Online shopping

I just wanted to find out what are the online shopping portals in India. I have resolved to buy as much online as possible.
www.homeshop18.com
shopping.indiatimes.com
www.naaptol.com
www.ebay.in
www.retailsdirect.com
www.futurebazaar.com
www.infibeam.com
www.indiaplaza.in
shopping.rediff.com
www.onlinedeals.in

What do you think is the best online shopping portal in India?

Open Source SCADA tools

The following are some Open Source Web based SCADA tools. Web based SCADAs are cool because you get to do the process visualization through a browser. So it works irrespective of the machine or the environment and you don't need to install any software into the client machine.
1. PVbrowser
2. Mango Open source M2M
3. Open SCADA
4. VISUAL
Some more are here.
Nice book on architecture of Web Based SCADA systems here

OpenWRT hacks

Off late Art of Livng and my work at BARC have consumed me quite a bit and theres hardly any time left for hacking or blogging. I would say today after almost a month, I could steal quite some time to stick my head out and see whats happening around. The world has been as good and interesting. For example this thing called OpenWRT rocks. I was fed up with the Linksys  and DLink routers not allowing me to open a shell. I discovered OpenWRT which is an OS to be ported on embedded Network devices. Why use restricted proprietary software when Open Source alternatives are already there. Work at office had become a little boring till I found this productive-open source-web based tool called collabtive. I immediately installed it and started using it. This tool rocks, but I think they should have done a little better at the PLM tool.
And the last few days, I have started visiting the local ITI (Industrial Training Institute) to set a few borrowed half dead computers working. How about buying a thinclients?  I had been looking for an ITI to support inspired by the IITians for ITI program.The computing scenario at my home is also bad. I want to restart the Anushakti Knowledge Network inviting a lot of people to collaborate and work together. I also want to hack into my Dlink router at home and probably port it with OpenWRT.

Ratan Tatas Vision

As Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group of companies, observed in an interview with The Times of London: "A bunch of entrepreneurs could establish an assembly operation and Tata Motors would train their people, would oversee their quality assurance and they would become satellite assembly operations for us. So we would create entrepreneurs across the country that would produce the car (Tata Nano). We would produce the mass items and ship it to them as kits. That is my idea of dispersing wealth. The service person would be
like an insurance agent who would be trained, have a cell phone and scooter and would be assigned to a set of customers."In fact, Tata envisions going even further, providing the tools for local mechanics to assemble the car in existing auto shops or even in new garages created to cater to remote rural customers.

Quiz -1

I wrote this letter to a professor. Who am I and who is the professor I am writing to?
I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras on a salary of 20 pounds per annum. I am now about 26 years of age. I have had no university education... being inexperienced I would very highly value any advice you give me.

PAN IIT 2008

I have reached Chennai to attend the PAN IIT 2008 Global Conference at IIT Madras. My brothers place here has BSNL unlimited internet connection @512kbps. Its 2:30 AM and I am still glued to the PC. My brother has bought this book by Nandan Nilekani " Imagining India" and we are excited to get it autographed by Nilekani himself at the venue.

This is what Nilekani says in his blog "If there’s a place that can be described as ground zero for New India, it is my home town Bangalore"

Local trains jump

Its a well known fact that the local trains in Mumbai run on DC or AC from the wires hanging on the top. But theres always a single conductor. The return path for the current is through the track because the wheels touch the track. This is how the current flows into the ground. But the problem comes when due to track irregularities the train jumps and gets disconnected with the track. For this short duration its like motor switching off. Motors being inductive load switching off and on would result in large surges. This is a big problem in designing the electric locomotives.