched on condition while clicking random pictures. The shock caused a severe damage to the lens cover. The dented lens cover didn’t allow the lens to come out of the camera. It was a shocking moment for me as I purchased it only a month ago.

Today, I gathered some courage and took the camera to Sony Service Center near Hyderabad Central knowing the fact the damages caused by dropping are not covered under warranty. The guy at the service center after inspection for few minutes said, “The entire lens has to be replaced”. I was shocked as only the lens cover was damaged and not the lens itself. I asked the approximate cost knowing the fact that it would be damn costly affair. He said gracefully, “Only 4500/- plus service charges and service tax”. I was dumbstruck. WTF!!! I moved out of the service center to breathe some fresh air.

I decided to check out the price at another Sony Service Center. There is another Sony Service Center near Hotel ITC Kakatiya (thanks to google local for the location 🙂 ) which is at a walking distance from Hyderabad Central. When I inquired the price for lens replacement there, the guy said, “8000/- to 10000/-“. I said, “f**k off”!!!. I would buy a new one for ten grands. Then I told him about the offerings by the other service center. He checked some details on Center’s LAN and found out that it would cost 6000/- including everything.

Pissed off by the price, we (Mahaveer was with me) started moving back towards central. I was left with no option other than spending a nice amount of 5000/- for the camera repair. But I thought of trying my luck yet another time (Linux has taught me this “don’t give up policy”). This time I approached the shop Third I Digital in Hyderabad Central. I bought the camera from that shop. When I told the guy there about the happenings. After checking the camera, he suggested, “Try to fix it yourself. Take a needle or something with a pointed edge and remove the dent. Lens will open and camera will work fine. Otherwise you’ll have to spend 5000/- anyway. Just give it a shot”. Something sounded good to ears after a long time. Packed my camera and we left for City Center. Had burgers there and returned to IIIT.

At room, I took a blade (shaving) and fixed the dent. And the camera is working fine now. I am feeling releived now 🙂 A blade worth five thousand.

November 5, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on Birthday

Mummy…..

Sachin Crying

Sachin is crying “Mummy …. mujhe bhi cake lena hai…” while Pankaj enjoys the cake all over his face 😀 The awesome pic was clicked by Kapil Agarwal yesterday night. BTW it is Pankaj Saini’s birthday taday. Happy birthday to him 🙂

November 4, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fedora, Fun, Hacking, Internet, LAN, Life, Linux, Review, Servers, Success

I announce cachevideos.com ( the official guide for caching videos )

I still remember when I launched saini.co.in in November last year. That was my first website that I owned and I came to know about things like hosting, domains and related things. This year, I am proudly launching cachevideos.com, which will act as an official website for my (now) popular squid plugin youtube cache. The website is drupal based and all I have done is populated the content, modified some CSS, installed some modules, themes etc. It took almost 1-2 days for building that website. Drupal is a real cool CMS if you want to build sites quickly. Will write a post about how I build that site sometime. A big thanks to Sambhav Jain for customizing the header image for the website using photoshop. And train loadz of thanks to SMR for providing fu**ing awesome hosting service at g33k.in. Will write a review about the hosting sometime soon.

My addiction for purchasing domain names is growing with time. I currently own 10+ domains just for the heck of it. Wasted (invested?) more than $100 in last one year on purchasing domains. I own the following domains currently.

Hopefully I’ll stop purchasing domains and start working on putting content on them 🙂

October 28, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on India Craft, Photoblogging, Religious

Quite Quiet

Clicked this pic in Shilparamam today.

October 27, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Camera, Food, Fun, Life, Review

Yours truly’s birthday party / Angeethi / Barista / City Center

Well, It was my birthday on October 25th and today I threw a party. We left for Angeethi at 7:30PM. The journey was fine as the roads were not crowded due to festival season. We were in Angeethi in almost 45 minutes. Got a nice place to sit. Well, after browsing the menu we eventually discovered that there was no soup. Had to order Paneer Tikka and Hara Bhara (chu****pa) kabab which unexpectedly turned out nice. Main course was also cumsi cumsa.

Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Angeethi

Ajay’s photos can sometimes be really unexpected.

Koi isko (Ajay) ko bhi khana dedo

Afer having dinner at Angeethi, we moved on to Barista which is on the ground floor in the same building. This was first time I was visiting Barista. I ordered something randomly and fortunately it was good. It was fun at Barista. The ambience of the place was really good (from a newbie photographer’s point of view 😛 ) and pics came out real good.

I don’t know what I was doing when somebody clicked this pic 😛

Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Barista

After that we moved on to City Center just for browsing random stuff in crossword (a book shop in City Center). After roaming around and clicking pics in city center we moved out.

Sambhav has made these two awesome gifs from the photos we clicked in city center and barista. Hats of to his skills.

Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at City Center

Kulbir Saini Birthday Party at Barista

PS : Though its only a day left for diwali, city is not really decorated. Almost no lights 🙁 This shop which I found opposite to City Center is one of few decorated on the road no. 1.

Krsala Designer Jewellery

October 23, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

Not going home on Diwali, yet another time

Ever since I got into IIIT, I never celebrated Diwali at home. And diwali in south India is not really celebrated with much enthusiasm as compared to north India. Last year I might have gone home but the laziness factor overpowered me and I chose to stay back at IIIT. This year, I was thinking of going home.

I woke up at 7:00AM on Oct 19th to book ticket in Tatkal. But the almighty computer caught my attention and I was browsing random stuff till 7:30AM. I left for the station in a hurry and discovered a huge line for reservation. While standing in the line, I was just thinking how railways and airways completely looks like a computer network. Assuming rail tracks as wires, trains as current, stations as switches, junctions as routers, local MMTS network as VLANs, airways as wifi and people as packets who want to flow through these. The entire transportation system translates to a computer network. AC/Sleeper/General translates to different quality of services. Both of them have the same problem, they are overcrowded. Anyway I was there in the queue for 40 minutes and I could move only 8-10 feet. And a few minutes later, I realized that Tatkal quota was over. Yipeeee!!!! We have crossed the allocated bandwidth limit. Check back laterz. I got back to IIIT and successfully continued browsing after that.

I could have tried for the ticket the next day but again the laziness factor overpowered me and now I am ready to celebrate Diwali at IIIT yet another time 🙂

October 22, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Food, Fun, Life

Somani’s Birthday / Haveli / Club8

October 21st, 2008

For the very first time we decided to go to a club in last three years at IIIT for a change. And to feel a bit grown up 😛 To get started Club8 was a nice spot because its cheap as they don’t charge you for stepping in.

We left at 8:30PM. We wanted to have dinner in Club8 but then Banga suggested to move to Haveli because it was a bit suffocating in Club8. All of us moved to Haveli. Following Pankaj’s suggestion, I tried Veg Monchov for the first time and it was crap. It may be place specific. Anyway had almost nice dinner in Haveli.

Somani's Birthday at Haveli

After dinner, we moved to Club8.

Somani Birthday at Haveli

People (very few) had drinks. In fact only Sachin, Pankaj and Kapil Bajaj had it. Rest of us are still kids, if I may use that word 😛

Somani Birthday - Sachin, Pankaj, Kapil Bajaj

Sachin was almost drunk even without having a sip. And the dangerous pic says it all.

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sachin Goyal

After a bit of drinking, everybody for dance. And after that only dance.

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Me

Somani Birthday at Club8 - We

Somani Birthday at Club8

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sambhav, Nitin Gupta

Somani Birthday - Sambhav, Nitin Bansal, Nitin Gupta

Somani Birthday at Club8

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Me

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sachin, Pankaj

We moved out at around 11:45PM. BTW It was Ajay Somani’s birthday.

October 19, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Camera, Fun, Life, Photography

The Indian Aviation Show 2008 at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad

Today (October 18, 2008) Indian Aviation Show 2008 was open for general public at a nominal price of Rs. 150/- as a ticket. We (Me, Sambhav, Mahaveer, Romit Pandey (UG2K7), Manish Sharma, DJ Ranga, Deepak, Prateek) left for the Begumpet Airport at around 9:20AM. As the roads were almost free due to Saturday, we reached Begumpet at 10:10AM. The place was crowded as hell (literal meaning of hell is not intended :P). We somehow managed to get tickets quickly. But the queue to enter the airport premises was real long. Almost more than 1500 people were in line at any instant of time. Romit, Manish and Mahaveer managed to get in quickly by switching lanes. We (the unlucky ones) had to wait for some more time. We finally switched lines and got in at 11:10AM. A deep breath after an hour of frustration. I entered an airport for the first time and was surprised to see the awesomely f***ed up security. You can carry anything you want. Its ok that the airport is not used anymore but in situations like these when you have thousands of people in airport, the security should be tight and everyone should be screened well. Anyway, after getting in we started clicking pics as I was ready with my digicam 😀 The first picture I clicked is of an helicopter named Dhruv.

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Dhruv Helicopter

After that we were roaming around clicking everything possible. There was an exibition of different planes/helicopters/private jets etc. All in all it was a nice show and worth visiting. Below are few more shots from the show.