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Thanks to facebook I’ve come in contact with many of my childhood buddies, neighbors, old school mates to university friends. It’s a place to be. Even when you’re busy, you just login once a day to check what your friends and families are up to. It provides sleek, friendly and relatively non-intrusive environment to interact.

I’ve to say that I’ve been quite reluctant to install third-party apps and post family photos due to privacy concerns, but this new terms of service makes it worse. Now anything you post or upload can be used by facebook even after you close your account. In previous terms of service, facebook’s rights on your content would expire after you closed your account, but not any more.

via: Consumerist

Update (17Feb09): facebook ceo, Zuckerberg has written a blog post about the issue, trying to explain why they need this TOS.

Our philosophy that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant. A lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you. Over time we will continue to clarify our positions and make the terms simpler.

Update (18Feb09): After a global complain facebook has returned to previous terms of service (until they find a new language to clarify their position). Zuckerberg explains it in his Update on Terms

We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

Update (27Feb09): Finally, democracy has come to facebook, it’s allowing users to review comment and vote over it’s future policies. That the way to go, well done facebook!

My son was very excited from yesterday after he saw the snow forecast in BBC news. This morning he just jumped up when I opened the curtain to show him 10 to 12 inches of snow outside. The best part was yet to come – he started dancing when he knew his school was closed . It was the heaviest snowfall in south-east England in 18 years. London public bus was completely shut down in the morning and only few trains were operational. London was almost brought to stand still, most of the flights were cancelled.

As for myself, I decided to go to office but my car needed some work.

After 15 minutes of shoveling the snow, it was ready for a drive.

The road was pretty slippery, it took half an hour to drive to work (it’s a 10 minutes drive in normal conditions).

Office was almost empty. No public transport and road closures made it impossible for most of the staffs to get to work.

Came back home and played in the snow with my son.

Just came to know that my sons school will be closed tomorrow as well. He’s very happy.

I downloaded Windows7 beta on the first day of it’s public release, but didn’t get around trying it. Finally I got a chance to install it today. The installation was smooth and straight forward.

This is how I installed Windows 7 beta on my Mac with Vmware Fusion.

Download

The 2.44 GB ISO file can be downloaded from Windows7 beta download page. It took me around 2 hours to download it using my 8MB home broadband. You’ll also be given a Windows 7 Beta Product Key together with the download to activate windows 7.

Create New Virtual Machine

Create a new virtual machine by launching the Vmware Fusion and going to FIle–>New

Click on Continue without disk, because we’ll be using the ISO image to install Windows 7.

Then, click on Use operating system installation disk image file and select the Windows 7 ISO file downloaded earlier.

Choose the Operating System. I had downloaded the 64 bit version so, I chose Windows Vista x64 Edition.

Enter the Account Name, Password and the Windows Product Key

I don’t need file sharing at the moment so, I disabled the windows sharing by choosing None.

Default config of the new virtual machine. I wanted to give more RAM to the new vm so, clicked on Customize Settings

This is where you can customize the hardware settings for your virtual machine. Click on Processors & RAM to increase the RAM size.

Increase the RAM to 2048MB (2GB)

Click on the play button to begin installation

The installation starts…

After couple of reboots and an approximately half an hour later it’s done.

The installation was seamless and I’m planning to use Window 7 for some time next week to see how good it is. The immediate next thing is an anti-virus. Complimentary McAfee anti-virus provided by vmware fusion is not compatible with Windows 7 yet, and a quick google showed Kaspersky, so I might install that.

Update: You must read the first hand account from LTJ in the comment.

Ram Bahadur Bomjan has started his public appearance from November 10 to November 18 2008. He’s given a 45 minutes long speech and is planning to talk to his devotees for few hours everyday for a week before returning to his meditation. According to LTJ, who’s been there: “his speech was about 10 minutes long. He repeated it with great self control 3 times over ad verbatim in the same voice because people were missing it”

Here’s what we know about what he said so far from different sources.

Nepal Samacharpatra writes:

Bomjan says that the level of violence and death has increased in the country because society has failed to follow the religious path. And that’s the reason for human suffering. Bomjan also claimed that he’ll bring peace to the society through his meditation.

Ram Bahadur Bomjan speaking to his followers in Hallori Jungle (photo credit: Nepal Samacharpatra)

According to a Nepali blog mero sansar (There’s a short video too):

He tried to link his life story with lord buddha’s by saying that he’s started looking for peace after witnessing a cremation of a dead body at the age of six. During his 45 minutes long talk he got stuck several times and had to whisper with his helper lama to complete the speech, which gives an impression that he’s still not ready to preach independently.

BBC is also writing about his reappearance.

Officials say that hundreds of devotees, including many from neighbouring India, trekked to see him on Tuesday.

A message from Palden Dorje (google groups, you have to be a member to view the group’s content)

Palden Dorje wants to help bring peace to the world. We have to do karma, learn to love each other, and trust in God. We have to make peace amongst each other and realize we are one. God is one all over the world.

After a vigorous job hunt of little more than a week, I’m glad to let you all know that I’ve joined Vanco (Reliance Globalcom, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) as a Security Engineer, which provides global managed network solutions with assets and expertise of FLAG, Vanco and Yipes:

Delivering customer-focused managed network and application delivery solutions that leverage a global network with unrivalled reach, depth and breadth to multinational, service provider and global carrier clients. Over 1400 enterprise customers and 200 carriers depend upon Reliance Globalcom to manage business-critical network solutions and address complex requirements for their businesses and partners throughout the world

Vanco is now Reliance Globalcom, Anil Dihrubhai Ambani group, which is also well known because of it’s chairman Anil Ambani, currently 6th on The World’s Billionaires List.

I feel myself privileged and honored to have this opportunity. At Vanco my role will be exclusively focusing on security, I’m really excited about it. This is a perfect opportunity for me to bring forward my previous network/security expertise as well as learn and grow at this truly global organization.

Yup, I became a victim of global credit crunch last week. Our CTO and VP for finance politely explained that the company didn’t meet it’s target last quarter and it’s nowhere near meeting it this quarter too. So, several jobs will be cut and mine was one of them. I think more than 30% of the IT team was made redundant.

Watching news about the economic downturn, global credit crunch and job cuts is one thing but experiencing it firsthand is a different matter altogether.

How does it feel?

Awful, I felt something swirling in my stomach I can tell you it wasn’t a pleasant experience to be on this side of the table (it used to be other way round). Anyway, there’s first time for everything. It felt awful for a while, but the fact that this redundancy had nothing to do with my personal performance, and I had no control over it provided me some consolation. I was over with it pretty soon. I didn’t see it coming though and was caught with a surprise after enjoying my Dashain holidays…

After all it’s just a business decision for the company. I believe that whatever happens, happens for good. So, hopefully ShipServ will be able to weather out this storm. As for myself and other affected colleagues at ShipServ there might be something good waiting for us.

Its slightly painful now (you know you start thinking… oh my god how am I going to pay my rent, bills, food, blah blah…) but I’m absolutely positive that something good will come out of this. Lets see…

BTW, Cnet has an excellent list of 14 things to do if you are laid off from a tech job

Looking at the brighter side… I’m excited about new opportunities and have attended few interviews, which look promising. Also, it’s a good news for prospective employers; thanks to the credit crunch there’s one more very talented and experienced network, security and infrastructure engineer available on the job market

Anyone interested?

Grab my CV here.

Wayne has uploaded the whole discovery channel documentary “My Shocking Story – The Boy with Divine Powers” to YouTube Dailymotion in 5 parts. Thanks Wayne!

Some updates on Buddha boy…

The official site of Ram Bahadur Bomjan has his biography for quite some time with some very interesting photos, including his underground meditation pit.

Lively and very special group of people discuss about Ram, his meditation, life and spirituality on Ram Bomjon – Palden Dorje, Google Groups, you should become a member to have a first-hand news about Buddha Boy. Recently there’s been a news that Ram has changed his robe to white and is giving a public audience in two months. This might mean he has come to realize the ultimate truth (Emptiness) and maybe is ready to teach…?

Here’re excerpts from the discovery channel documentary:

48 hours of continuous observation and Ram isn’t moving

Buddha Boy Secret techniques

Some of my friends have been asking me why aren’t any updates here. I don’t feel good about leaving this blog unattended for so long, but frankly didn’t have time and energy to keep up with it. Now I have decided not to feel guilty because this was just meant for fun anyway. So, this blog will go with the flow of my life, without any stress… Things have changed slightly. Mainly the time. I’m pretty busy running a rat race, like most of the people, work, home, work…. Weekends are good time to get in touch with reality and re-charge your battery. I try to devote the weekends to my family.

On personal account, life is pretty good, trying to climb a property ladder, probably good (or bad) time for first-time buyers… On professional side, enjoying the challenges at ShipServ, grateful for the opportunity to serve and learn… My son is having a good time (very little homework and lot of play). My wife is quite worried about the teenage stabbing, drugs and alcohol abuse…

The weather was very good last week. It was warm and sunny for the whole week! That’s something to celebrate here, English weather is so unpredictable… you can truly see 4 seasons in one day.

Here are few moments I’ve captured from my life in UK…

April snow, my wife and son enjoying their first encounter…

Continue reading Busy running a rat race

Apple has finally announced the long awaited SDK for iPhone. Looking at the amazing games and enterprise softwares that third party were able to develop in just two weeks I’m convinced that iPhone will be an excellent gaming machine as well as a hit enterprise handheld device. The next release of iPhone firmware version 2.0 due to be released in June will have native Exchange support, Cisco IPSec VPN, remote wipe capabilities, WPA2, and many more…

Here’s a nice iPhone SDK comparison chart by engadget.

Another good news for iPhone users in UK is that BBC has launched iPlayer video on demand service for the iPhone and iPod touch. I just watched the BBC News on my iPhone and it’s just awesome!