Sameek Banerjee

I’m back…..but why?

Sameek — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 10:09:22 +0000

Seems like someone had hacked my web-site. But after some tweaking and a little help from my friend Jayant. Special thanks to rakesh, without whom, i would not have noticed it.I got it back online again. The damage done was not severe. but still… I have been neglecting my blog for too long. This was a warning call.

Recently a few events transpired in Mumbai which is not unknown to anyone. My deepest condolences for the innocent people who lost their lives. Things are getting complicated more and more in our country. Congress and BJP are both failures. I hope we don’t forget what transpired on 26/11. I salute the security personnel who fought so selflessly and pray for those who died saving my country. I hope your sacrifice was not in vain. Its high time we unite. We were found absolutely helpless. Please Mr. P.M. , this is no time to talk soft. Let us all unite in one voice. We need everyone to pitch in. Lets unite so we dont have to live in fear anymore. I know we can do it. Vande Maataram!

Chrome!!

Sameek — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:49:09 +0000

Google is launching the beta version of its brand new browser called CHROME. Seems interesting to me. I guess they wanted to start from scratch and develop a browser more suited for what Google wants to achieve. The storybook for Chrome is a pretty decent read. Check it out here. I am pretty eager to see where this goes.

Continuing on browsers… FireFox recently launched its 3.0.1 version. I haven’t used it extensively yet. But seems that the Real-Player plug-in that you could use to download streaming videos (from YouTube, etc.) will not work in 3.0.1 . So if you want to use Real-player plug-in with FireFox 3.0.1 wait till Real introduces its own compatible version.

India at 61. My thoughts!! WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY??

Sameek — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:29:31 +0000

First of all a very HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to all my fellow Indians. Today, being a national holiday, I was in home all day. Well, I wanted to go out but I guess nowadays 15th august means…”Terrorists’ Independence Day”. Every body started telling me…”NO way! Don’t go out. Stay indoors. These days are pretty unsafe”. Is this what our freedom fighters gave their lives for? To see their country being mauled by a pack of rabid dogs? This will open up a lot of old wounds, so people shy away from this topic. Its like that elephant in the living room that no one talks about. Good honest people (even though their numbers are shrinking faster than cheetahs) are still going about as if all these communal tensions and religious hatred will magically disappear if we stay quiet. Thats right! Communal and religious hatred is the biggest threat to our country. It is as if one day we will wake up from a long nightmare and realize that all that was just a bad dream and we are living in harmony now. That is just stupid. We have all built a wall around ourselves. By ourselves, I mean our communities. We have also unknowingly stereotyped other groups. “Muslims hate us!” , “Hindus hate us!”, “Bengali’s are selfish”, “Cannot trust a Gujarati”, “People from NorthEast are vulgar”, “South Indians only care about themselves”. I have had the privilege of hearing these things. This gives an Idea that as Indians we don’t really think properly. Somewhere in the line we have lost our way. The only way to tear these bigotries is to talk about it. And be frank.

All I can think of is that Hindus and Muslims are stuck at some point in History. “Kisne danda pehle mara??” (Who hit first?). This is still the main reason behind all the quarrels. Its high time we get over it. What can we do by going back to 1 moment in history? Nothing. Both are to blame. Accept this. Move on. We are here today. Lets make our Mother India proud. Lets not fight anymore. We always fear what we don’t know. Tear down those walls around us. Walls are a bad Idea. They never work and they will all fall one day or tear us apart. Jai Hind!!

Why I dont like Dell

Sameek — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:32:57 +0000

About two weeks ago I ordered a laptop from Dell. A hefty price tag of 50k. Well I confirmed my order and then about 2 hrs later I got a call from my bank. “Sir, have you made 2 transactions from Dell, each of 50k each??” . “WTF?? No way! Only One.” I tried to answer frantically. “But we have already approved both the Transactions.” “Are you kidding me?” “Please call DELL immediately” “You don’t have to tell me that.”

By this time you must realize what kind of deep shit I am in. Well that mess took 4 days to resolve. I still don’t know if I am going to be billed for both the transactions. Any way after patiently waiting for 8 days (as told to me by the Sales Person), When the delivery day came, I was licking my fingers in anticipation. When I called Dell to confirm about it, guess what response I got….”Sir! due to unexpected part shortage we are forced to delay the shipment by 20 days. Please Adjust!!”. Dell Sales……You are full of raw sewage. I hope you choke and die on your filth. But wait till I get my Laptop. If I get any problem with the m/c I am coming to Bangalore to break the thing over your head. You big piece of Dog-Turd. If you are ordering from Dell, then confirm the date of delivery before booking. Those crooks lie through their teeth. Burn in Hell MFs.

Harman-Kardon Soundsticks II

Sameek — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:48:08 +0000

I bought a HK soundsticks II recently and I have got to say, I am blown away. First of all, It looks awesome and I thought that the hefty price tag, (Rs. 11k) is just because of the looks. But no son…. The sound is (if possible) even better. The online reviews were all positive about this product. I am really looking forward. The only bad thing about this is that there is that you can’t connect your headphone directly to the woofer, But if you are using a laptop, it doesn’t matter much. All in all I would say the price is on the higher side but well worth it (damn you Govt. of India….slash the duties so we can get it for cheap). Let hope mine lasts for at least a couple of years. Any Comments?

A Trip around the Country

Sameek — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:02:31 +0000

Its been a Long time. I am glad to be back and blogging again. I have been busy a lot but mostly I have been really really lazy. Lets hope I can keep the absences to a bare minimum. I have been lucky because I was able to take about 6 days off of work. Adding 2 weekends that made a whopping 10day long Holiday spree. But It was no time to relax, I had stuff to do and places to visit. First off…I went to Lucknow, I haven’t been there since February and this time I was going to stay there for 3 days. So first I had to go to New Delhi and unfortunately wait the whole night there. I could have taken a room in a hotel…but that ain’t the proper traveler way is it?? I made a bad decision to wait at NDLS instead of the airport. My god!! The rats in the waiting room were the size of cats!! and they had a whole system worked out about how to get food from the people that are sleeping on the floor. Whoo! Needless to say….no sleep! The trip to Lucknow was gr8. But It was raining like like hell. So after 2 days I head out Kanpur to catch the Train to Kolkata. In case you dont know thats my home town. The amount of rain that was pouring I thought for sure the trains would be running late. But to my surprise, it was right on time. I reached Kolkata right on time. My cousin was supposed to get married the very next day. The rest of the week passed in a flash. One good thing about this trip was that, this time since the wedding was there, i got to meet the whole family. The sweltering heat of Kolkata made this trip even more unforgettable. The trip back to Hyderabad was much less eventful. But since I had been away from work for so long, I had a lot to catch up to. If I get some time, I will upload pics of the trip. Cheers!

City Infoline Up Again!

Sameek — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:19:21 +0000

The Ultimate Infoline To Everything Local™. Visit http://www.cityinfoline.in/

Keept it going Guyz!

DHD - 2 wickets down… Still going Strong

Sameek — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:09:22 +0000

Well people might wonder what the hell does this DHD mean?? DHD is the infamous acronym for The “Dirty Half Dozen”. What the f…? You may ask. What kind of lame-ass name is that. Well we don’t give a flying f… what you think. The DHD was about free spirit and copious alcohol consumption and making profits for the tobacco companies. Actually it was a group of six people from our college. The infamous Jadavpur University. Sadly though we have recently lost our second member. No! No! Nobody died. That dude just got married. So imagine this. 2 people married, so we can’t expect participation from them in any drinking binge anymore. 2 people out of station. So 2 of us left (Adhiman and myself). We are sad, coz our friend (Nondo) got married and kolkata is hot as hell. So lets go for some whiskey. Antiquity Blue is the choice now. Before long my other friend i have finished 6 pegs each(WTF???). Who knew my college days will come flying back. Adhiman is drunk as hell and I am almost carrying him home. All izzat flushed down the toilet. See guys, we are back to our former selves. Utso and Biru! You guyz may have fallen to the dark side………..but the rest of us will keep rocking!

Wrapped in Python!

Sameek — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:00:11 +0000

Since the last month, I have been shifting my focus from PHP to Python. Its not like I myself found anything wrong with PHP. Its just that while having a conversation with a friend of mine, he mentioned the latest craze in the Web Application Framework area, Some odd sounding thing called Django. “Django?? That sounds like some-kind of Music!! What kind of idiot would name a serious application with that name?”, I said to myself. But somehow my friend ( a very persuasive individual), convinced me that Django is really worth looking into and its written in Python. So, here I come Django! To be entirely honest, before that I never actually saw a single line of code written in python in my entire Life. Took print of whole django-book. And started reading it in the nights. I cannot believe how simplistic their approach was. It turned out to be my bible. I put my plans on hold. Started learning Python. Python’s philosophy was again one of the best ones i have ever laid my eyes on. It seems like a human beings’ programming language. All other languages now seem to me designed by robots.

A little bit of trivia ” Python was Designed by Guido Van Rossum. And named after the Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketch. So even though the logo looks like a python, It was never meant to be equated to the nasty reptilian.”

Also it Turns out the name Django is indeed related to music. The framework is apparently named after a famous jazz musician “Django” Reinhardt. Serious jazz enthusiasts, please don’t grind your teeth in anger. I was never a jazz fan and so never came upon the name of the great musician.

All in all, I would call the last few weeks very productive. I am feeling like a new convert. And more keen to learn more of Django and python. Already have developed a simple desktop application using wxPython. Looking for a good IDE to Djumpstart with Django. Anybody has any suggestions, feel free to comment. So far I have looked at Pydev, the Eclipse plug-in, maybe the django guyz will bless us with one in the near future. Until next time……alvida!!

Toshiba Service Sucks!!!!!!!

Sameek — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:26:52 +0000

You might be wondering what happened to me for the last two weeks. Well, My Laptop broke down. No problem really, Just that the cooling fan was not working. Well, since the last 2 years my Toshiba has been withstanding quite a lot of punishment in my hand. Finally, it had given up. Turns out the connection to the power circuit became loose and all the dust from Kolkata, Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad had made it impossible to rotate. So i went last week to the toshiba’s service center. About 10Km from my home. (Funny thing about their business hours, they open from 9am to 5:30pm every weekday and are closed on weekend. 8| ) . Had to drag along my lapie to them. The service charge was Rs1700, since my Warranty Period was over. And all the problem with it was the dust collection and the power connector coming loose. They took 8 days to repair it. Seriously guyz, I am sick and tired of people taking advantage of helpless situation. Btw, I have complained on the Toshiba website. Lets see what happens. Neway, I am going to post regularly from now on.