Woh!. When I checked the device, I could see the codes of the various items being instantaneously downloaded from their server. The user would just have to select the product code with the quantity. Cool hah! I was very happy to note that not only does it save paper, but also reduces delivery time bringing better efficiency. Moreover the best part of it was to see that technology is now being getting spread to the masses. It is just a matter of time, when electronic gadgets will fill up the masses and people will be using those technologies.

8JCJZXPBM5VG

1. K.Parthasarathy
2. Sudhir P.
3. Puskar Paranjpe
4. Myself

Date: 12th – 14th February, 2010

Iruppu or Irpu Falls lies on the Karnataka side of Brahmagiri. According to legend, when Rama and Lakshmana were searching for Sita, they became thirsty. Lakshmana shot an arrow into the Brahmagiri from which the river sprang. The falls is also known as the Lakshmana Tirtha Falls, derived from the name of the tributary of Cauvery which starts from these falls, the Lakshmana Tirtha River. The Rameshwara Temple is situated on the banks of the Lakshmana Tirtha River, en route to the Falls. This temple attracts a large number of pilgrims during the festival of Shivaratri.

Brahmagiri is a mountain range in the Western Ghats of South India, situated on the border between Wayanad district of Kerala state on the south and Kodagu district in Karnataka on the north. Brahmagiri Hill, at 1608 m height, is a scenic place with lot’s of Shola’s and lot of wildlife.

Route Information:

Irupu is situated at 48km from Virajpet and around 260km from Bangalore. One needs to take a bus to Gonikopal from Bangalore and from there catch a bus to the falls. Once after reaching there, you would find the Rameshwara Temple at the base of it. You need to take a walk for about 3 kms from the temple base to the falls. The best time would be during the monsoon season when the falls would be filled with water, but however during our visit on the 2nd week of February , water was still in abundant.

A forest trail leads from the Irupu falls leads to the Brahmagiri Peak in Southern Kodagu. You need to take permission from the Forest Officials for enduring the trek. Moreover the important thing is that you need to carry your own food in case you are planning to stay at the forest guest house at night. You need to feed yourselves as well as your guide. Water is in abundance and you can have pure mineral water from the streams. It is around 10 kms from the falls to Brahmagiri. It is quiet a pleasant walk through the valley except near the peak where the steep is somewhat more. You will find lots of elephant dungs and in case you are lucky could spot one also. We were able to spot one Sambhar and tiger footmarks, which was 2 days old.

RFO Srimangala Contact Details/Phone number:

a. Srinivas Naik (RFO) – 09481989970
b. Pramod (RFO Office Assistant) – 09448813835
c. Pavan (Forest Guide) – 09900328596

Travel Itinerary (3 days)

1.   23:32 hrs – Take a bus to Gonikoppalu from Mysore Satellite Bus stand
2.   04:45 hrs – Reach Gonikoppalu
3.   05:35 hrs – Catch First Bus to Srimangala
4.   06:15 hrs – Reach Srimangala
The RFO office opens at 08:30 hrs, so you need to kill time which means you can have breakfast etc.
5.   08:30 hrs – The RFO office opens
6.   08:50 hrs – Get all the necessary approvals
Entrance Fee to the Forest – Rs. 40/- per person, Trekking Fee – Rs 600/-
Night Halt – Rs 500/- for 1 person, Rs 100/- per extra, Guide Charge – Rs 300/-
7.   09:20 hrs – Catch bus to Irupu Falls
8.   09:45 hrs – Reached Irupu Falls Base, get hold of the forest guide
9.   10:00 hrs – Start of the trek to reach the Forest Rest House
10. 12:15 hrs – Reach the Forest Rest house
11. 13:05 hrs – Start towards Brahmagiri
12. 14:30 hrs – Reach the base of Brahmagiri
13. 14:50 hrs – Reach the summit
14. 15:15 hrs – Start descending from the peak
15. 16:48 hrs – Reach the rest house
You need to wash utensils, collect dry woods to prepare your food.
16. 18:30 hrs – Start cooking
17. 19:30 hrs – Dinner over
18. 20:45 hrs – Bed time
19. 06:30 hrs – Get up and shoot some morning photographs
20. 08:00 hrs – Start descending from the rest house
21. 09:05 hrs – Reach Irupu Falls
You can spend 40 mins in the falls
22. 10:05 hrs – Catch bus from Irupu to Gonikoppalu
23. 11:30 hrs – Reach Gonikoppalu/ Eat and Drink
24. 13.57 hrs – Catch KSRTC Airavat to Bangalore
25. 19:45 hrs – At Kempegowda Bus Stand (Majestic)

One liner:

1. Partha – Bhison Prokandu Hati !!
2. Puskar – Misti Khabe?

Courtesy:

a. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmagiri_(hill)
b. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irupu_Falls

http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_protocol.html

But, at last I was able to locate a cool script by the name youtube-dl from one bitbucket.org. youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from youtube. It requires the Python interpreter, version 2.x (x being at least 4), and is not platform specific. This works in Linux, Windows or in Mac OS X also. The latest version is 2010.01.19. It is freely available and one can go an modify it also.

You can download it from here.

Source: http://bitbucket.org/rg3/youtube-dl/wiki/Home

[wmv3 @ 0x8972330]Reserved RES_SM=2 is forbidden

So, you are left with nothing but using Windows and the Windows Media Player to play the video (easiest option). Else install Windows Media Player via wine for Linux (which did not work for me). The last option is to convert the video from that format to some other formats (.avi, .mpg) using mencoder.

MEncoder is a free command line video decoding, encoding and filtering tool released under the GNU General Public License. It is a close sibling to MPlayer and can convert all the formats that MPlayer understands into a variety of compressed and uncompressed formats using different codecs.

root@ophiophagus:~# mencoder file.wmv -ofps 23.976 -ovc lavc -oac copy -o file.avi

1. Abul Hasim
2. Myself

Date: 24th Janurary, 2010

The Big Banyan tree located in the village of Ramohalli, around 28 kilometers from the city. It was a single plant covering around 3 acres, but the main root cease to exist now. Locals say that it is at least 400 years old.

The Manchanabele Dam is further down another 9 kms from the place. The dam is built in the catchment area where the rivers Arkavathy and Kumudvathy meet. The place is all surrounded by rocky hills. You can have a leisurely walk on the cris-cross country road. You can have a dip in the waters also, which seems tempting.

Route Information:

Take the Bangalore Mysore highway. After Kengeri take the right after Rajarajeshwari Dental College and Hospital. You will come across the railway crossing. Follow the raod which will lead to the place. There is a direct bus also from K R Market, 227.

Further down from that place, you will find a circle. Take the left towards ISRO centre. You could find the huge antennas on the left. Move further down on the same road you will have a full view of the lake from the hill top (road) itself. It is almost 9 kilometers from the Big Banyan tree.

Images: http://ophiophagus.assamonnet.org/album/BBT_Manchanabele_Dam

1. Ashok Rao
2. Prem Chandra Gautam
3. H. S. Venkatramana
4. Abul Hasim
5. Myself

Date: 16th Janurary, 2010

Devanahalli Fort is located 35 kilometers north of Bangalore city, at Devanahalli in the State of Karnataka, India. It was originally built in 1501 by Mallabairegowda and later on passed on to Nanjarajaiah, Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan. The birth place of Tipu Sultan is also located near the fort.

Route Information:

The fort is spread over an area of 20 acres. The roughly oval east oriented fortification veneered with dressed masonry has as many as 12 semi-circular bastions at regular intervals. A spacious battlement is provided towards the inner side of the fortification. The fort has entrances decorated with cut plasterwork at the east and west. The entrance is quite small. The bastions are provided with gun points built with lime and brick. The best part of the fort was that it consisted of 3 layers making in invincible for it to break, and hence I assume that the fort walls are still intact.

Jain Temple:

The Jain Temple is around 3 kms from the fort. You can take the left road from the Devanahalli bus stand. While traveling, you will find the temple on your right.

Sai Temple:

Further towards Chikbalapur, some where around 5 kms from the Jain Temple is the Sai temple towards your right. You will find the meditation centre also there.

Images: http://ophiophagus.assamonnet.org/album/Fort_Devanahalli

Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanahalli_Fort

How to enable it?

Create a folder named with the name, `GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}`, without the quotes. Double click on it and this is what you get as below,

GodMode in Windows Vista

Reference: http://stadt-bremerhaven.de/windows-7-godmode/#more-11682

1. Anil Naik
2. Shrikant Gaikwad
3. Abul Hasim
4. Myself

Date: 25th Dec 2009

Karwar is the administrative headquarters of Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka, India. It is a seaside town situated on the banks of the Kali river which is on the west coast of the Indian peninsula. The town lies about 15 kilometres south of the Karnataka-Goa border and 519 km north-west of Bangalore.

Goa is India’s smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located on the west coast of India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its western coast.

Day 1:
A day at Karwar:

Karwar city was a small one. You could walk across the whole city on foot. The railway station is just 7 km from the main city Bus station. Road’s are clean and the best part was that, there were no traffic signals, Woh!

Rabindra Nath Tagore Beach, which lies on the by-pass to Goa, seems a lonely beach during the afternoon hours as we experienced. But as the sun was going down the horizon, crowds gather up to see the sunset. It was a great experience. The strong hitting of the waves against our body was a great feeling.

Day 2:
A day at Goa:

Beaches, Beaches and Beaches with bikini clad firangi’s, and Indian trying to match them.

Day 3:
A day at Devbagh beach resort, Karwar:

Devbagh resort is one of the few resorts from the forest departments of Karnataka. Actually it is just a few kilometers from Karwar city. You can either take a boat ride or a bus from Karwar itself. In case you are taking the boat ride you can see the Kali river meeting the Arabian sea. You can have a full/half day at the resort. Cottages/Tents are also available therein. You need to book the tickets in advance. The beach is some sort of a private beach wherein you are all on yourself. Water is crystal clear. You can actually find lot of small crabs all along the beach, though they are not at all dangerous. We had enjoyed very much. It is better not to venture out in the sea during the high tide.

After the visit from the resort, Shrikant and myself went to the INS Chappal, an Indian Navy Ship which is currently a museum at Karwar. We were able to see the machinery that runs an warship along with the ammunitions that it had carried while it was in commission, torpedo’s, gun’s and launcher’s. Proud of Indian Navy.

Day 4:
A day at Goa:

Beaches, Beaches and Beaches with bikini clad firangi’s and Indians trying to match them.

The good thing that I found was that, the beaches are being in constant vigilance by the Goa Tourism Department. Rescuers are positioned in many places with flags marking the area where swimming is to be carried out or not. This is being runned by the government through an organization named “Shristhi”. The rescuers are being well equipped with water proof walkie-talkies in order to communicate with each other and first aid kits. The only thing that the rescuers complained about was, that Indians would drink and swim in deep sea(some does not know how to swim), and would never follow the instructions specified, We Indians!. It is through their relentless efforts/vigilances of the guards like Anil, Madhav et all, that has made it possible for the Goa-n beaches to be safe and thereby reducing the number of mishaps that had occurred in the past. I salute them for their effort/service.

One liner: We should have control (Anil).

Lodging/Food at Karwar:

1. Hotel Navaratna Deluxe
2. Hotel Amrut

Last but not the least, a good place to visit with friends, eat and drink.

Goa Images: http://ophiophagus.assamonnet.org/album/Goa
Karwar Images: http://ophiophagus.assamonnet.org/album/Karwar
Devbagh Beach: http://ophiophagus.assamonnet.org/album/Devbagh_Resort

Prostitution is known to be the world’s oldest profession/trade. There has been issues raised for legalizing this profession but little minimum has been actually done to legalize it.

If prostitution were made legal what could we gain,

1. Reduce victimization of prostitutes as well as the criminal activities that are associated with it.
2. Control STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Disease) through regular checkups.
3. Get prostitutes off the street and put them in a better environment.
4. Put our cops in fighting crimes rather in this social elements.
5. Get young women away from drugs in in order to turn them into prostitutes.
6. Eliminate a significant source of income for organized crime.
7. Put this multi-million dollar business on the tax rolls, and earn some revenue.

Your inputs …