Find out current location of a Train
By Nithin Kamath | April 7, 2012
It is very common for us to find out after we reach the railway station that the train we are to catch is running a couple of hours late, leaving us frustrated. Well there is good news a revamped National Train Enquiry System is in works, currently in beta it can be accessed via http://trainenquiry.com/searchtrain.aspx(use the new look button).
The site is very simple to use, in the search box provided, enter either the (a) Train Name or (b) From and To Station Name or (c) Train Number.
The results page will display all the trains matching with your search criteria. Click on the appropriate train to view the exact details like start date and the previous and next stops.
Once you select the train you wanted information for click on it to get the current status. It will show if the train in on-time or delayed or it if it has already reached the destination. It also shows the last next two stops and the expected time of arrival.
All in all a very good step forward. Hopefully by the time the site comes out of beta it will be more polished and will help the commuters plan their arrival to railway station.
The screen shot shown above is of the Kannur – Mangalore – Bangalore – Yeshvantpur Express. It leaves Mangalore at 7:45pm, I took this screen shot around 8:15pm. So the details seem to be getting updated regularly. Just to confirm just before posting I checked it again and it mentioned as having crossed Bantwal.
Configure Beetel 110TC1 ADSL2+ Router for BSNL
By Nithin Kamath | March 11, 2012
Last week I had to buy the Beetel 110TC1 ADSL2+ router from the open market after my Huawei router purchased from BSNL broke down due to power fluctuations.
The steps to configure Beetel 110TC1 router for BSNL broadband (Dataone) is as follows, the steps remain the same regardless of the operating system (I have Linux Mint 12 in my system):
- Connect the Ethernet cable, telephone line and the power line to the modem and switch on your machine and the modem.
- Open your favourite browser and type in 192.168.1.1 in the address bar.
- Enter admin as the username and password as the password in the popup window and press enter.
- You should be greeted with the Beetel 110TC1 configuration page.
- Click on Interface Setup
- For Virtual Circuit, you can choose either the default PVC0 or PVC2. If you choose PVC0, then you need to set VPI = 0 and VCI = 35 (This is specific to BNSL). If you choose PVC2, the default values are 0 and 35.
- Ensure that status of the Virtual Circuit is ‘Activated’.
- Under the ‘PPPoA/PPPoE’ section enter the user name/password combination provided by BSNL. For me the username as first two characters of my first name follower by my telephone number along with the STD Code. That is ni80xxxxxxxx. The password is ‘password’.
- Save your changes.
- The next step is to set the DNS entries, navigate to the sub-tab ‘LAN’ under ‘Interface Setup’.
- Under DHCP, change the DNS Relay to ‘Use User Discovered DNS Server Only’.
- I use OpenDNS, hence set the values of Primary and Secondary DNS to the values provided by OpenDNS which is 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
- Save the changes and you should now be able to connect.
Call from a telemarketer
By Nithin Kamath | February 26, 2012
It was a lazy Saturday morning, I was getting bored, there was no power and I was done with the newspaper. Just then my land line began ringing, I was expecting it to be a wrong number as I use it only for Internet and I myself do not know the number.
Here is how it went:
Lady Caller: Hello is it Mr. Kamath?
Me: Yes.
Caller: Hello Mr. Kamath this is Ms xyz calling from abc, Delhi.
Me: Okay.
Caller: We would like to tell you about our new scheme and it features..Blah…Blah…Blah….Blah…
Me [in thoughts]: Nice voice…suits her telemarketing job, but how did she get my number?
The caller changes over to Hindi..the speed of speech is much faster now.
Caller: Blah…Blah…Blah….Blah…Blah….Blah…
Caller: Blah…Blah…Blah….Blah…Blah….Blah…
Caller: Blah…Blah…Blah….Blah…Blah….Blah…
(continues for 2 minutes)
Caller: What is your age Mr. Kamath?
Me: I am not interested in your offer. Thank you.
Caller: Mr Kamath. How can you tell you are not interested, you have not yet heard about it. How can you decide on its pro and cons before you hear about it…
Caller: Blah…Blah…Blah….Blah…Blah….Blah…
Caller: Blah…Blah…Blah….Blah…Blah….Blah…
Me (I cut her in between): If I am not interested..there is no point of any decision..Thank you.
Caller: No Mr. Kamath…Once you hear about the scheme…blah..blah..blah……blah…(continues speaking for 2 more minutes)
Me (in thoughts): Let her continue..you tried your best not to waster her time, now it is she who wants to continue talking to you..so let her do that…at least she is offering some good time pass. Come on, how often do you hear such fine tuned voice expect from such unexpected callers.
Caller: Mr. Kamath.. Can I know your age?
Me (in thoughts): Why is she behind my age, is she looking for someone to get married to??? Also If she can get my number, name and tells me that I am in good financial state how come she can’t find my out my age?
Me: No..no.. don’t stop please continue…
Caller: Mr. Kamath…If I go on continuing and give you all the details..blah…blah..blah and then if you tell me that you are not interested it will be bad.
Me: Didn’t I already tell you I am not interested in your offering..(almost laughing)
Caller: Ok. your wish..(cuts the call)
Me (in thoughts): I should have told her to call again after all she spent a good 10 minutes talking to me.
As I kept the phone down, power came back and I was left wondering was it just a coincidence or a marketing tactic ;-)
