How childhood cartoons influenced Work Ethics and Good Nature in you!

 Its been over 2 decades since we watched the Dexter's Laboratory TV Show on Cartoon Network as kids but some things just stay with you forever and mold you to the person you are today.

My brother and I were talking about the random office things and he brought up the episode of Dexter's laboratory called "Repairanoid" where an electrician comes in to his lab and starts fixing things without asking.

Watch the short 7 minutes episode here. The main part we were talking about is at about 4:19 minute marker.

This scenario is very common is every job every industry. You start working with a new member and underestimate his/her skills without giving them a chance. Until, they do something great and you realize getting help from someone helps you do your work even better and you stand corrected.

Watching this episode in the younger days gives you a perspective on people behavior and teaches you how to treat people and not presume something about them.

Give them a benefit of the doubt.

Job Market:

This is also something you can see in the current Job market where you are being dismissed for various reason after going through multiple rounds of interview and doing good in all of them but still not getting the job. Lot of big companies have been doing this for years and now more than ever.

It also has been happening in scenarios where ATS is dismissing your resume because you don't have the right keywords but have the experience. (AI will eventually get there too, on par with human emotions regarding this :))

Code Review of Pull Requests: 

When someone provides a review and blocks you pull request you should not be in a hurry to merge your PR due to deadline but listen and have a discussion to better your code if it makes sense. You shouldn't be thinking that "oh this person is going to stop me from merging my code in time". Keeping a good attitude will get you to the next level in your career, from just writing non-standardized code to write code with best practices and become an architect, eventually. You should be open to listen to feedback.

All this is from the intake perspective, on the other end you should also be a good constructive feedback provider and that will come only from practice and experience. There were lot of tv shows and movies as kids that unknowingly added these good values in us and has helped us become who we are today.

What do you see and learn from the above episode of Dexter's Laboratory? Share your comments

 

Selecting the best headphones

HD 428 and HD 515

About me and my music interest:

I am a avid music listener. I listen to music (Trance, Hip Hop, House, Pop, Rock, Metal ...basically everything depending on mood) while walking to work ,back from work ,while working, while driving, while browsing , sometimes while sleeping too. I currently have 5 earphones.

• Some basic Headset that I got from India which now doesn't work.
• My iPod nano first generation earphones
• My Creative in-ear earphones that I got free with my laptop almost 3 years ago
• My Samsung in-ear earphones that I got with my Samsung Captivate phone.
• My Insignia Stereo Bluetooth Headset that I use with my phone and iPod nano most of the time.

I use the iPod earphones at work to listen to songs when I work and my Insignia Bluetooth headset while walking to and from work and when at home I use the Creative earphones.

Among these I love the Bass and audio quality on the Creative Earphones the best. The only problem with these are that I cannot keep it on for long duration of time. I feel that Around Ear Earphones are the most comfortable ones.

The type of headphones available in the market:

There are basically three types of headphones when it comes to fitting. They are:

• In-Ear : These type of earphones go into your ears and give you the best bass and audio quality.Pros: Highest Bass and Audio quality, isolation from outside world, Cons: Safety issue due to isolation, Might become the cause of long term hearing impairment, might get uncomfortable after long listening sessions 
• On-Ear : These type of earphones have your ear sized cushions that sit on your ear and give you a little more comfort than in-Ear Pros: Comfortable, Safe listening Cons: might get uncomfortable after long listening sessions, not enough isolation from outside noise. 
• Around-Ear : These type of earphones have ear cups that cover your ear completely and isolate you from the outer world just like in-ear do but are the most comfortable. The around-ear headphones are sub divided into two types (by Sennheiser atleast) Pros: Most comfortable, Isolation from outside world, Reasonably high bass output and very good audio quality. Cons: Bulky, Expensive, 
• Closed Cup : These type of headphones isolate you and give you a noise cancellation kind of feel and deeper bass than the open-aire counterpart. Pros: Good Bass, Isolation from outside world. Cons: Safety issue due to isolation, 
• Open-Aire : These type of headphones are open. In the sense that you can hear the outside world and the outside world can hear what you are hearing. Not the best bass but has its reasons for having such a feature. Pros: Safe, Higher audio quality Cons: Disturbance to others, Probably not good at noisy places.

Shortlisting the Choices:

Though I had 5 earphone/headphones with me, I wanted to get one of the best Headphones for myself because I wanted to enjoy High Quality audio with comfort so I decided to get Around-Ear headphones. 

My first choice was obviously the obvious one - BOSE. but I didnt want to spend 100s of dollars for a pair of headset. My budget was a max of $100. I came around the a deal from Newegg.com where the Bose Around Ear Headphones were just $79 (originally $129) . I was immediately attracted to it but the reviews were not very impressive. All of buyers who reviewed complained about the build quality of the headband on it. And I agree because by just looking at it you can tell that it is very weak and easily breakable when bent. I thought maybe I should wait a little bit more for the Thanksgiving sale for this price to drop down further :)

My second choice was Sennheiser. I have used Sennheiser headphones when I worked at Juggle.com and they are pretty good. I came across a deal where the Sennheiser HD 201 was for $15 ONLY. I am a high bass fan so I did my research to figure out if this headset had the bass I needed. What I found was that most of the reviews only compared the bass on this model with its higher models, so it was kind of hard to tell how good it was. 

I then noticed that the HD 202 is just a few dollars more than the HD 201 so I shifter my mind from the lowest end model to a higher end one. Then I compared it for Bass and then I reached the other models - HD 205, HD 280 Professional, HD 448, HD 428, HD 333, HD 438, HD 515, HD 510, HD 555,HD 600, HD 800. Most of them were under the $100 budget limit on amazon.com with 2 years manufacturer warranty. I went ahead and compared each and every one with each other and then compared them with Bose. Some of the reviewers mentioned Sony Headphones also to be good. 

I went thourgh cnet.com first but they were very technical and I did not know any technical stuff about the headphones so I skipped to forum, discussion and reviews on various sites. I spent around 2-3 weeks and read over 500 posts and reviews to decide what I wanted to buy. I think that was very thorough though I like to make my own decisions by doing the test and comparison myself instead of listening and basing my decisions completely on others views. :)

The Sennheiser HD 280 Professional was the most highly reviewed / rated headphones in most of the forums. They are what the professional musicians would prefer and next was the Sennheiser HD 555 which is built with lots of super technologies like E.A.R. which has Enhanced channeling and Acoustics. The Hd 280 was over my $100 budget plus didnt look like the model I wanted. So my next choice was HD 555 but it was $99 which is ok but I wanted to explore more options. So I did some more research and compared them to a little lower end models pricewise and quality wise.

One of my friends on twitter (@snehasis) helped me out in deciding the starting point for my search. He suggested to go for HD 448 which was the best value for money according to him. This model is a Closed Cup model while the HD 555 was a Open-Aire model. I wanted to be more clear on this so I googled and found a good explanation to this. Briefly, Open Aire is good for Acoustics and Resonance decrement and decreases the stresss on the ear. the only thing I liked about Closed cup was that most reviews said it has deeper bass compared to the Open Aire counterparts (HD 500 series).

The 500 Series are good for the people who can tell the difference between the smallest beats. Basically for an Audiophile (Maybe I am because I was able to tell the difference :p). After doing all my research I decided to get the Sennheiser HD 515 which was comparable to the HD 555 and better than the HD 448  and CHEAPER!!! by $40 :p

Most of the forums kept saying that Bose is good but overhyped and pricey. Sennheiser is better for personal audio (headphones) market. Bose is great in the Speaker System market. If anyone asks me what home theater audio system would be your dream system answer would obviously be BOSE but headphones, for now, Sennheiser. :)

The purchase:

I ordered the Sennheiser HD 515 and received it on Thursday. I immediately after reaching home from work unpacked it (after collecting it) and started my trials to see how good those are. The first bad impression was that it didnt have the high bass feel that I wanted :(. I used my two earphones output to compare it with my Creative in-ear phones. The Creative was the winner in Bass but the audio quality when I was hearing to Indian songs was A M A Z I N G on the HD 515. 

I was once again in a dilemma whether I should keep my $60 headphones or replace it with the HD 428 which was the same price but supposedly had better Bass output due to its closed cup design. After again wasting some time in research comparing 428 with 515 I decided to order the 428 too and compare it with the 515. I wanted to test these within this week so I ordered with 1 day shipping. I received it on Friday itself! Super fast shipping by Amazon.com I got it 1 day earlier than the estimate Ordered Thurday night and got it Friday morning!

As soon as I received the HD 428 and opened the package, I was surprised to see the differences. The build quality difference was clearly visible. The Hd 428 has a very thing cable compared to the 515 and the cushions were made of cheap plastic cover kind of material on the 428 unlike the cloth/sponge kind of finish on the 515. And the 428 ear cup size was smaller than the 515 thus making it kind of irritating to the ear.

When played and listened to the differences, I didn't feel any Bass difference in them plus the 515 was much better in audio clarity and quality. So, I after testing for around 1 hours decided that HD 515 is here to stay.

After all this now I feel I have made a good decision in buying the HD 515. Its good in audio and comfortable. maybe in future I will get a Bose and compare it with this :P.

Thank You for reading through all this.

Creating partitions in a 64bit Windows 7 Home HP laptop.

The Story:

2 days ago, my friend received his first HP personal laptop. It had a Intel i5 M430 processor, ATI 5450 graphics card with 512 MB dedicated graphics, a 500 GB 7200RPM HDD with one huge C: partition, a recovery partition and HP Tools partition.

The friend wanted me to create multiple partitions for him like I did on my laptop for optimal performance. So, I started doing it for him but after a few failures realized that it was a 64 bit OS and it needed a different version of the software I have been using all these years.(Paragon Partition Manager). While trying to create the partitions I lost all the existing partitions. This post is about how I recovered the system to a working state from a non-working state.


How the situation arrived:


The HDD had a HP Tools partition, a recovery partition with a .wim file and other system files which restored back to how it was before and a C: drive with the rest of the HDD space for windows 7 home premium.

I installed Paragon Partition manager 9 to resize the C: drive which already had the windows OS installed. But this software failed because it was a software not built for the 64 bit systems. So I used the EASEUS  partition manager software and resized the windows partition (C:) to the required size and freeing up the rest of the space, without needing to reinstall the OS.

Next step was to create the other required partitions (D, E , F ....etc). This wasn't happening as expected. Both the softwares were not allowing me to create more partitions out of the unallocated space on the hard disk. So after a lot of time waste doing trials, I ended up using the Windows inbuilt partition manager (Start-> right click (my computer)-> manage -> disk management ) to create the rest of the partitions. Before making the changes it warned us that we will be not able to boot from any other partition other than the one we are currently in. i.e. If we have other OS we will not be able to get in, because it was going to convert the partitions into DYNAMIC partitions.

I then thought, we do not have any other OS so just lets go ahead with this. But, I was wrong. After restarting the PC, we not only lost the recovery feature provided by HP but also lost the windows which was working fine.

I was in a situation where I couldn't restore windows to its previous state or restore from the recovery partition but had to get this working for him. I took it as my responsibility to restore it to working state because I corrupted it.



The time taking process of restoring:


First thing needed to reinstall the windows was to have a recovery disc which we didn't have. So, I googled for Windows 7 Home premium x64 ISO free and downloaded the available free ISO and burned it to a disc and installed the windows in his pc. It was working fine but with lots of missing drivers and missing functionalities what he got when he first received the laptop.

The dynamic partitions that were created were giving lots of problems in restoring the recovery partitions. I tried various methods to restore the .wim file from that partitions and write that image back to the C: to get back the version which was originally provided. After a lot of trials I managed to retrieve the wim file from the recovery partition which was inaccessible. Then tried to write it to the C: but this didn't work.

First thing was to find a 64bit version of the imagex application that is used to apply the image onto a partition. So googling for it got me the version I needed. After applying the retrieved image to the C: , it still didn't work as expected. I kept getting errors about boot errors 0x000000f. I tried various methods to fix this (bootrec.exe to fixmbr and diskpart.exe to re-partition) but no success. I even tried ubuntu and fedore live discs to use their disk partitioning utility but all were leading me to a state where I would have to delete the recovery partition completely. (I needed this partition to recover and be available in the future to my friend for recovery).

I then after lot of thinking re-installed windows 7 again and deleted the D E F ...etc partitions due to which the disk converted into dynamic disk. I looked into Google to convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk type and read a lot of articles on how and what dynamic and basic disk types are and how they effect performance and functionality and customization . Then converted the disk type to basic and tried to restore the .wim again but that again corrupted the master boot record.

After all this failures and the time being 11 PM on Saturday, I decided to install the the windows again and make it working for him without trying to restore from the wim image. I installed windows 7 home premium without any problems this time and was able to successfully find all the drivers and created all the partitions he wanted and was able to reactivate windows this time by calling the Microsoft product activation hotline.



Conclusion:

I wasted a lot of time ( almost 24 hours) on fixing this nonsense issue which I have fixed many times in the past. I could have done what I did at the end much earlier than when I actually did it but I wanted to experiment on this new x64 environment so it was worth the time spent. Basically I finished what I was working on and result was positive. :) Working Windows 7 with genuine software in it :)





What I learnt and enjoyed:

• I waste a lot of time fixing things which I know how to fix because I look for perfection.
• Microsoft has started providing free legal downloadable ISO since Windows 7
• Learnt new things about the partitioning systems (Dynamic disk and basic disk types)
• Got exposure towards Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK)
• Learnt how imagex differs from dism and other tools provided in the Windows AIK
• Learnt that x64 systems will give you a lot of headache compared to x86 systems during software and driver related tasks.
• Realized that most of the new systems have USB device booting options. (previously only few had that)
• Just like when we moved from IDE to SATA disks we had issues with installing windows xp (because they didnt have SATA drivers by default) , the move from x86 to x64 systems have some issues with partitions, OS installations and software
• Got to brush up my skills on system maintenance and work on my favorite passtime/hobby
• Other things that I researched due to this "project" were
• Differences between i3 i5 and i7 processors and the differences between them and core 2 duo family.
• Differences between windows home , professional, ultimate (read again to remember better)

Overall I loved this waste of time. I could have done more important things but doing something what I love is better than doing something that I need to do is good for me, I think (at least right now thats what I think :p)

If you have any questions related this topic or any other topic please ask me. I know I haven't gone too much in detail about how I did everything here so please ask me if you want to know any more details. This was just to share my experience :)

Thank you for reading.

The long search for a song ends after over 10 years

How it began:

Me and my lil bro got interest in music around the year 1997-1998. Before then we didn't have any specific interest in songs. Our dad used to play his collection (Michael Jackson, Boney M, Geroge Michael, Bee Gees) and we used to just listen to it.

First Level: Music System

Our first audio cassette album that we bought was "Aqua - Aquarium" (Rs.125) and first Audio CD was "Michael Jackson's - Blood on the dance floor" (Rs.599). Those were very expensive back then but well worth it!

Next Level : Channel [V] and MTv

We used to watch some awesome music shows on Channel V and MTV. Our favorite show on [V] was "Turn on t[V]" and on MTv was "Non-Stop Hits". Back then it was all English songs, no Hindi songs in India. Me and my bro used to sit in front of the TV and connect the TV with our music system to listen to our favorite songs out loud.

We had a lot of favorite songs. We used to buy the cassettes with the hits in it (Now 5, Max 4 etc.). We started remembering artists and their songs. We got so used to listening songs that we could tell the artist by just listening to the songs or voices in the songs.

Lost in time:

There were a few songs though which we heard once and loved but never got a chance to hear again. These were the songs whose tunes were stuck in our head for years together and we couldn't figure out 'who the artist was' or 'what the song name was' or 'what the lyrics was'.

New Generation of search:

As the years went by, new technologies and websites like Youtube emerged, in which we were able to find some of the songs from our list of "tunes in the head" by just entering some of the words from the song.

For example: one of the words from a song stuck in my head was "....Smashing...." so I searched for it and found "smashing pumpkins" but wasn't sure if it was the one I was looking for. I heard each and every song of theirs' to find the one I wanted and I found it. And realized that the song had no lyrics with the word "smashing" in it anywhere. The word in the song which I was thinking to be "smashing" was actually "perfect", LOL.

But one song was still creeping in our heads... what was it? :

Slowly as the years went by further, we found most of them. BUT there was one music video which was stuck scene by scene in our head and we knew just two words from the songs which sounded like "...Paaale Paramu..." (doesn't even make sense, right?) . The video had two kids travelling all over the world on a Magic carpet like the one in Aladdin. We tried the same type of search for this song too. i.e. searched for the keywords and we even tried magic carpet ride etc but no luck :(.

Its been 13 years since we first saw that video and that video and tune is still stuck in our head.

How did I come across it:

Since a past few years with the upcoming of online radio, I have started listening to songs 24x7. I Work, eat, and even sleep with music on the radio.

THE DAY! - April 7th 2010 (almost 13 years after first hearing the song)

Today I was listening to one of the electronica station on iTunes and I came across a remix song which seemed to have the tune which I have been looking for all these years. I noted down the name of that song and did a youtube search and found the original song with DVD video quality and there it was!!!!.

I was getting chills and a great sense of accomplishment when I found this music video after 13 years of looking for it. Now I feel like one of my biggest tasks in life has been done. :P I cant even think of any other song which I have been looking for and haven't found.

There was a question in my mind as soon as found it.

"What next...?"

My Thanks giving 2008 break week

As soon as, my class on the Thursday before thanks giving week was done it was holidays for me. I had planned something to do everyday during the break.

The technician returns:

On Friday, I came to work and had fun with friends at work while trying to get the Life After Class magazine done. On Saturday, I went to my friends house to fix his laptop and PC and after that he gave me a treat at a classy Italian restaurant (Olive garden) because I helped him on many occasions with his technical problem. He has the power of making anybody agree to whatever he says even if it is wrong. And he uses this power to get stuff for way cheaper than what it originally costs. So I asked him to get me a Nintendo DS Lite for $50 from somewhere. He said no problem at all because he has a lot of “connections”.

The PS2:

Then he gave me his non-working PS2 and asked me if I could fix it. I took it home and tried to fix it. It took me not more than 30 minutes to fix the problem. After I informed him that I fixed it he let me keep it for as long as I want it. So I have been playing his NASCAR 08 and MX vs ATV unleashed games since then.

BURNOUT strikes back!

I thought of buying a few old favorite used games on eBay. So I went online and checked for Burnout 3 and found it to be available for $9.99 then I saw that there was an auction on all the three versions of burnout for $4.25 + $2.99 shipping so I bid on that and got the 3 games finally for $12.73. Now what my plan is that I will play the 3 games and then sell the Burnout 1 and 2 on eBay and get money back and keep the Burnout 3 with me.
Then on Monday, I went to Chicago with 2 of my friends to meet my former roommate. We had a great time hanging out and walking in the downtown for 9 miles among the building. We then returned to Edwardsville on Wednesday night.
Wednesday night, went out with friends and hanged out till 6 am in the morning and then came back home and slept till 2 pm on thursday.

What is the main things for us during thanks giving?

The main thing for us is the thanks giving sale on the day after the thanks giving festival i.e. the Black Friday sale. On Black Friday sale the stores put up great/cheap deals with limited quantity for 1 day and whoever is interested

Thursday night, I had a plan with my American friend to stand in the line for the Black Friday sales at Walmart because they had more number of deals which we wanted than any other store. My aim was to buy 5 Nintendo Wiis and some other cheap small electronic gadgets for various purposes. 

The Black Friday Sales of Thanks Giving 2008

What is the Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

The Friday of the thanks giving week is called the black Friday. During which all the major stores put up great/cheap deals with limited quantity for 1 day only and whoever is interested has to come early to get it. The deals are usually so attractively priced that people do not want to miss the deals so they come and form a line in front of the store 1 day before the sale. Sometimes they have 2 day sale items also i.e. An item is offered for sale on Saturday also.

For people who cannot go and stand in the line to get the item they want there is the internet and on the following monday of the thanks giving break week, all the online merchant sites have online deals for cheap and people have to click and race fast to get what they want. There servers get very slow during those times. But this is worth for people who dont want to wait in line in the cold weather.

What was my plan of buying during this thanks giving sale?

I planned to buy a lot of things this thanks giving sale for various reasons. Most of the thing in my list were video games. also I planned to buy around 5 Nintendo Wiis and a few gadgets which I never had and were available for cheap.

Making the shopping list:

On the Thursday night (the night before black Friday early morning sale), after returning from Chicago and hanging out with friends, I went online to http://www.bfads.net/ and checked all the major stores, which I visit, for their advertisements about the doorbuster offers (the first come first server item list for cheap). After I short listed the items available in various stores, I had Walmart and bestbuy in my list because Walmart had many cheap deals and Bestbuy had some cheap and great deals.

The plan:

Me and my American friend were planning to stand in the Walmart line to get a great number of items. But he changed his mind and went to some other store for a 32" plasma TV available for $299 for his dad. So I made a list of things to buy in different stores and dropped the new kids who wanted a laptop for cheap at Bestbuy at 7 PM on thursday night because they had good laptop deals for $375-$499 and it was worth waiting in the line for. There were already around 30 people waiting in the line at bestbuy. And when i checked Walmart, there were no people standing in the line. So I just ignored and went home. I sat home looking for online deals instead of waiting in the line at best buy or Walmart.

Online shopping @ Home:

I gave the small list of items I wanted from bestbuy to the kids and they would them for me. So I continued searching for online deals on various sites. And as I am an avid deal finder, I got a mail from one of my deal site subscriptions that http://www.ecost.com/ was having an Outrageous offer on Nintendo Wii. They were selling THE NINTENDO WII for $99 1 per day at random time for 10 days = 10 Wiis. So i was keenly watching out for the deal to catch.

As the morning approached I went to Walmart at 2 AM and checked out the new way of getting things without a line. We can enter the store in the morning but cannot pick up the doorbuster items until the store opens. I and my another friend kept wandering in the store looking for the locations of the items I wanted like a treasure hunt. Then we stood near each item we needed as the time approached 5 am.

Electronic Buys:

I picked up a portable DVD player with 8" LCD screen on it for just $50, a Kodak CD1013 Digital Camera for $79, a V Rocker chair with music system embedded in it for $30 and a jeans pant from Wrangler for $8. After getting these I went to Bestbuy to see how the kids were doing with their deals. They got the tickets to get the item they wanted (i.e. the laptops) and I got my 19" Acer LCD monitor for $99.

Video Game Frenzy:

I did not find any video games for cheap from my brothers wishlist at these store but found some games for PS3 for $19.99 at walmart and SMSed him about those and so I got a reply that only Unreal Tournament was worth buying among those games I mentioned.

Then after finishing the shopping at bestbuy and Walmart I went home and slept and then again at 11 am we left for fairview heights shopping mall where I went to Gamestop and bought 3 used games for the price of 2 as they had an offer going on where we buy 2 and get 1 free for used games only. As Pikmin and Pikmin 2 were very expensive ($50+) online and hard to find I bought these used for $24 and $34 and took the Legend of Zelda twilight princess for Wii also used because I once ordered this game and never received the shipment.(I didnt feel like buying another new one). Then i bought a hoody for the first time in Aeropostale for $25 on a 50% off offer.

After the shopping here was done, the only things in my list to buy were the video games from my brothers wishlist. So I checked all the stores around that place for cheap games. But the only thing I could find was Burnout Paradise for $20 at Target which I didnt buy coz I never reached that store. Then after reaching home I searched for more deals online and checked the http://www.cheapassgamer.com/ site where I found AMAZING game deals. I got the following on this site:

"Wario Land: Shake it" for $29.99 (reg $49.99)

"Heavenly Sword" for $19.99 (reg $59.99)

"Mercury Meltdown Revolutions" for $9.99 (reg 19.99)

"No More Heroes" for $9.99 (red 19.99)

"Resistance 2 Collectors Edition" for $59.99 (reg 79.99)

"Little Big Planet" for $59.99 - $20.00 = $39.99 (reg 59.99) (used the coupon I got with the purchase of Wii Music in the past but later the price without coupon came down to $39.99 - Fate)

"Pure [PC]" for $4.95 (reg $29.99)

I also bought the Burnout 1,2,3 pack for PS2 on eBay for $12 to enjoy it on the PS2 which I fixed for my friend as he let me keep it for as long as I want it.

There were a lot more deals available but I bought only these. I now feel that I should have bought some more. But money matters...rite!

I almost bought a DS for $99 today in Cyber Monday deal at Amazon but for some reason it expired very very early. :(

WII (ALMOST) MISSED IT!

As far as the buying of my 5 Wiis goes, I observed in Walmart that they had 146 Wiis available this year unlike the 20-40 which they had last year per store. After seeing that the Wiis were so plentyfully available I didnt feel like buying it and didnt buy even one Wii. But the next day I felt bad that I didnt buy coz all the 146 Wiis were gone and now I was feeling again that the Wii is hard to find.

Now that the Wii are all gone again. I had one way of getting wiis for the rite or less price and that was to stay online on the eCost.com website to make use of the OUTRAGEOUS DEAL of theirs. because all other online stores sell the Wii for way more($300+) than the retail value of the console ($249).

On the first day(Black Friday) of the OUTRAGEOUS DEAL on Wii for $99, they mentioned that the Wii will be online between 8-10PM PST so to get it I came online at the exact time and when I tried to refresh the eCost.com website it took a lot of time to load the page because of the huge traffic as many people were trying to get the Wii for $99. It was like the day when all the students come online at the same time to check their results on the JNTU website.

After trying this for 2 days continuously, I failed, but on the 3rd day i.e. Sunday at 7 PM CST I ran from the other room remembering that the Wii deal will be online at this time and went to the site...added the Wii to cart and observed that it was added in the cart for $99... So I immediately started the checkout process as it was a race we needed to be fast in doing it. Luckily there was Paypal option and also I already had an account with eCost.com which I dont remember making. i did everything fast and in the last step when I was clicking the SUBMIT ORDER BUTTON, I got a message which said

We're sorry but an error occurred processing your order. The site administrators have been notified

When I saw this i was sooooooooo pissed coz I was very close to getting a Wii for $99.

After an hour when, I was just checking stuff I observed that I still have the $99 Wii in my Shopping cart, So I just tried to go through the order and I got it through. My Paypal account was charged twice so maybe I am going to get both the Wii's (the earlier failed one and this successful one). I have even got the Shipped notification which means my order has gone through. AMAZING!!!!

After this happened I jumped like crazy telling everyone about it. I saved. I got a feeling of great achievement by doing this. There are few more days of Wii offer left and I will keep trying to get them for "gifting".

Merry Christmas to everybody and get the Wii as a Christmas present for your loved ones! ;)

UPDATE

I got my Wii today. The $14 shipping was super fast I got it within 1 day. They shipped on Dec 1st and I got it on Dec 2nd. Amazing! I also tried to get another Wii today (Dec 2nd) but missed by 1 minute. I will keep trying for another Wii until I get it for the same price ($99).

MY SWEET WIIIIIIIIII

If you want to get some nice price comparisons for electronics and video games. Visit Juggle.com Electronics and Video Games sections.

The Great Get together of Fall 06 Batch at SIUe

It all began in Fall '06:

Our (Fall 06 Batch of SIUe) first gettogether started at Eat Street in Hyderabad before we came to SIUe. We all planned and met at Eat Street and got acquainted with each other before coming to SIUe. Many of us even planned to fly together to SIUe. People booked tickets in bulk, 4 to 8 people together. I flew alone though.

After we reached SIUe, our batch everyone had lot of get together parties at our house (Goverdhan, Sai and Mine). We had so many get together that we became very close. Almost every day and night we used to hangout with each other especially at a bench present in the open area near our houses. We used to sit there hours and hours and chat.

As the semester went on our friendship became better and better. Then one by one some graduated and some were left here to finish their rest of the masters due to "complications". Then as the last part of our batch was about to graduate we started to have get together parties again.

re-gettogether of Summer '08:

During the Summer 08 semester in SIUe we all had 1 whole month of weekends as get together parties. As soon as the weekend came we used to have get together at the same place (Sai's house). Shilpa, Sruthi, Usha, Vineela, Chetan, Hara Krishna, Sandeep, Jay, Sai and me had regular get together at the house. And we even organized a get together at Raju's house at cougar village for a change and invited all the Fall 06 batchmates for dinner and had a good time.

Many of of gettogethers:

On the first week of our get together we went to Six Flags on July 5th together after going to see the St.Louis fireworks for the July 4th. Then me, Jay and Sai went to the "Ready" movie on July 12th after a long time then another week we had a dinner party at cougar village on July 13th with a lot of fun playing games followed by another dinner party at Sai's house and then drinking party for everyone (all batches) at Sandeep's house on the occasion of everybody successfully finishing masters on July 17th. Then another day we all went to the DARK KNIGHT movie at showplace on July 20th and had a great experience watching it from the front row.

On July 24th, we all went to eat dinner at Denny's restaurant and then hanged out at Coldstone Ice cream center and had a great time. After that we went back to Sai's house for Dhawal's Birthday party and enjoyed the cake. After that we all sat till morning 6:30 am and played Dumb Sherads, and some other games. We had a lot of fun hanging out the whole day together.

On July 25th, I returned from job and slept in the afternoon because of the last night's less sleep, then ate at Sai's house at 10:30 pm after waking up and then went to a birthday party, came back and had a great drinking party sponsored by Jay. We kept drinking and talking and enjoying till 5:00 am in the morning. I never had that much fun before.

Bye Bye Shilpa:

Next day when I woke up, it was 1:00 pm and Shilpa came to say bye to us. She was very sad to leave us. After she left to Chicago, we all went to Shruthi's house and hanged out at her house where she made double ka meetha for us. She makes very nice double ka meetha. I requested her more and she made more and because I liked it so much she made some almost everyday for us until she left Edwardsville. While everyone was free because they graduated I was working on my projects as my classes were still going on.

Next day (July 27th) got up at 2pm and tried to do .net assignment but hung out at Shruthi's house and ate upma and brought their useless furniture to our house for our use. On July 30th, I went work earlier than I was supposed to come in and went to class after finishing work. Submitted the Final project and then Me, Jay and Sai went to Bobby's to eat Ice Cream after a week of wait and postponement.

Trip to St Louis:

Jay wanted to see the great things of St Louis which we haven't seen so we chose a saturday before he left Edwardsville for good and selected a few hot spots to check out, like the Anheuser Busch Beer factory, Botanical garden, Farmer's market and some other places. We had a great day roaming the St louis downtown area too, listening to music and walking all the way.

Bye Bye Chetan, Jay and Sandeep:

Then soon Chetan, Jay and Sandeep left Edwardsville one after the other on different days. We had a great time hanging out together. We wished that we should have hung out like this during the past few years too.

Bye Bye Raju and Shruthi:

We had a get together with Raju the day before he left to India in his own style. Me, Sai, Shruthi, Hara and Raju who were left in edwardsvillle from our batch went to Pere Marquette State park in the eveninig and then while driving back from the park along the beautiful river bank we stopped at a restaurant which we never observed before and checked it out. It was called Fin Inn. It was a great looking restaurant with aquarium around the table having a variety of fishes which they serve and have it in the river. I and Hara had french fries and breadsticks while the others enjoyed various fish items which was inexpensive and good. After such a great get together the next day Raju left with some of my stuff which I gave to him to take it to India and the in a few days Shruthi left.

Bye Bye Hara:

Now only Me, Sai and Hara were left and we enjoyed the school to the fullest by going to the cougar lake boating with some new friends and then one day Hara came and told that he is leaving today and flew away, very short notice. I didnt even realize that he was leaving edwardsville or leaving to some place for fun. Now only me and Sai are left in Edwardsville.

When will we meet agian?

We will be having a great get together again in December probably, when some of them come back to take their graduation walk and then again in India Night 2009.

There was a lot of talk about our get together when we had them. People kept talking that it was crazy to have get together almost every day but what can we do we just like hanging out with each other so much.

Miss You all, guys!

Bloggifying after a long time

During July our Fall 2006 batch guys had a great get together party month. i.e. throughout the month we kept on meeting and having get togethers. We had a lot of fun. By the end of Summer Semester all our batchmates left for getting a job. (Check out my Fall 06 Batch gettogether Blog)
Studies and Workout:

On July 28th, I went to work and worked out in the gym according my scheduled workout time and worked on my ADO.net project.
On July 29th, I didn't go to work coz I had to finish my project. I sat till 2:20 pm and finished the projects with some doubts which I clarified with classmates and submitted still having some errors in the project. As the professor gave students some more time till end of class I sat and finished it there.
On July 30th, I went work earlier than I was supposed to come in and went to class after finishing work. Submitted the Final project and then went to Bobby's to eat Ice Cream after a week of wait and postponement.

The Last Trip with Jay:

Jay wanted to see the great things of St Louis which we haven't seen so we chose a Saturday before he left Edwardsville for good and selected a few hot spots to check out, like the Anheuser Busch Beer factory, Art Museum, Botanical garden, Farmer's market and some other places. We had a great day roaming the St Louis downtown area too, listening to music and walking all the way.
Then soon Chetan, Jay and Sandeep left Edwardsville one after the other on different days. We had a great time hanging out together. We wished that we should have hung out like this during the past few years too.

Outing with Raju to Pere Marquette:

We had a get together with Raju the day before he left to India in his own style. Me, Sai, Shruthi, Hara and Raju who were left in edwardsvillle from our batch went to Pere Marquette State park in the eveninig and then while driving back from the park along the beautiful river bank we stopped at a restaurant which we never observed before and checked it out. It was called Fin Inn. It was a great looking restaurant with aquarium around the table having a variety of fishes which they serve and have it in the river. I and Hara had french fries and breadsticks while the others enjoyed various fish items which was cheap and good. After such a great get together the next day Raju left with some of my stuff which I gave to him to take it to India and the in a few days Shruthi left.
Now only Me, Sai and Hara were left and we enjoyed the school to the fullest by going to the cougar lake boating with some new friends and then one day Hara came and told that he is leaving today and flew away, very short notice. I didnt even realize that he was leaving edwardsville or leaving to some place for fun. Now only me and Sai are left in Edwardsville.

Outing with Abhay before he left:

I saw Wall-E, Wanted and some other great movies during the summer break. It was an amazing summer with my friends. After all my batchmates were gone. One day Me, Tenzing, Granil and Abhay went to the Indian Temple and then to the Zoo park after 2 years. We all had a great time at the zoo.

The entry of new kids into Edwardsville:

Soon we were about to enter a new semester, so a lot of new kids flew in from India. One of the kids brought 2 pairs of eye glasses from India through my Mom. She selected exactly the model of eyeglasses which I never wanted to have! But everyone said I looked very sharp in those glasses so I was ok with the new ones. Plus I had no other option as my other glasses which I had were already broken.
That guy and other 3 guys came in to Sai’s room as Jay left. Anna as usual got them and started the ragging session. Those 4 guys got the same kind of welcome from his as we all got. 1 of them moved to a different area to live and 2 of them filled 2 vacancies at Sai’s house. And the 4th guy was just a bakra to Anna’s ragging from some other apartment.
In my room I needed 1 new guy after Sachin, Purushottam and Abhay left, but the guys who picked up the new students from airport dropped TWO new guys in my house and asked us to provide shelter to them until a permanent house is found for them. So we got along very well in the 1 month we were together. When Anna finally after 6 years, decided to move out from Edwardsville one of the two new guys moved to Sai’s house and everyone was happy.
I have been very famous among the new kids because everyone knew me even before I introduced myself to them. When i said my name was Ranjeesh some people would go “ Ohh! you are Ranjeesh, The pendrive man”. Thats because I used to have a pen drive hanging on my neck all the time showing off that I am a tech guy. I have a great time with all the juniors. Its just my nature that I mingle with everybody no matter what their age is. I think its because I dont have a big ego problem like others do and I donot usually take any comment to heart (Most of the times). Overall I am good with everyone.

Sai’s New Car":

Sai’s car (Nissan Altima) met with an accident because of some old lady’s reckless driving on the highway and he had to pay the price coz he hit that lady’s car from the behind and here in the US the fault is always of the person who hits from behind. Sai’s car insurance paid off all the damages for the old lady’s car But he had to TRASH his car in the junkyard for $350 because it was repairable.
We had some good memorable trips on Sai’s old car and we remember those trips a lot and within that week he bought a better car (Dodge Neon) for even cheaper ($1800 vs $3000). Srinivas anna said that Sai is very great coz he bought a new car within one week of the accident and no one usually does that so confidently. Hats Off!

Lots of Gift getting @ Work:

At Work, as I was the employee of the month again, I went and collected my $10 gift card and saved it for future to buy a gift for somebody someday from the University Bookstore.
Again took the $10 gift card for employee of the month and got accumulated 13 points for good workmanship. If I collect 15 points I can exchange it for a Free movie ticket.

Spetemeber 18th - Birdthay party cake allover room cleaning ... work unpaid due to underload problem! ISS fix no work to get pay...paper talk with Jerry and Blythe Flop..89/100 A in CS 516 quiz
September 25th - Went out with Tenzing and Granil to Buffet city after getting 100 in fujinoki quiz without asking, Borders - realize Tenzing Bday
Sept 26th - Planned Tenzing Bday party, Cake cutting, Movie Eagle Eye, Shop n Save
Sept 27th - Temple and Boating with So called GF
Oct 2nd - Career Fair ,Racism, Dr White, Nidhi, manisha, Sai the bloody, Dinner at Mr.Curry's
Oct 4th - Boating with all as last weekend of boating
Oct 5th - Haraleft
Oct 6th - Granil Bday Party
Oct 7th - paper Registered
Home coming week - Free drinks, library, Library study, Homecoming Football, Bam Bams,
International nite 2008
Mid Term 2 bakwaas
paper progress
Quiz 100
Workout and challenge of Nates Phone laptop modem connection , eat in Gokul Chat


Dec 12th - Wii for Gagan, gamespt + Walmart few more

Finding and Getting the items for cheap on eBay.com (Bidder's View)

My background regarding electronic gadgets:

I am a student and love to buy electronic items. I have bought almost every kind of electronic gadget (a cheaper version of it because I am money minded). I have been a crazy deal seeker since the week I came to the United States. But to buy all those I need money, rite? which I don't earn so much that I spend on hobbies. I had around 6 Walkman (personal cassette player) before buying my first branded Walkman and I owned 3 different unknown branded Flash MP3 players before I got a CREATIVE MUVO and then the iPod. All these were different looking and variety kind of gadgets. My friends couldn't tell what it was by just looking at it and that made it even more cool! Whatever I buy I use almost every function of it. I take care of them as if they were living things. I am such a hobbyist of electronics that I want to buy whatever gadgets come in the market.

"Where there is will there is a way!"

So to meet my "need" to buy electronic gadgets for cheap with good brand name, I started looking for items on some deal sites like deals2buy.com and dealnews.com and bought several items for even $0 (i.e. Free) using the Mail in Rebates and promotional offers. Later I got addicted to selling used items like my friends's broken or/and working items which they want to get rid of and buying new and used items which were not in too bad condition on eBay for cheap. Selling is easy on eBay but searching for the right deal is a biggie.

 

Stage 1

When I was a beginner in eBaying I used to just search for an Item with its keyword (like New Nintendo Wii for Wii) and get thousands of results. Then I used to sort the results according to lowest price first, this used to bring the cheapest Wii's on top ($0.99 + some shipping price) with a few days left for the auction to end. I watched these items for a few days to buy the Wii for less than what we buy in any retail store but eventually the other ebay users of the world bid like CRAZY on the item. They bid 100s of dollars in one go and the price went to way over the MRP (appx. between $400 to $1000 when the MRP was $249.99). I tried this a number of times but always failed because there were not many people in the world who thought like me.

"If every person in the world who uses eBay thought like me, they would stop bidding high amounts at once and let others win for less if the bidding price was reaching more than the MRP, so that if not me atleast let the other guy get it for cheap, I can try another one because there are so many opportunities."

 

Stage 2

After realizing that this sorting according to price is not working out for me, I observed the pattern and found that people bid in the last few hours on the item. They keep a watch on the item and wait for the last few hours and then bid on it like crazy and thats where the prices go high. So I started searching for items and then sorted them according to ending time. This helped me get better results because I ended up finding few results with lower prices faster with only few minutes left. But even this had the similar flaws of technique of Stage 1. We are not controlling how the users think. The bidders are still bidding in the last minute and trying to get the items for themselves at ridiculously higher prices even if they can get it for cheaper somewhere else. In this case, people like me feel out numbered because there are more people who want it and have money to buy it but people like me still look for deals for cheap.

"Sometimes the CRAZY bidders pay even more than 75% of the new items price for a broken or non-working item. This is really crazy."

Stage 3

For quite a while I wasted time searching for the items for cheap. It is almost impossible to find a cheap deal these days on eBay unless no one else in the world is bidding on eBay. I came across a few resources while searching Google for methods of getting cheaper items on eBay. Few websites mentioned that some people on eBay dont know what they are selling so they either donot write their description appropriately or misspell the item names. For example a "Digital Camera" could be written as a "Digtl Camra" and PS3 might be mentioned as a Huge heavy box [:p] by an illiterate person! So the best way to get cheap deals is to search for misspelled items on eBay using the websites which help you do that. because the number of people who would reach the "NINTEND We" will be a lot lesser than "Nintendo Wii" because everybody is looking for a nintendo Wii but not a Nintend We. I have been using this technique for a couple of weeks now and have successfully found some nice inactive items on eBay for a DS and iPod.

"Think like a person who doesn't know anything about the item you are looking for and describe your item in his words and you might get what you want."

I have been addicted to eBaying and have been searching many techniques/methods of getting deals for cheap on eBay. I also sold some items I got in Garage sales for something more than what I paid for and earned some money to buy something which I want.

 

I just like to share what I learn so I write it in blogs. Hope this helps you guys.

Thanks for reading.

Recently what I did are..

Enjoyed awesome movies in theater like Iron Man, Indiana Jones crystal skull, Incredible Hulk


Watched some other movies like Spiderwick chronicles, chronicles of Riddick, Pitch Black, and many others


Went to watch the shakespear play THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III at Forrest park with firends.


Went to the beautiful Meramec Caverns with friends.


Started to workout in the gym to increase my flexibility.

Bought and started using the X10 wireless Video and Audio + VGA transmitter and reciever for just $49.99. It works awesome. I have so many applications for it. I can use wireless Video transfer , wireless audio transfer, wireless webcam if I buy the small cam with the composite out connections.


I was looking for a VGA to TV scan conversion box and found this for an aweosme price on x10.com and bought it immediately.


Soon I will be posting a video about what all we can do using this cooool amazing device. on my youtube profile. Check it out