Buddha Boy Official Site and Google Groups

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Body, Mind & Spirit, Buddha Boy, Nepal

BomjanAfter an email and a comment from Andy about Ram Bomjon – Palden Dorje Google Groups, I checked for recent news about him. There’re interesting discussions going on in Google Groups, I found Ram’s official web site where videos of his addresses are posted, here’s his First Address (August 2 2007), and the Second one (october 19 to 24, 2007). Someone has even created a myspace page for him (currently he has 1671 friends).

His first message was for peace to the world.

Murder, violence, greed, anger and temptation has made the human world a desperate place. A terrible storm has descended upon the human world, and this is carrying the world towards destruction. There is only one way to save the world and that is through ‘dharma” (religious practice.) When one doesn’t walk the righteous path of religious practice, this desperate world will surely be destroyed. Therefore, follow the path of religion and spread this message to your fellows.

when you read the translation of his message it is very powerful, but listening to his speech in Nepali was not that great. To me it sounded like a teenager trying to deliver a memorized speech. The second video was another attempt…, It was clear that either he was reading the speech or was another memorized one.

Having that said, I still think he’s very special and is up to something but the whole spectacle that organizers are trying to create around him and make him a great guru before he becomes one is just wrong and sad.

Let me know what you think!

I’m on board ShipServ

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, Technology, UK

Ss Logo-1It’s been interesting times for me here in London. Life has taken many turns and I’m enjoying the Journey. Just wanted to let you all know that I’ve joined ShipServ as a System Manager and will be looking after their network, infrastructure and Security.

ShipServ was founded in 1999 and is the world’s leading e-marketplace, helping buyers and sellers to easily find each other, connect cost effectively and trade efficiently. Whether a Supplier wants to attract new customers, a Buyer needs to source new Suppliers or existing purchasing relationships require internet-enabling, ShipServ is unique in helping businesses of all sizes in the areas of web based Commerce, Search and Advertising.

I’m really honored and delighted to accept the new challenge and start this new phase of my career.

Leopard Keyboard problems

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Apple, Technology

After upgrading to Leopard I’m experiencing random keyboard freezes in my MacBook Pro. It’s very annoying! After a quick Google I found many people having the same problem.

Leopard is sleek and polished with some great new features, but it’s not as stable as Tiger. Besides the keyboard issue, it fails to shutdown or reboot time to time. The finder hangs and need to shutdown pressing the power button.

Hopefully Apple will acknowledge and address these issues soon.

Update: Apple finally released this Software Update to fix the freezing keyboards.

Load balancing web servers with Pound

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Admin, HowTo, Linux/Unix, Network, Security, Technology

If you’re running a web site and have come to a point where a single web server cannot handle the traffic, then it’s time to get multiple web servers and share the loading. To do that you’ll need a load balancer which distributes the web traffic among multiple web servers.

Basically you’ve two choice — go for the hardware solutions (expensive with many nice features) or software solutions (possibly free but with limited features). If you want a free and open source solution then Pound is the choice.

Pound is a Free Open Source reverse-proxy, load balancer, SSL wrapper, http/https sanitizer, fail over server and a request redirector:

1. a reverse-proxy: it passes requests from client browsers to one or more back-end servers.
2. a load balancer: it will distribute the requests from the client browsers among several back-end servers, while keeping session information.
3. an SSL wrapper: Pound will decrypt HTTPS requests from client browsers and pass them as plain HTTP to the back-end servers.
4. an HTTP/HTTPS sanitizer: Pound will verify requests for correctness and accept only well-formed ones.
5. a fail over-server: should a back-end server fail, Pound will take note of the fact and stop passing requests to it until it recovers.
6. a request redirector: requests may be distributed among servers according to the requested URL.

Pound is built with security in mind, it can run as setuid/setgid and/or in a chroot jail. It’s a very small, robust and efficient program.

It’s very easy to install and configure.

Simple-Pound

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iPhone first impression

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Apple, Reviews, Technology, UK

Finally got my hands on the iPhone today!

We’ve all watched/read so much about the iphone and it’s coolness that expectations were quite high. And I’ve to say that I was not disappointed. It’s really cool, slim and gorgeous. Most of the things work perfect. I think the keyboard is not an issue.

Iphone-1

iPhone was launched today at 6:02pm in UK and could be bought in Apple Stores, O2 stores or Carphone Warehouse stores. You’ll have to sign 18 months contract with O2, which is the exclusive carrier in UK.

There’s one Carphone Warehouse store few blocks away from my house, so I went to check out at 6pm. Surprisingly there were just around 20 people queuing up. The store opened at 6:02 and everybody was let in. But there was a problem with carphone warehouse’s payment system. I’m not sure if the system was flooded by iPhone transaction or other technical issues. Anyway, it took more than half an hour just for the payment authorization. I was the first one to walk out of that store with the iPhone. They authorized the payment manually, bypassing the chip and pin (security system in UK’s bank cards).

Activating iPhone with iTunes was a smooth and painless process. I am currently using Vodafone, and got the PAC code from them few days ago. PAC code is a special code to transfer your mobile number from one provider to another. My existing mobile number will be automatically transferred to my iPhone after 7 days, until then O2 has assigned me a temporary number. That was clever.

Played with most of its features, made several calls (quality is quite good) and tested the visual voice mail (which should be very useful). Synced my address book, music, podcasts, some photos and videos. iPod is excellent. Gmail and IMAP mails are easy to configure and work without any problem. Photos are very cool, flipping them, zooming in/out, resizing was fun. Google Maps will be very useful for me finding places in London, it loads pretty fast even on EDGE Network.

Only problems are the Wi-Fi connection and YouTube. I use a 128bit WEP HEX Key at home and couldn’t establish connection with my Access Point. Quick Google gave me this (seems to be a known issue) but using $ in front doesn’t solve the problem for me. For the YouTube Videos It says that it requires an EDGE or Wi-Fi connection.

I think these two problems can be fixed easily.

I’m just having a good time playing with it. You’ve to hold it and use it to really appreciate it. It was a nice Deepawali gift for myself!

Upgraded to Leopard but with some hiccups

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Apple, HowTo, Technology

I’ve just upgraded my MacBook Pro to Leopard. I expected it to be very smooth and painless as many other users have reported, but unfortunately I encountered some problem. I had to spend around extra 4 hours, and was worried about losing my data all the way until the upgrade was complete.

Leopard

So, this is what happened. I inserted my Leopard DVD and clicked on Install Mac OS X, then my MBP restarted. I chose the option to Upgrade (it actually detected and told me that I wanted to upgrade). It took around 2 hours to complete and asked for a final restart. That was supposed to be the end of upgrade, but after the final restart my MBP was stuck on white screen with apple logo. I waited for half an hour, then it became obvious that nothing was happening, so I pushed the power button and re-started again, which led to the same white screen. At this point I was quite worried about my data. I had done my last backup 2 months ago. Actually I should have backed up before starting the upgrade, but I thought since everyone is doing it smoothly why would I have a problem? Also I was too excited to experience the Leopard that I didn’t want to spend time backing up, and neglected the risk of losing 2 months data.

White-Screen
Stuck in the white screen forever

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Think of address proof

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, UK

Finally some sense of normality is returning to life. I’ve found a house in Charlton, London. It’s 45 minutes commute to work by tube (underground). My son is still waiting for a school placement from the local council though, it’s taking longer than I’d expected.

Newcomers will find it quite difficult to start anything here in UK because nothing seems to move without an address proof!

You want to open a bank account?
Show your address proof.

Your child needs to go to school?
You can’t apply without an address proof.

You want to rent a house?
Address proof please!

You can’t even register with GP (Local Doctor) without an address proof!

If you’ve just arrived in the UK, where are you going to get the address proof from? It’s like a Chicken and Egg story! I was lucky that I’d opened HSBC UK account from Hong Kong, which worked for my address proof. If you’re coming to settle in the UK, think about how you’re going to get an address proof ahead of time, that will save you from some unnecessary hassles.

BTW, I bought a new MacbookPro in Hong Kong just before coming to UK because it’s insanely expensive out here. I bought it for HK$15,400, the same machine is GBP 1299 in UK. It’s around HK$ 5K (nearly 300 pounds) more expensive. Not only Apple laptops, but everything is expensive out here. Anyway, I love my new santa rosa MacBook Pro. It’s refreshingly fast compared to my previous Powerbook. I wanted to use Parallels to install different OS in my MBP, but encountered a problem with WindowsXP installation. It gives an error message saying “Error loading \PrlSAShellExt.dll”, I tried to tweak several config and reinstalled twice, but no luck. Now I’ve turned to Vmware Fusion, and I’ve to say that it’s as smooth as silk. I’ve already installed WinXP, CentOS 5 and Ubuntu. Solaris 10 is next.

I was hoping to get my hands on 3G iPhone early, but as Steve Jobs announced, it’s going to be the same EDGE and need to wait until Nov. 9. One good thing though is that there will be free unlimited access to any of the O2’s 7500 wifi hot spots.

Most of the time local telephone calls in UK are more expensive than international calls – I don’t understand how the prices are fixed. I use pay as you go (prepaid card) from voafone, it’s 30 pence for first 3 mins and 10 pence there after. The telephone plans are charges are very confusing. In Hong Kong nobody cares about how long you’re talking, but here you need to be aware of minutes, pounds and pence.

You need to pay tax for watching TV. Yes, it’s illegal to keep a TV without paying for TV License, that’s of course separate from the cable bill.

Anyway, with all that said, overall I’m finding UK life quite interesting! Different culture, different people and different environment. It’s quite a change, and it’s a welcome change. Work is challenging and pay is not bad :). Most importantly, my son loves the new place!

Hms-Belfast

UK Life Starts…

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, UK

It’s been quiet here for some time because I’ve been busy lately, moving to UK. Actually I’m already in the UK (arrived here on Aug 10), living with my relatives at Aldershot (which is a small town, an hour drive from London). It’s very cold out here, although it’s supposed to be summer, you hardly see the sun, and it rains with cool breeze most of the time.

My son is enjoying the new place (eagerly waiting for it to snow), my wife finds it very quiet and peaceful (she misses the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong). Initially I was busy looking for a job (applying and responding to calls), the good news is that I’ve already found a job and started working from last week.

I’ve started working as a System Administrator at a company called Covestor, which is in Central London. I’ll be looking after their Linux Systems, Security and Network. It’s a startup company with a new idea to democratize the investment management industry and help proven self-investors around the world compete with the large institutions.

A real-trade sharing service for proven self-investors. To share your real investment decisions, gain recognition and earn fees by helping others

At Covestor they’ve built an unique system and technically there’re many challenges. I’m sure it’ll be fun working with them, where I can add value and learn. Other cool thing about Covestor is that they’ve a small group of really dedicated, smart, and truly multinational team at work. People from US, UK, Colombia, Russia, Lithuania, Italy and India are working together. It’s a great opportunity for me to be joining this team.

Currently, I’m looking for a house close to London and also a school for my son. I’m still getting used to the new place and new life. There’re many things to be done so, this blog might be quiet for some time but don’t go away once things are settled I’ll be blogging regularly.

London-Bridge-1
Stopped at London Bridge to take a photo after my interview at Covestor.

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Buddha Boy starts preaching

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Body, Mind & Spirit, Buddha Boy, Life, Nepal

Yes, that’s true! Ram Bahadur Bomjon, the Buddha Boy has started preaching. I thought that will happen somewhere around 2012 because he said he’ll meditate for 6 more years in 2006. Anyway, in his first ever direct message to more than three thousand people gathered in the Hallori Jungle in Bara district of southern Nepal, he said: “The only way we can save this nation is through religion”. Not sure what to make of his first public message. Hopefully full transcript, audio or video of his address will appear soon.
There’s few more details at UWB, with 2 photos from the address, you can see he has a long hair and is wrapped in maroon robe.

Ram Bahadur Bomjom Preaching1

Mahabir Pun — the man who brought WiFi to Himalayas

by niranjanPosted on Posted in Life, Nepal, Network, Technology

ImgpunmahWhen I read Mahabir Pun’s story about how he brought the wireless technology to a remote mountainous village of Nepal called Nangi, I was amazed by his determination! What an inspirational story of a man with a noble cause. It really gave me goose bumps, I just thought what a difference one committed individual can make to a society. With his determination, hard-work, and dream, he changed the lives of all the people of Nangi village for better. What a meaningful way to use the technology and what a wonderful way to live this life. I sincerely wish I could do something like that. I’ve written to Mr Pun and hopefully I could be helpful to his project in someways.

Khopra
Relay Station 2, Khopra with Antennas Pointing to Different Villages Elevation 3,600m (~12,000 ft)
More Photos

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