OZ

Set up a VOIP and save Money

Now Communication is getting swifter but costs seemed to reached a saturation point and don’t seem to get lower for a long time now. I have seen my friends here burning money on ISD calls and Calling Cards when they could get an eqully good service at cheaper rates. Of course ISD is the most quickest one at our disposal, but rarely comes such immidiate needs.

The simplest one that you could get are the SKYPE mobiles. Most of the networks around the world support 3G which means good transfer rates - bettter voice clarity. Then go ahead and install the skype in your mobile. Every 3G supported mobile will support the java based skype application. The only cost will be the internet usage charges. If 3G is not yet at your country or if it is way to expensive there are other ways. There are service providers like Vonage and Lingo which are the leaders in Home Based solutions for VOIP in Australia the providers  are

Pacnet
Voip Choice
IINet
MyNetFone
Primus

They also come as a replacement to Fixed Line home phone. If you are making only local calls then it might not be of much use if not then they save a huge amount of money. And you wont have to pay multiple bills for you phone and Internet. The set-up is real easy takes just a few minutes. The set up can vary depending on the service you want and you can do several hacks and tweaks with a PC connected. I’ll explain about that in my later blogs.

Tags: voip
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What To Carry What Not Carry -To Australia

I have listed he items you might ‘not want to’ and ‘might want to’ miss while packing for Australia depends on the weather. I’ve mentioned the hand luggage separately.

Most of the Items listed here are usually cheaper in other countries. But if your place has got a very good exchange rate in comparison with AUD then don’t bother bringing them from your country.

What not Carry :

• Food Items
• Drinks
• Medicines (Have a prescription If you carry any).
• Dirty Shoes or any possibly contaminated Stuff.
• Wooden articles (They are checked for in customs, but usually seen and allowed).
• Cash > 2000$

What To Carry :

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Backpacker’s Destination

Finding a cheap temporary place to stay at Melbourne could be a bit troublesome. The Rates of hotel’s are zooming on. A backpacker would be an ideal place to stay, If you are on a world tour in a group then it is the best place to stay. I wouldn’t advice it for exclusive couple or family tour but for everything else it’s great. There are several backpackers around the city. I did stay in a couple of those before shifting to a permanent place.

Ritz backpacker

I found Ritz Backpacker the best of the ones I stayed in. It has quite a cheap rate of about 140$ a week, wherein you get a lot out of it. The breakfast for instance is free every morning you get fresh pancakes in the kitchen, thats one thing that’s worth waking up in the morning. There something happening every night like face painting, movies, some trips around the city etc., Also its a little off the city and very close to the beach that makes it an ideal summer choice. One downside is that there is a bar down, on Friday and Saturday nights the music goes on till about 3a.m and getting sleep would be pretty tough, but if you are a party animal thats a plus.

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Tags: backpackers, tourism
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Skype “The whole world can talk for 29$”

I got the new Skype mobile that Rolled out few months back. I was planning to change my connection from Vodaphone to 3 since most of the students in Melbourne have it and you get that 3 to 3 bonus call time. It was my friend that Takanobu Nakamuru( not a relative of Hiro! ) who got me into the idea of getting one.Now i could talk to my parents and friends at low cost and most importantly they can disturb me anytime. It is a good buy for the 29$ pack wherein i don’t have to pay extra for 4000min of skype credit. I could also hold on to the same number that i had with Vodaphone connection. I don’t quite find this mobile flexible tried a few java apps and it did not work. Also at random times I’d lose the skype connection and it never comes back on for hours. Other than that the voice clarity is pretty ok which is expected considering it to be on the 3G network.

..

Skype voice chat usually consumes about 10-15 KB/s for a clear conversation and the 3G n/w provides about 2Mbit/s thats like about 256 KB/s(decreases on the roll). So the connection should be fine but Its not all the time during the night the conversation breaks possibly because of the low through-output. Guess every one in the city chats at night. Hope they integrate a low resolution video feature into it then it would become feature rich. If you have a java mobile then download the jar file from here. It would also work on most of the other platforms, but you should have a 3G network-browsing enabled (Might work on 2.5G but voice clarity would be poor).  A cheaper option would be to get the 19$ pack and subscribe to Skype + 5$ for the 4000min. Hopefully Skype rolls out more varients of Skype-exclusive mobile with more features.

Tags: 3, mobile, Skype
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How To Pick-lock

I am a bit of an absent-minded guy, I tend to forgot some basic resources at crucial times. Like today, I locked my self out of my room. I had a packed schedule - 2 lectures, one lab and a career fair that i wanted to attend. All the required resources for those tasks were locked in the room with the key. It was turning into ‘one of those days’. I had two options call my land lord and ask for a spare key for which he charges 30$(OMG!! for a key) or Pick-lock for which i had no expertise. My next door house-mate had been in a similar situation wherein he kicked open the door and it cost him more than he expected 50$. So i decided to pick-lock and eureka!, to my surprise i did it in about 10 min. This is what you’ll need to do if you end up in the same situation.

• You’ll need two paper clips or some flexible metal for the job.

• Open the two clips make them kind of flat, so the edges don’t pop out too much.

• Fold one of the clip(1) in two and bend the edge so it’s “L” shaped. the point is it should work like a tong so you can insert it and rotate it easily.

• Let the second clip(2) be flat for now.

• Now inset the clip(1) into the lock’s hole(towards the place where the flat end of the key goes in). Make sure you touch the end with the clip and you get a bit of a leverage to rotate it. It would bend a bit if you try to turn but try giving a bit pressure and rotate if it opens then you door is not locked and you can stop reading this article, if not then go on.

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Tags: key, lock, pick lock
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Cost - Variance in Different Countries

August 3rd, 2008

The prices of every product varies in every country. I decided to do a small analysis on this. It’s based on the pay an average graduate gets to the percentage of salary he spends on regular merchandise like daily or monthly supplies. I also included the price of a sedan vehicle just give a picture of how the variance is between countries. I decided to go with three countries India, U.S and Australia.

The Pay an average graduate gets in India per month - 20,000 Rs.
The Pay an average graduate gets in U.S per month - 3750 USD.
The Pay an average graduate gets in Australia per month - 3826 AUD.

I call this the Earn-n-Spend table

ESP(Earn Spend Percentile) = (Cost/Salary)*10000

The ESP will give the percentage of earnings an average per month graduate will have to spend on the listed commodities below. One can multiply the rate with quantity required in a month to find the total amount he will be spending on that item for the month. The lower the ESP the better. The rates might differ from what i have mentioned but not much(If there is a large variance let me know). All are approximate values and may change.

	Australia		America		India		Winner
Commodity	AUD	ESP	USD	ESP	RS	ESP
loaf of bread	3	7.84	1	2.67	10	5	America
Rice 1kg	1.6	4.18	4	10.67	20	10	Australia
Pasta 500g	2	5.23	2	5.33	40	20	Australia
Sausages	5	13.07	4.55	12.13	200	100	America
apple	5	13.07	2.5	6.67	50	25	America
Instant noodles	0.7	1.83	0.5	1.33	7	3.5	America
Potato 1kg	2	5.23	2	5.33	15	7.5	America
500g minced beef	8	20.91	3	8	40	20	America
tin of tuna	1	2.61	1	2.67	150	75	Australia
12 eggs	3	7.84	2	5.33	24	12	America
1 kg bananas	2	5.23	1.5	4	25	12.5	America
1 litre of milk	1.75	4.57	1.49	3.97	7	3.5	India
1 packet biscuits	2	5.23	1	2.67	10	5	America
1 litre orange juice	1.3	3.4	1	2.67	40	20	America
Coffee	4	10.45	3	8	8	4	India
cinema ticket	12	31.36	10	26.67	50	25	India
bowling	12	31.36	8	21.33	120	60	America
nightclub entrance	10	26.14	10	26.67	500	250	Australia
pint of beer (570 ml)	7	18.3	3	8	75	37.5	America
A decent hamburger	6	15.68	2	5.33	75	37.5	America
can of Coke	2	5.23	1	2.67	20	10	America
haircut (men)	17	44.43	14	37.33	50	25	India
haircut (women)	40	104.55	40	106.67	200	100	India
shoes	50	130.68	40	106.67	500	250	America
tights	20	52.27	15	40	100	50	America
jeans	60	156.82	50	133.33	700	350	America
sweater	50	130.68	40	106.67	400	200	America
T shirt	12	31.36	10	26.67	100	50	America
Chicken(whole)	3.75	9.8	1.75	4.67	100	50	America
transport/month	100	261.37	110	293.33	200	100	India
Car	30000	78410.87	30000	80000	100,0000	500000	Australia

Seems like U.S is a cheaper place for a graduate to live. And people say U.S is expensive. I think Australia is more expensive. Ofcourse there is a money conversion between them but I only did the table for graduates living in those specific countries and earning there.

Tags: america, Australia, cost comparison, Groceries price, india, usa
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Organizational Battle Ubuntu vs Gentoo vs RHEL & Fedora

July 29th, 2008

Part 3                                                                                                                        (Read from Part-1)



Red hat Enterprise & Fedora :

Red Hat was created by Marc Ewing in 1994 , he then partnered with Bob Young to form the Red Hat Software. The Red Hat has received several security certifications that make quite popular among the govt. Organizations.

Red Hat Enterprise Edition is Priced It has Web and Phone Support.

Red Hat has an Open Source version named Fedora , it’s community supported.

Red hat– Red Hat ’simple guess ‘, Fedora– A soft felt hat with a crown creased lengthwise

Security :

Red Hat Enterprise Edition has received The Labeled Security Protection Profile(LSPP) and Role Based Access Control Protection making it one one the most demanding secure versions of Linux out there ,but at a cost.They research and implement several Security Tools. Red hat encloses SELinux by default as discussed earlier it is highly efficient but time consuming to set on apps but mostly it comes pre-configured along with the apps in Red Hat Enterprise. Fedora Also embeds some of the security packages that are available in Red Hat like , Exec-Shield which aids in preventing worm or automated remote attacks also Compile Time Buffer Checks(Fortify_Source) are done with it to prevent any abuse of existing source code available online which could be modified , (Executable and Linkable Format) Data Hardening,Restricted Kernel Memory Access which restricts as to of how the kernel memory is overwritten.

Red Hat Security : 4.7/5

Fedora Security Rating :4.2

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Tags: Fedora, Gentoo, linux, OS comparison, Red Hat, Ubuntu
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Organizational Battle Ubuntu vs Gentoo vs RHEL & Fedora

July 28th, 2008

Part 2                                                                                                                        (Read From Part -1)



Gentoo (A type of penguin) :

Gentoo , this is the fastest swimming penguin. This distro is popular for the tweaks you can perform on it making it the most customizable of all. It is maintained by Gentoo Foundation. It was created by Daniel Robbins. Designed for adaptability and performance utilizing minimal system resources. Version 1.0 was released March 31^st 2002. Latest Version is 2008.0 Code-named “It’s got what plants crave “ released on July 6 2008.

Technology & Support :

Gentoo provides a wider implementation than Ubuntu on several type of systems. It is supported on several variants , these include - alpha, amd64, hppa (hppa 1.1, hppa 2.0), ppc (G4, G5, power3, power4, power5, ppc, ppc64), SPARC (sparc32, sparc64) x86 (x86, i686). This make it a perfect choice where in different variants of system implementation. The drivers support as of now has had considerable improvement. Linux 2.6.24 kernel specific hardware drivers have been added. The forums and irc also provide excellent support. However it lacks the Official Support which is a downside form an organizational view. The hits in www.distrowatch.com is 510 as on 28-07-08.

Technology Rating : 4.5/5

Support Rating : 3/5

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Tags: Fedora, Gentoo, linux, Red Hat, Ubuntu
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Organizational Battle Ubuntu vs Gentoo vs RHEL & Fedora

July 27th, 2008

Comparison The Following Three O.S in an Organizational view.

Ubuntu

Red Hat Enterprise & Fedora

Gentoo

Linus Trovalds in 1991 had written a Unix-like kernel. It was at that stage of not much use with very few utilities and s/w that came along with it , and was labeled Linux. Free Software Foundation (Richard M. Stallman, founder (started 1985)and president of the FSF) had developed several tools and applications(Under the GNU Project) by this time and was embedded into Linux. From there on to now it has attained great levels of stability ,security and portability.

Requirements Of a Corporate Organization : (priority wise ordinated)

1. Security

2. Technology

3. Performance and Reliability

4. Investment and Management

5. Installation And Troubleshooting

6. Backup and Recovery

Ubuntu “humanity to others” :



Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro. It was created by Marc Shuttleworth and sponsored by Canonical Ltd. It at present as of today Its average hits per day for the past 12 months is 2305 and in the past month as of today is 1989 - quoted from www.distrowatch.com as on 26-07-08.

There are several variants which include

Ubuntu (Desktop & Server Edition) – Gnome desktop

Kubuntu- KDE Desktop

Xubuntu , Gobuntu , Edubuntu , MID edition.

Technology & Support :

Ubuntu is primarily a Debian based OS ire it was built on the foundations of the Debian OS. It is maintained by Canonical Ltd. And is contributed by developers all over the world. It has regular patches and updates with a complete distro update of every 6 months. Even though it has a few driver issues it beats the rest in this criteria as the updates are more often and support for the new hardwares are given quicker than the other distros. Ubuntu Supports only i386 and amd 64 which is quite a downside. The Supported the Servers for few of the SUN Microsystems and System 76 has been certified by Canonical , it also is compatible with several Hp Dell and IBM. Canonical provides technical support for a nominal rate.

Technology Rating : 3/5

Support Rating : 3/5

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Tags: Distros comparison, Fedora, Gentoo, linux, Red Hat, Ubuntu
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Once upon a time in Australia

July 22nd, 2008

When I first stepped into my university for registration i was awe-struck with the Asian people surrounding me. It was like as if i was in China ( The place where i`d love to live might sound strange but i`ve got my reasons). I did find a few Indians too but i was under the impression i was gonna be surrounded by Germans Americans and Aussies . I learnt soon that The Asians were fourth generation here . There`s even a place called china-town here guess thats there in poplar city. I knew that it was mostly European settler here Thats the reason for my surprise.

I asked a few of the as to how they got here. And found that most of them got in as refugee from Vietnam during the war. They have interesting stories . Struggled a lot to get wherever they where now. The Person who designed The entire Monash Network Dr. Lee was a victim of the above war got in as a refugee . he had do do his degree all over again as the previous one was told invalid. From there on to one of the finest Network Engineers the world has ever seen.

I googled around a bit and found the following statistics , pretty old stats though . According to the census data collected Aug. 7, 2001, there are 19,485,300 people living in Australia. Of the 22% of the population born overseas, 11.2% were born in Europe, while 5.2% were born in Asia. Census data also revealed that Italian is the most popular language other than English spoken at home, followed by Greek, Cantonese, Arabic and Vietnamese. There are a few Italians living around my place . Gotta say some of the sweetest people you would find .

In keeping with Australia’s policy of multiculturalism, census data showed that Australians identified over 200 different ancestries.
Almost 36% of the population said they had Australian ancestry, while 33.9% nominated English. The next most popular ancestries were Irish (10.2%), Italian (4.3%), German (4%), Chinese (3%), Scottish (2.9%) and Greek (2%).Indians have very low ancestry But you would find many students all around the city. Most of the people doing masters in IT or MBA and IT related would be Indians or Asian. Other Courses Like Physiology , Physcology media etc you would find Australians Dutch British . People identifying themselves as Indigenous Australians, either Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders, increased 16% from the 1996 census to about 410,000. Indigenous Australians now account for 2.2% of the overall population.

Despite all the races people seem to mingle around better not sticking to a particular flock.Guess the World will soon become a better place . I wonder if any other country or city has such a wide cultural variation. Hope i get to travel around the world to see em all , like the European tourists here most of them are in a world tour.Dint find much of American tourists though i thought mostly its the Americans who travel around the world.

Tags: Australia
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