Kids and hi-tech gadgets

We usually let our daughter play around with some of the hi-tech gadgets at home (TV, computer, Iphone, Ipod and so on) but do it under fairly close supervision. The reason is 2 fold, on 1 hand if she can break the system then it is not worth to be around her and on the other if at all there are a few things she manages to change and make it unusable there is always Dr. Google to help us bring things back to shape.

Surprisingly, there is a 3rd reason too. Thanks to her and her out of the box thinking, I have learnt a new thing or 2. For ex: I was not aware that my Samsung TV had something called “Store Demo” mode which can be turned on by clicking a few buttons in the front of the TV. In this mode the TV over rides any display settings you have and shows pictures in high brightness with 100% contrast, of course can’t watch for too long in that mode and since I am not that as savvy with the buttons as her I had to use the graphical UI to debug the problem. On the other occasion after she had played around with my computer keyboard, all it was doing was to print special characters and upper case letters only, this time around the fix was to ask Dr. Google and solution was to hold both “shift” keys simultaneously for a few seconds. My favorite is when she showed us that Windows 7 allows for screen to be oriented in 4 different ways (landscape, portrait, straight and reverse) and that the DELL laptops have a keyboard shortcut to achieve the same (CTRL+ALT+ Arrow key). 

The one equipment/gadget I am scared to let her play around is the IPhone, for its easy to use interface is so easy that she has accidentally deleted couple of pics and videos recorded on the phone. Of course that hasn’t stopped me from letting her play with it, I am more careful with her around. There is another side effect of letting her play with the Iphone, she thinks any screen of that size (like the camera) is touch sensitive and she can can go to the next pic or video by just moving her fingers across the screen.

I don’t know how long we can let her play for she is getting bigger and stronger and now getting in the mode of learning to throw things.    

Dean TV, don’t bother to call them

For the last couple of weeks our Samsung LCD TV was exhibiting strobe light flickering pattern. I tried some googling for the solution but was unsuccessful.  Since the TV is over a year old and Samsung website does not believe in taking complaints online, I thought of trying some local repair shop.

I called this company Dean TV and they were pretty responsive and scheduled an appointment for the same day (Sunday), I was pretty impressed then. When they came in, I was expecting 1 but 3 showed up. The lead guy saw the problem and immediately concluded they cannot fix it but have to haul it to the shop for they need to run some diagnostics on the same and it could take a couple of hours. Thanks to Sandhya’s instincts, we decided against and told them we will call back. To earn his wage, the lead guy decided to open the TV at home and checked a couple of voltages on the power board and concluded that the problem is either in the panel (costs $900+) or in the main board ($375+) and they need to take it to the shop to figure this. We paid them their consulting fee and bid them good bye.

I still had to get the TV fixed and hence called Samsung. To my surprise the call went through in no time and the person on the other side took down the complaint and said somebody will call me in a day or so. They called the very next day and gave an appointment for the same day and the technician came over right at the beginning of the scheduled time (1.5hr slot and not 3 or 4hr). Unlike the other guys, this guy was only 1. He said the problem is the bad power supply board (which the other guys had certified as good) and he replaced the same. The problem is gone for now and TV is back in shape.

On the whole it would have cost me $250 for the repair but I spent an additional $50 in the process.But I learnt a few things, it is good to call the official guys first before making an attempt to call the local repair shops and It is good to call in the repair instead of trying to submit ticket online. If the number of people showing up to repair a TV is more than 1 then know that they do not know what they are doing :). Reviews on Yelp alone are not enough to call a repair shop good.     

Its all about allowing the possibility . . . . .

Last December, couple of months after our daughter was born, we decided to get a HD camcorder and after some consultation with Dr. Google we narrowed down on a specific model of Canon. All the reviews said, the hardware is really good but the software is a piece of crap and most everything I looked at said “Canon should do a better job”. By the time the device came home I was convinced beyond reason that the software is junk.

To follow the procedure, I went ahead and installed the Imagemixer software provided with the camcorder on to my PC and it worked beautifully to transfer videos from the camcorder to the PC. The next step was to play on the TV, Canon went cheap here and doesn’t provide a HDMI cable but will provide a component cable (that for me is plain dumb). Like many of the Hi-def camcorders out there, Canon records the videos in AVCHD format which my Samsung TV doesn’t understand.

I went back to the installed software to see if there is a way to convert the video to a format that the TV understands. Once I clicked on “Edit”, the software went limbo and it completely disappeared from the screen. I was convinced, this is the reason everybody calls the software junk and went around looking for other video converters and editors. I have been trying for the last 6 months to see if I can find a good converter/editor and none of the so called good ones did any good, either they would hang or they would produce an inferior quality video and so on or they were too expensive and complicated to use.

I was so negative about the software that,  I had stopped using Canon provided software to play HD videos on the PC and was trying to use Windows media player and Picasa to play HD videos (which was a dumb thing to do) and had concluded that my PC is slow and need upgrading.  

It was not till last week when I changed my mind to consult Dr. Google with the symptoms I have been having with the Imagemixer software. It took less than couple of hours (thanks to this obscure forum) and I found out what was going wrong with the Imagemixer software. Apparently I had installed K-Lite codec (pretty good to play AVI files which Real Player and  others refuse to play) and it is not compatible with Canon provided software.

Once I uninstalled the K-Lite, the Imagemixer worked like a champ. I could see all my videos in one place, edit them (have only tried trim and nothing fancy), add music, text and upload all such good stuff. The integrated video player plays the 1080p video flawlessly (enough horse power in the PC). It still doesn’t do the conversion to different formats but the Blu-ray player we now own understands the AVCHD and that problem is solved.             

Looking back, I could have achieved this result long time ago, but I was so convinced that the software is bad that I did not allow for the possibility of getting it to work. Once I allowed for the possibility then it took minutes to get the problem fixed.     

PS: Keep in mind, HD videos mean ton of storage and both cores on my PC gets pegged when playing HD videos, but the quality makes it all worth it

Everything is amazing but . . . .

The other day I was a watching a movie at home through Netflix streaming. I rarely watch a movie in 1 sitting unless I am sitting in a theater. So, I had  paused the movie at certain point the previous day. The next day when I started the movie I was hoping it will start at exactly the same location that I left off. To my disappointment, the movie started at some other previously paused location and not at the location I wanted. I cursed the Netflix interface on the TV and started forwarding to the point of interest, the internet couldn’t keep up with the forwarding and the only way to continue streaming was to reduce the picture quality.

Damn, 2 unacceptable things the same day and I was almost furious. Then suddenly I remembered the video shown to me by my good friends Anoop and Shraddha, titled “Everything is Amazing, but nobody is happy”. 

In the end I appreciated the fact that I am watching a movie in HD sitting at my home and went wow :).

Mahabharata TV series update

I finally completed watching all the 94 episodes of Mahabharata and it was a wonderful journey. I wish I had taken time to my complete the journey but the temptation to finish was too irresistible. In conclusion, hats off to the actors for having done such a wonderful job. I think the weakest link is the guy who played Yudhistira’s role, rest all have done amazingly well and hats off to the directors and producers. Its worth every penny.

Now, coming to the actual story itself. There are a few questions and observations that arose in me after completing the series,

• Why does Krishna reveal to Karna that he is born to Kunti right before the war, was it his last effort to drag Karna to the side of Dharma?
• At the beginning of the war, Duryodhana calls Yuyutsu as his step brother, is he right in calling him like that?
• Dronacharya and Kripacharya were the only 2 acharyas (teachers) participating in the war, what was their justification?, Kripacharya was the spiritual advisor to the king, no other king in the war asked his spiritual advisor to participate in the war. If we talk about being indebted, Dronacharya had paid his debts to the kingdom by teaching the princes and their sons. The reason Dronacharya gives is that his guru Parushurama also wielded weapon, but we all know why Parushurama did what he did?
• Watch the episodes carefully, Dronacharya gives a better and more plausible explanation on why he asked for Ekalavya’s thumb?
• The way Dronacharya was killed is it according to the law of Dharma?
• I had similar question for Bhishma’s death but this website seemed to satisfy me to an extent
• Bhishma through out the series chastises Karna and in fact tells the king to separate Karna, Dushyasana and Shakuni from Duryodhana’s life for they are the ones who are feeding ill to Duryodhana,  But on the 10th day of the battle, out of the blue he claims he knew Karna was the son of Kunti.
• If this was revealed on the 10th day of the battle how come Sanjaya did not even mention a bit of it to the King and Duryodhana did not know till the end?
• Bhishma is laid to rest on bed of arrows pierced through his body on the 10th day, didn’t gravity have any effect those days, he seems to be at the same height above the ground on the last day as he was on the 10th day.
• With the number of arrows piercing his body, wouldn’t Bhishma had died of excessive blood loss in a couple of hours? and how can so many arrows miss all the vital organs to keep the guy alive?
• I don’t get why Karna insists on King of Madra to be his charioteer for his day and half war, while people like Bhishma and Dronacharya had fought longer and better with run of the mill charioteers
• When Karna’s chariot gets stuck in the mud, why does he get down to lift the chariot up?, he was only fighting with Arjuna and the chariots can just remain where they are and they could continue the fight.
• Another point about Karna’s chariot, why didn’t he get another chariot when his got stuck in the ground. If you see the episodes, you will see that Dronacharya changes quite a few chariots in one of the episodes.
• The incident when Ashvathama kills the sons of Draupadi thinking they are the Pandavas, was he so blind that he couldn’t differentiate between 13-14 year old boys and mature adults.
• Duryodhana is probably the only one I know of who died of a thigh bone fracture, may be he died of excessive blood loss.
• In the very first episode king Bharata announces that all his sons are worthless to be his successors and nominates an external person to be the king, but through out the rest of the episodes, every body keep talking as though seniority at birth is the only criterion to ascend the throne.
• Being naive and goody goody, was Yudhistira really following dharma?
• The answer to the question of was Yudhistira right in putting his kingdom, his brothers and his wife to bet is answered by Krishna in one of the episodes (answer he was wrong and that’s the reason they all are forced on a 12 year life in the forest).
• The episode on the death of Abhimanyu is very well done, the story is very nicely narrated
• After watching the episodes I am now convinced that Bhagavadgita is an extremely powerful weapon and has the vast potential of becoming a weapon of mass destruction if used in the wrong way.
• I am also amazed at one last thing, Gandhari curses Krishna that whole of his clan (Yadavas) will be destroyed through in fighting and still retains enough power in her to change the body composition of Duryodhana the very next instant.      

The deaths of Bhishma and Dronacharya can only makes sense, if I assume Krishna is the guiding force behind Pandavas and he is using Pandavas as weapons to establish dharma in the land and pandavas were the only people capable of building a society based on Dharma for the future.

The final episodes where Krishna confronts his brother Balaram and the episode of Bhishma giving practical wisdom to Yudhistira are worth watching.

Mahabharata – TV series

Off late I have been watching Mahabharata, yes the TV version that was telecasted back in the 1980’s. The episodes are all on Youtube. At the time they telecasted, my knowledge of Hindi was pretty limited, I couldn’t completely understand, let alone appreciate the work. Now that I am seeing for the second time, I quite like the way it is done. They had put in a lot of efforts to make it this good. The dialogues are well written and the concept is well developed.

For those who are more interested in looking at the story from a different point of view, it is fun to watch the ego play of Duryodhana and his friends including mama Shakuni and Karna and how the ego of the family (father and son) destroyed the whole kingdom. It is interesting to watch how Bhishma in the guise of his oath runs away from Dharma and the price he pays in the end by lying on a bed of arrows pierced through the body. The other one that cracks me up is the way Dharmaraya believes that being goody goody all the time towards everybody is Dharma (you will find a ton of examples for this in the serial). In the end I realized the only person who followed dharma till the end was Vidhura and nobody else. The Bhagavadgita part is also very well done.       

I think it is worth a watch, considering its free and legally available. It has a few strong messages that are apt even today. On  a lighter note, most songs in the episodes have the same tune.

ps: since there is no 1 version of Mahabharata, there are some interpretations that does not match the “actual Vyasa Bharata”, here is a link if you are patient enough to read through. 

An year without cable TV

About a year ago, US went through its digital TV transition. I saw an opportunity to get rid or minimize my addiction to television and I took it.

At that time we used to have Time Warner cable at home and were pretty happy with it. I was aware that I am becoming more and more addicted to TV and used all kinds of techniques like, not watching repeat telecasts, watching only selected channels and so on to reduce my addiction but none seemed to work. My excuse for not getting rid of cable altogether is that the analog transmission at that time was crappy and getting rid of cable means end of TV and I had tried this once before and had failed (I watched a lot of movies and spent money on movie rental than cable TV). When the US went through its long awaited DTV transition I had no more excuses to get rid of the cable and with a strong mind and heart I took the chance and got rid of the cable.

I consider that to be a very wise decision and I must say, I had complete support of my wife in making that decision. The idea was we will give it a 6 month try (of which we were out of town for close to 2 months) and see if we miss cable.


I confess, initial few weeks were tough for me and I used to watch some of the paid programming on ABC and NBC and so on. But over time I discovered the flavor of network TV and I started following certain shows in a day instead of mindless surfing of channels and shows. Currently my favorite channel is CBS and I occasionally switch to ABC, NBC or FOX. I still haven't fallen for reality TV which most of the network channels want to emphasize or developed a condition that says "no David Letterman or Jay Leno", no sleep.


My own analysis says that I do not gain a ton of time on week days but I do gain a lot of time on the weekends. A trial that started with a time limit of 6 months has now reached a year and I am quite happy about the fact that I am saving money every month.


I realized how easy it is to fall back when I discovered Netflix streaming of movies and shows, I started watching the show 24 like a maniac (completed season 1 and season 2 in less than couple of weeks). Thanks to my breathing practices, I am able to get it under control without falling into the cracks.