It was about one year that this site was hosted on a VPS server of Leaseweb. They provided a good set of specs but had some amount of unreliability when it came to providing 24×7 up-time. Also it once had a service outage that resulted in the loss of our data. Thanks to offline backups and Google cache I was able to restore all my posts. So it was high time before we moved onto something more trustworthy. It was then when I came to know about Digital Ocean, an SSD only VPS hosting provider. After a lot of geeky research I realized how quickly they grew their scope to provide a quality platform for VPS.
What follows next in this article is the story of how I migrated to DigitalOcean with help from my friends. Be warned that this article is fairly technical and can also serve to anyone who wants to migrate to DigitalOcean. I wholeheartedly thank Aaruni for his help on setting up the server, without his help it could have taken me days to do the same.
1. New Server on DigitalOcean (DO) VPS
There are numerous VPS providers but none at the feature to price ratio which DO provides. Hence me and my online friends decided to go for the most basic plan of $5 per month, which provided us with following features:
512MB Memory
1 Core Processor
20 GB SSD Disk Space
1TB Transfer Bandwidth
This configuration is modest to run a Unreal Tournament (UrT) gaming server and to host numerous small websites which were our requirements. Plus its easy to upscale so starting from the smallest option seemed to be a wise decision. Continue reading I migrated to Digital Ocean→
Year 2014 was one of the busiest year so far. And while my friends are busy posting what made their past year so happening on Facebook I thought I shall not rely on some artificial algorithm to tell my story of the year 2014. Hence what follows next are some of my real life experiences with lots of personal touch.
2014 proved to be a very important year for personal growth, learning and getting new experiences. I worked on many projects at job, revived old technologies and learned new ones. 2014 was a sad year for a lot of people but it also proved historical one for Indian political system.
During the first quarter of 2014, I caught myself in a situation where two of my immediate seniors at job left almost simultaneously leaving me in charge of a whole new set of responsibilities. That was a sudden change in the pace of my life but nothing which I couldn’t handle if I followed what my peers had taught me. Continue reading Year 2014 at a Glance→
Every once in a while a piece of technology sets it’s foot from inception to reality, that is perceived ahead of its time. It features tech which makes people awe in wonder. People dream of owning such a piece of technology that catapults them into the future.
One such device was my Optimus One P500 (O1 in short), an Android device manufactured by LG which featured specs which were uncommon at its price point. Granted it was not supposed to “take you to the future”, but it was as close as you get if you were under a budget. The device had 512 MB of Random Access Memory, which none of the branded manufactures at the time managed to pull it of in a sub 10k phone. Quickly it became the most loved gadget by amass and also among the developers at XDA, a place where developers collaborated for the greater good.
O1 came with Froyo (Android ver 2.2) when it was launched in October 2010. With the curves and specs it had it looked a neat little Android gadget to admire. It was after 9 months of the launch that I came to know about O1, took me one month time to research, write a blog about it and to finalize that my next smartphone can only be “the One”. After that it still took me 2 months to save money from teaching programming classes to school students, apart from doing 9-5 regular job. But it was a good phone and a gadget worth the hard work to own.
I remember when the delivery boy from “LetsBuy.com” came to my home and handed me over the phone while I was fiddling with my wallet to make it lighter. My dad was surprised by the way I handed hard cash to some stranger who just arrived at the doorstep. That was my first experience in online shopping but I trusted it. And it payed off well over the years. Continue reading Saying Adios to my first Android→
While my choice of genre doesn’t really allow me to digest modern popcorn blockbuster Bollywood movies, I often tend to enjoy them occasionally if served with a good story and execution. I will have to say that Bobby Jasoos was not one of them.
Bobby Jasoos seems to be a half baked, self pretentious attempt in directing by Samar Shaikh and endorsed by Diya Mirza as a Producer, whose skills could have been better utilized as an actress to save this movie a little.
The story of Bobby Jasoos is about a 30 year old Muslim girl named Bobby, residing in the heart of Hyderabad city near the iconic Charminar. While she keeps herself involved in investigating cases in night and trying to get a proper detective job in daytime. She is having a rough time in securing clients as a detective, but luck takes a big turn as she receives an assignment that pushes her to her limits. Rest of the film is a riot as she tries to struggle her career as a detective and manage her family emotionally who doesn’t seem to be in favor of what Bobby does.
While the film seems to have so much potential what makes it fail is the treatment. The film starts of in a humorous tone and actually seems like to begin with the right foot. But as it picks up pace we are introduced some of the people that seems like a cliche examples of typical characters from all of the Bollywood movies I detest watching. Slowly the viewer is faced with slapstick humor, family drama and been-there-done-that events that feels like Deja Vu in the course of a family drama movie.
Songs don’t help either. Neither of the songs in the film leaves an impression on the viewers mind, rather give them a chance to take a break and catch up on sleep while they are at it. There is one particular song in the movie which I won’t specify to stay away from spoilers, and which I personally think was totally uncalled for in the situation. Perhaps the pacing or editing could have been a lot better, so as to give the movie a coherent flow.
In this movie Vidya Balan in the role of Bobby gets to change in a lot of getup (around 12) but most of them doesn’t help the story in much ways. It looks as if she was made to change just for the sake of humor. While the film can be considered short at just 121 minutes, it feels somewhat dragged occasionally, and fails to let viewers invest their emotions into any of the characters except of the lead character.
That being said, the film does have its moments but those are just a few. I would also say it was a daring attempt to try to execute a movie with only a female lead, who for the most part remains out of glamor, and where she is also shown to break free from many of the stereotypical role a women is portrayed in Indian movies. I would also have to admire Vidya Balan for her acting skills as she was very convincing in all of those getup she did onscreen. I would not blame the execution of the movie on her since the onus of the complete movie lied on her shoulders alone. And she did her role perfectly.
It would be fair to say that while the first half of Bobby Jasoos, raises viewers interest a little, second half helps it raise even further, but the final twist fails to live up to the expectation. One more movie “Queen” was also released recently where the story was about a female lead who is shown to break free from various stereotypical roles, but it would be unfair to compare both of them, because while Queen was set up in vibrant and colorful foreign cities like Paris and Amsterdam and was more closer to today’s generation, Bobby Jasoos relates more to India and typical Indian family drama, and was filmed totally in the streets of semi urban parts of Hyderabad which gave the movie a special flavor of India, more closer to most of the people of the country.
Combined with all other things I would rate the film a 6 out of 10. Extra 1 to give Bollywood a break from the male dominant masala movie and an attempt to create India’s own Sherlock Holmes.
Recently I came about a thread on a tech forum I regularly visit, which asked a question about how many apps one uses in a day. Surely there are a lot of apps. Thousands and thousands of them in the apps market. I even made a list about the must have apps. But does one really use a lot of apps on a regular day? I guess, apps like Launcher, Dialer, Messaging, People (contacts) and Gallery (includes camera app) need not even be mentioned. Since those are by default used by everyone. So what other apps…? I tried to write a story based on actual events to see where I judge myself in this regard. Results were pretty revealing!
I can’t wake up in the morning unless the Alarm plays a random song from my list of my favourite songs. So that’s one. Then I need to watch what time it is when I *finally* wake up. Clock and weather widget it is. That counts as an app too.
While traveling to office I would listen to my songs on TTPod and chat with friends on WhatsApp and Telegram. I would also surf some forum on Tapatalk since it’s just unavoidable.
Now I am in office. I pretend to work for sometime. Then I would need some break and I would goto breakout area where I see one of my colleague have this amazing trailer of a latest movie, “Edge of Tomorrow”. I just need to watch this and have it on my phone too. I would use ShareIt app to transfer the video to my phone in seconds (it uses wireless tethering to do that and is a great app btw). I would view the video using MXPlayer on my phone. Wow the trailer is amazing and I need to make a post about it on my FB Page. So I use Pages manager to do that. I don’t use Twitter or I could have used Hootsuite to update on FB and Twitter together.
Now its lunch time. And I would have forgotten to check whether I published that article on my website which I was drafting the previous night. I would use WordPress app to do final touches and “publish” the article. I could have also uploaded any media on the web server using ConnectBot if its needed.
I will now view how my recent blog looks like on any browser like Opera or Chrome. I can also use Chrome to read articles which arrives via RSS feed like Flipboard or Appy Geek when I am on the loose after lunch.
Oh dear, its month end! Did my salary came? I would quicky check it from my bank’s app. Be it ICICI or Citibank. Even government bank like Canara Bank have an app now. I would leave for home early that day since I would remember I had some shopping to do. I would refer the list I made using ColorNote or a task application like Astrid to remind me of the list of things my sister wanted me to buy for her too.
I am on the Metro platform now and want to goto a market very far. An app of DMRC Metro would guide me before I get lost. (Yea, asking from people would help too, but I have been taught not to talk to strangers, unless it’s urgent).
While I am traveling to the market I would play some games on my mobile. Anything like Asphalt 8 or a quick race of Subway Surfer could help me avoid the strangers I was talking about earlier. Oh wait.. did I see someone playing this good looking puzzle game I haven’t seen earlier? Lets just download it through Play store and get started to shatter his record.
While shopping I can use my Barcode application to quickly scan and get to know the exact date of manufacture so that I don’t pickup old stuff. (Mom would have loved a portable Barcode scanner when she shops. But, I could be a barcode scanner for her anytime now.) But I consider myself a smart shopper, ain’t I am? So while shopping I would compare the prices of different stuff available online. Flipkart app it is.
Well, its about time now. Time to return home. I don’t really know I have the energy to catch another metro in the rush hour of evening. Lets just call a cab using an app I still have to find on Google play (cause I know there is one) and reach to my home keeping an eye on the driver, meter and Google maps. I don’t want him to drive me home using the longest route, do I?
Anyway I reached home. Now which app? Well, at home I would keep my phone in one corner. I won’t use any other app now since I don’t need them to talk with family. Enough apps for today. Maybe I would need to use more apps like Dropbox when I need to share some documents with my friend tomorrow, or Endomondo, when I need to track how much calorie I burn after a quick jog in one hypothetical but possible morning, or AndChat to chat on IRC with online friends. For now… its the end of the day and I need some rest. Screen locked.
Before life used to be in fast lanes, people were minimalist. They used to work hard in the day, earn enough to eat two times, sleep peacefully over the night, and start all over again the next day. They used to respect each other, celebrated, mourned and participated in any events happening in their neighbors together.
But over the years life has not been the same. As the industrial revolution evolved, people turned to cities. They started to face competition and they needed to fight in order to be heard and get what they deserved. We earned. We bought stuff. We felt happy buying stuff. So we earn more to buy more stuff. Slowly we became so habituated with the cycle that we started to drift from what once mattered to us more than anything. We started accumulating things we may not even need. Suddenly a new kind of competition was there. Competition to look more smart. More trendy. More fashionable. Something more to boast about. It never end.
But minimalistic living is something people eventually turns to, when they finally understand that they have enough of the shenanigans of consumerism.
Nexus 7 doesn’t have GSM facility. So that means installing Whatsapp on N7 shouldn’t be possible. But in my experience despite of it giving warning it installs straightforwardly. Here’s my exprience on how I migrated WhatsApp from my phone to Nexus 7.
1. Install Whatsapp on N7 from market or through APK file. But don’t open the app yet.
2. Create backup of existing Whatsapp messages:
If you don’t want to migrate existing messages then you can skip this step. Of course, there is no reason why you should skip, since its pretty easy. Just transfer the file: “msgstore.db.crypt” from phone to tablet, which resides at “/sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases/”. And keep the file in the same folder in N7. Create the folder database if it doesn’t exist. Continue reading Installing WhatsApp on Nexus 7→
In my last posts, I wrote about how to root your Nexus 7 and install Ubuntu Touch. Today I am going to write about how to use an OTG cable to access pen drives and External Hard drives. Also one of the most awesome thing you can do is to use 3G dongle on the Nexus 7. And I am doing it in questionnaire style. Why use OTG cable?
You can use an OTG cable to attach following devices to your Nexus 7:
1. Pen drives
2. Memory card readers
3. External Hard Drives
4. 3G Dongle
5. USB Mouse and Keyboard What is an OTG cable looks like?
Shown clockwise from top left: OTG Cable, Card Reader, Pen Drive, an Huawei 3G dongle (with Airtel connection).
Yup, OTG cable is that small. Some other variants of OTG cable also comes with no wire. Refer this. Can any OTG cable be used with Nexus 7? Continue reading Using OTG cable to access external storage and 3G dongle on Nexus 7→
If you haven’t rooted your Nexus 7 yet, you can follow my previous post and do that easily. This guide assumes you have connected your device with your PC and can use ADB to push commands over to your device. If this doesn’t make any sense, read my previous guide.
In this post I am about to write how can you easily install Ubuntu Touch on your Nexus 7. Before we do that, you can read this article on why shouldn’t install Ubuntu Touch: 4 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Install Ubuntu Touch on Your Nexus | OMG! Ubuntu!
But since we are dual booting the Ubuntu with Android, the reasons stated above won’t matter! 1. Installing Custom Recovery (Flashing TWRP Multi ROM)
Using adb commands the next you need to do is to flash a version of TWRP recovery which is tweaked for MultiROM support. The file I downloaded was “TWRP_multirom_grouper_20131022.img” from here: [MOD][OCT 22] MultiROM v16a (fix SuperSU for secondary ROMs) – xda-developers, and used following command to flash it. fastboot flash recovery d:\path-to-recovery\TWRP_multirom_grouper_20131022.img Continue reading Installing Ubuntu Touch on your rooted Nexus 7→
In my previous post I posted a few screenshots of my new Nexus 7 which I bought recently. In this post I am going to write about how you can unlock the bootloader of your Nexus 7. This process can be basically done in 5 steps. Rooting the N7:
You can live your life with N7 without rooting it. But as one of the Android Commandments say: “Thou shalt not use thine nexus unrooted” I think you need to be awesome instead and do unlock it to get these features to work:
1. Ability to use an OTG cable to connect pen drives to the device, thereby overcoming the 16 GB (13 GB available actually) limitation.
2. Using a 3G dongle to let your device take advantage of 3G (which by default this device don’t have)
3. Take advantage of apps that only works when device is rooted, like Titanium Backup and Cache Cleaner
4. Flash custom ROM’s and/or Install Ubuntu Touch on your device (and be a part of an OS in the making!)
You can read this article that echoes my thoughts, until the part where he used a toolkit to root (I rooted the old fashioned adb way). Here’s How to Root the Nexus 7 – But Should You? | Android.AppStorm Anyway, so how actually you root N7?
You can use the most popular Nexus Rootkit to do all kinds of stuff to your N7 including Rooting, flashing zips etc, but if you are geek like me, here is how to do it manually (and its way easier than you think): Continue reading Rooting Nexus 7 and Unlocking Bootloader→
