I recently purchased this device from Amazon mostly imagining myself to keep up to date with the news and music from channels other than locally available on FM/AM. Besides the fact that I was in love with the iHome Radio alarm clock which wakes you up to your choice of buzzer, Radio or iPod.
This one beats that, it wakes you up to Internet Radio, FM/AM, Music from USB disc or a simple alarm. As expected it also allows you to use all these options to listen to music. As the photo didn't mention it actually comes with a Remote control.
The setup of the device was pretty straightforward even on a WIFI with security enabled. It did take 2 attempts to get it right but then it immediately showed a impressive list of channels.
First thing I wanted to do was to check Indian news channel, specially seeing people talk about listening to BBC (in Amazon reviews), to my dis-appointment Indian news channels still don't offer internet radio channels, but I could listen to news from BBC or other ones easily.
Next, I was quickly able to get a list of Bollywood channels along with multiple other music channels (Go Locations->Asia->India (the list has about 7-8 channels including Tamil/Telgu music).
As people mentioned on amazon one single issue I can think of with this device is the lack of battery support, but in my extensive review for the products at this price range this one beats all.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Death Valley National Park trip
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| From Death Valley National Park |
On the Thanksgiving long weekend we had a trip to Death Valley National Park (DV). DV is about 8 hours of driving time away from Mountain View, CA. DV turned out to be great. I have been to couple of national parks earlier like Yosemite and Kings Canyon and Sequoia national park, and also few recreation parks like Muir Woods National monument and Point Reyes, but DV seems to have been the best till now.
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
As they say DV is a land of extremes, I have only read about deserts' extreme climate conditions, during this first proper camping experience I felt it. When we reached Death Valley it was about 4:00 PM on Thursday pretty warm, had good sunlight around.then in some time we camped up and by around 5 PM or so things were very different, it got dark, very windy and started getting colder. Within an hour or two I had to put on gloves and head band to feel comfortable outside. Interestingly the second day of the camping we witnessed light showers in the night and early morning.
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
We stayed at the Emigrant site where the camping site we took easily accomdated 2 2-3 ppl camp and a 1 2 ppl camping and still had enough space to park cars around to save ourselves from the winds. The camp-site is about 8 miles from the stove-pipe wells village which had an Okay restaurant and a decent a General store. The Restaurant didn't have any decent Veggie dinner but we could find quick to cook food at the General store which they allowed cooking in their microwave.
Next day we went to points of interest around Furnace Creek which included The Badwater, Zebreikies' point, Natural Bridge, Artists Drive, the 20 mule canyon. All of these places are worth the visit. We missed the Golden canyon trek but had enough trekking at other places like Natural Bridge and at the Artists drive.
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
The next day we went to the Ranger's station at Stovepipe to figure our what was the next thing to try. We decided to head to Scotty's castle direction but not for the castle but the Ubehebe Crator which is an interesting place to visit. Ubehebe crator isn't very big in size compared to ones I have heard of or seen like the Lonar Crator in Maharatra, India.But interestingly this one allows you to go all the way down to the bottom most point as its not being filled with water and has a nicely lade out though a moderately difficult trek. We did see the castle but beside being a pretty one there is nothing much about it.
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
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| From Death Valley National Park |
As planed earlier we left for Las Vegas after that. Vegas is about 3.5 hours away from Death Valley. The return trip from Las Vegas on Sunday of Thankgiving weekend became a painful one taking about 12-13 hours in stead of 7.5 required during normal timing ours.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Unhiding KDE applications menubar/toolbar when GUI fails to
Just figured out this by experimentation. If you end up hiding your menubar and toolbar and can't get them back through GUI, you can go edit the applications config file in
$HOME/.kde/share/config/
for e.g
$HOME/.kde/share/config/digikamrc
[MainWindow Toolbar ToolBar]
Hidden=true
IconText=IconOnly
[MainWindow]
Height 1200=1201
InitialAlbumID=10003
MenuBar=Disabled
Set these values to false and Enabled respectively.
$HOME/.kde/share/config/
for e.g
$HOME/.kde/share/config/digikamrc
[MainWindow Toolbar ToolBar]
Hidden=true
IconText=IconOnly
[MainWindow]
Height 1200=1201
InitialAlbumID=10003
MenuBar=Disabled
Set these values to false and Enabled respectively.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
On San Francisco's Public Transport
One of my major complains with Bay Area is about its public transport. I specially realized the problem as I have been renting a car on every time I was visiting but after I moved here the car renting looked too expensive to continue (~900 dollar a month).
I am happy to be have been proven wrong at least about San Francisco's public transport.
Finding the route options
So this morning I had to visit a office in San Francisco at 9:00 AM. I figured out ways of transport using Google Transit and SFMuni. Google Transit works well for figuring out route from point to point. As expected routing involved
1) Walking to Cal train Station
2) CalTrain
3) Bus in San Francisco to destination.
Google Transit takes arrive/depart time as an option and I could figure out the right options without looking at too many time tables.
SFMuni website came in handy however as unlike Caltrain the Muni has multiple alternative routes that you can use depending on how much you are willing to walk with a reasonable 1/2 mile walking option I got quite a few buses to choose from.
The Experience
About the transport itself. Well Caltrain experience didn't start very well as it came about 25 minutes late and they asked us to switch platforms twice, but desptite that the train annoucements were helpful and they suggested that At Palo Alto station we can switch to the fast Mini Bullet Cal Train. Doing so we could easily make up for the delay and we did.
In San Francisco after getting down at Cal Train I could catch a single bus (I didn't follow the routing now as I learnt there were quite a few buses) to reach my destination. More interestingly the 2$ ticket issues was valid for next 4.5 hours, so I could use it for multiple return journeys, Muni train and Muni buses. AFAIK you can travel to almost all parts of the city using these two options.
Cost and Time
Overall I spent just 14$ for the round trip. One small point though, the Caltrains frequency varies from 30 minutes (before 11 AM and after 7 PM) to about 1 hour(11 AM to 7 PM), so your trip can get delayed if not planned well. Also it takes the slow train about 70 minutes from Mountain View Downtown to SF station, the faster (baby bullet) takes just 45 minutes.
Carrying Bikes
Carrying bikes in Caltrain is easy, they have two kinds of coaches offering either 24 or 40 cycle carrying capacity. In both my trips the train has enough space for few more bikes. The caltrain stations have different facilities for parking bikes. In general you can easily carry around your bike in SF and lock it to one of the many on street bike lock stands.
In conclusion, SF's public transport is about as good at other cities I have been too, of course nothing beats a proper metro transport like that in Hong Kong, Paris, London and New Delhi*, but MUNI is SF can get you from one point to other and quite time efficiently.
* Didn't get a chance to explore New Delhi metro much but it looked great though it still doesn't have full coverage.
I am happy to be have been proven wrong at least about San Francisco's public transport.
Finding the route options
So this morning I had to visit a office in San Francisco at 9:00 AM. I figured out ways of transport using Google Transit and SFMuni. Google Transit works well for figuring out route from point to point. As expected routing involved
1) Walking to Cal train Station
2) CalTrain
3) Bus in San Francisco to destination.
Google Transit takes arrive/depart time as an option and I could figure out the right options without looking at too many time tables.
SFMuni website came in handy however as unlike Caltrain the Muni has multiple alternative routes that you can use depending on how much you are willing to walk with a reasonable 1/2 mile walking option I got quite a few buses to choose from.
The Experience
About the transport itself. Well Caltrain experience didn't start very well as it came about 25 minutes late and they asked us to switch platforms twice, but desptite that the train annoucements were helpful and they suggested that At Palo Alto station we can switch to the fast Mini Bullet Cal Train. Doing so we could easily make up for the delay and we did.
In San Francisco after getting down at Cal Train I could catch a single bus (I didn't follow the routing now as I learnt there were quite a few buses) to reach my destination. More interestingly the 2$ ticket issues was valid for next 4.5 hours, so I could use it for multiple return journeys, Muni train and Muni buses. AFAIK you can travel to almost all parts of the city using these two options.
Cost and Time
Overall I spent just 14$ for the round trip. One small point though, the Caltrains frequency varies from 30 minutes (before 11 AM and after 7 PM) to about 1 hour(11 AM to 7 PM), so your trip can get delayed if not planned well. Also it takes the slow train about 70 minutes from Mountain View Downtown to SF station, the faster (baby bullet) takes just 45 minutes.
Carrying Bikes
Carrying bikes in Caltrain is easy, they have two kinds of coaches offering either 24 or 40 cycle carrying capacity. In both my trips the train has enough space for few more bikes. The caltrain stations have different facilities for parking bikes. In general you can easily carry around your bike in SF and lock it to one of the many on street bike lock stands.
In conclusion, SF's public transport is about as good at other cities I have been too, of course nothing beats a proper metro transport like that in Hong Kong, Paris, London and New Delhi*, but MUNI is SF can get you from one point to other and quite time efficiently.
* Didn't get a chance to explore New Delhi metro much but it looked great though it still doesn't have full coverage.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
The London Vacation
London turned out wonderful, I spent about a week of my time in London and I have fallen in love with the city, which I only realized some time later after leaving the city. I so want to go there again.
The starbucks shops at almost ever 2 blocks - As I walked I would typically take a starbucks Chai tea latte to sip on (When in London, drink Tea) ; the Underground metro train system; the pretty efficient bus system, a spectacular night life which is live till 3 AM and also afterwards on the streets. The splendid British accent spoken English and a great mix of modern and historic architecture, London has just about everything you can want from a city. I explored the city by Tube/Underground and Bus using the oyster pay as u go card. I was arguing with my host, Ankur about San Francisco being equally multicultaral and lively but in retrospect London beats SF in those regards.
The first two days were spent relaxing and coming in to the holiday mood. The only significant I and Ankur was going to Trafalgar square to see the "Diwali in London" festival which promised much more than what actually happened and was slightly disappointing and we decided to rather skip it and walk around river Thames all the way to Big Ben.
At the middle of day2 I decided to head off to Edinburgh, which is mentioned in a future post.
Day 4: Buckingham palace, Westminster Catheral and abbey, Big Ben and Ceilidh dancing
Went around Westminster city, Buckingham palace, Google London office - which to my surprise didn't look very remarkable from outside, however the interior decoration was pretty good and most ideas were based on London theme, Westminster cathedral (Free!), St Paul's, Westminster's abbey, Big Ben. Then took random train journeys to Notting Hill Gate, Ealing Broadway before coming to Camden Town to attend the Ceilidh dancing event at the Cecil's Sharp House on the Friday evening.
Ceilidh dancing was among the best things I did on the trip. If you are in UK you must try searching for Ceilidh dancing events, quite a few of them happen on the weekends in Scotland as well as London.
Day 5: St. Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Millennium bridge and Tate modern.
Another day of sight seeing, I decided to start by visiting St. Paul's cathedral which besides being famous for its splendidness and history also provides one of the best Panoramic views of the city from the top.
I dedicate the rest of the day to the bridges and walking around them and river Thames. Much as I remember I walked across about 5 bridges including, Tower bridge, London Bridge, Millennium bridge and two others. Also went to see the Tate modern which didn't make much sense to me with all the modern art exhibits but its free entry so you can always give it a shot. In the evening I joined the New Sandman group's Pub crawl during which I met quite a few interesting people many of which became Friends.
This night I heard one of the funniest thing ever that was at Leicester square, the police caught a guy and while hand cuffing he said "You are arresting me because you are pu**ies", I so wished someone had a camera phone recording it and uploaded it to you tube. People do get crazy after drinking :P
Then my struggle of finding a Bus to home began and I cursed the Underground system for closing down and not being available. Night buses and transport didn't really feel as easy as did day transport and felt quite a challenge to accomplish in some cases because of multiple bus stands at every place offering different bus services and hardly any routing mechanism.
Day 6: The Temple Church, Greenwich and East Ham
This was effectively the last day in London as I had to catch flight next morning. There was quite a lot to see still. I started with a visit to the Temple's church (which is typically close on Sunday but was open this time). The stories and photos within the temple are pretty fascinating as is the architecture of the Church. then I decided to head to Greenwich. I thought it was probably some small place from where the Longitude goes across but it was almost a different suburb of London. It is more like a small town in fact. So I spent about 3-4 hours walking and watching the sights around which included a long round trip walk through the Greenwich tunnel, a walk around river side watching Greenwich university and other buildings from across the river (Thames).
Now I wanted to go to see the Meridian and I figured that was in side the Greenwich Public Park, quite a long walk and I just about made it to the observatory but it was closed. Still the longitude is marked outside the observatory for about 100 meters and you can easily get some good photos on the road within the park.
My plans to go to Wimbledon didn't work out, as it was already pretty late and the folks I met at the park were going to get some South Indian meal and I decided to tag along. The whole evening from about 6 PM to about 12:30 AM was then spent just for the dinner at Chennai Dosas in East Ham. Reaching East ham on a Sunday evening turned out to be quite tough, as we spent about 2 hours 30 minutes to reach our destinations talking trains and buses and walking quite a lot. It came to me as a surprise that few Underground stations were closed as early as 7 PM on weekends. Anyhow with a combination of few buses, we figured our way out.
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| From UK Trip October 2009 |
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| From UK Trip October 2009 |
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
The starbucks shops at almost ever 2 blocks - As I walked I would typically take a starbucks Chai tea latte to sip on (When in London, drink Tea) ; the Underground metro train system; the pretty efficient bus system, a spectacular night life which is live till 3 AM and also afterwards on the streets. The splendid British accent spoken English and a great mix of modern and historic architecture, London has just about everything you can want from a city. I explored the city by Tube/Underground and Bus using the oyster pay as u go card. I was arguing with my host, Ankur about San Francisco being equally multicultaral and lively but in retrospect London beats SF in those regards.
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
The first two days were spent relaxing and coming in to the holiday mood. The only significant I and Ankur was going to Trafalgar square to see the "Diwali in London" festival which promised much more than what actually happened and was slightly disappointing and we decided to rather skip it and walk around river Thames all the way to Big Ben.
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
At the middle of day2 I decided to head off to Edinburgh, which is mentioned in a future post.
Day 3: The old city of London Tour
Went around the main tourist attraction taking the http://www.newlondon-tours.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27 New Sandman's Old city tour. Interesting pieces of info from the tour: London bridge isn't as fancy as it seems like, Most of the building however old they look are pretty much just 100-300 years old reconstruction of the original once which seems to have gone down 3-4 times each. Heard stories about Knights templar, specially their banking system. Evening was spent was a Couch surfing meeting at the Irish pub O'neil followed by watching movie "Sin Nombre" in Prince Charles cinema (I totally loved the movie, almost everyone did although it had a slightly tragic ending, well it was not Bollywood movie after all :D) |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
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| From UK Trip October 2009 |
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| From UK Trip October 2009 |
Day 4: Buckingham palace, Westminster Catheral and abbey, Big Ben and Ceilidh dancing
Went around Westminster city, Buckingham palace, Google London office - which to my surprise didn't look very remarkable from outside, however the interior decoration was pretty good and most ideas were based on London theme, Westminster cathedral (Free!), St Paul's, Westminster's abbey, Big Ben. Then took random train journeys to Notting Hill Gate, Ealing Broadway before coming to Camden Town to attend the Ceilidh dancing event at the Cecil's Sharp House on the Friday evening.
  |
  |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
Ceilidh dancing was among the best things I did on the trip. If you are in UK you must try searching for Ceilidh dancing events, quite a few of them happen on the weekends in Scotland as well as London.
Day 5: St. Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Millennium bridge and Tate modern.
Another day of sight seeing, I decided to start by visiting St. Paul's cathedral which besides being famous for its splendidness and history also provides one of the best Panoramic views of the city from the top.
I dedicate the rest of the day to the bridges and walking around them and river Thames. Much as I remember I walked across about 5 bridges including, Tower bridge, London Bridge, Millennium bridge and two others. Also went to see the Tate modern which didn't make much sense to me with all the modern art exhibits but its free entry so you can always give it a shot. In the evening I joined the New Sandman group's Pub crawl during which I met quite a few interesting people many of which became Friends.
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
This night I heard one of the funniest thing ever that was at Leicester square, the police caught a guy and while hand cuffing he said "You are arresting me because you are pu**ies", I so wished someone had a camera phone recording it and uploaded it to you tube. People do get crazy after drinking :P
Then my struggle of finding a Bus to home began and I cursed the Underground system for closing down and not being available. Night buses and transport didn't really feel as easy as did day transport and felt quite a challenge to accomplish in some cases because of multiple bus stands at every place offering different bus services and hardly any routing mechanism.
Day 6: The Temple Church, Greenwich and East Ham
This was effectively the last day in London as I had to catch flight next morning. There was quite a lot to see still. I started with a visit to the Temple's church (which is typically close on Sunday but was open this time). The stories and photos within the temple are pretty fascinating as is the architecture of the Church. then I decided to head to Greenwich. I thought it was probably some small place from where the Longitude goes across but it was almost a different suburb of London. It is more like a small town in fact. So I spent about 3-4 hours walking and watching the sights around which included a long round trip walk through the Greenwich tunnel, a walk around river side watching Greenwich university and other buildings from across the river (Thames).
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
Now I wanted to go to see the Meridian and I figured that was in side the Greenwich Public Park, quite a long walk and I just about made it to the observatory but it was closed. Still the longitude is marked outside the observatory for about 100 meters and you can easily get some good photos on the road within the park.
 |
| From UK Trip October 2009 |
My plans to go to Wimbledon didn't work out, as it was already pretty late and the folks I met at the park were going to get some South Indian meal and I decided to tag along. The whole evening from about 6 PM to about 12:30 AM was then spent just for the dinner at Chennai Dosas in East Ham. Reaching East ham on a Sunday evening turned out to be quite tough, as we spent about 2 hours 30 minutes to reach our destinations talking trains and buses and walking quite a lot. It came to me as a surprise that few Underground stations were closed as early as 7 PM on weekends. Anyhow with a combination of few buses, we figured our way out.
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