The Oath of the Vayuputras (Shiva Trilogy #3)

Oath of The Vayuputras Image

Oath of The Vayuputras

‘Ooath of the Vayuputras’ was a different book from the first two parts of the trilogy. This book has less of an action but more of discussions about good and evil. The author has done quite good historical research as well to link the Jorastrians with ancient Indian culture. I must say that the one thing which disappointed me is the way the plot took the turn from part two. Till part two the author was able to bind the readers and keep the interest. The reader was curious as to what will be happening next and what is the “Ooath of the Vayuputras”, but the author has not been able to bind the readers in this book. I found mysefl skipping the discussion about Good and Evil and at several other places.

There is a growing number of next gen Indian Authors coming up with plots based on the ancient Indian historical backgrounds mixed with latest researches, with one thing in common – they all are getting carried away in philosopy and sprituality.

In this book, if the author would have kept this novel purely as an action novel with some battle strategies etc then it would have been great end to a wonderful start. Neverthless I am giving it three stars as this is the first work by the author and writing a trilogy in the first work is an achievement in itself. I am sure the next books will follow the continual improvement.

All the best Amish.

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Nokia Asha 310 – Sync Contacts With Google Contacts using SyncML

Nokia Asha 310 Image

Nokia Asha 310

Today I swapped my aging 4 year old Nokia 5800 Xpress Music with Nokia Asha 310 (Dual SIM with WiFI) from a local mobile store. The phone after the swap cost me Rs 3600/-.

From last more than 8 months or so Android is my primary phone and prior to that for close to two year it was Blackberry. Along with these two devices I was using Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and another Nokia 500 for my second phone.

The primary requirement I had was to ensure that I find some way of syncing contacts with google contacts as my android is configured to do so. This provides me a backup of all my contacts at google and will ensure that I can enter/edit my contacts at one devices and they will be available everywhere. Also google provides ability  to recover contacts (upto a certain amount of time) in case they are accidently deleted.

In order to sync contacts I used SyncML. Support for which is enabled by google from quite some time.

In order to configure Nokia Asha 310 to sync with google contacts, follow the following steps. We need to start with creating a personal configuration option first –

  • settings -> configuration -> personal configuration -> add new
    • Specify the account name. Anything will work here as it is just an identifier text entry, in case you are syncing from  multiple sources. My account name is “Gmail Contacts”.
    • server address should be https://m.google.com/syncml
    • username must be your username including the domain name (e.g something@gmail.com). If you are using google apps then you should use that domain instead of gmail.com.
    • password must be your password. You will be asked to enter it twice for verification.
    • contacts database -> database address is the one which is important for us as we will be syncing with it. For Gmail (and Google Apps) you should specify ‘contacts’ here. There is no need to specify username and password again here.
    • calendar database -> database address should have the value of ‘calendar’. In case you do not want to sync calendar you can leave it blank.
    • notes database -> database address should have the value of ‘notes’. In case you do not want to sync notes you can leave it blank.
    • use pref. acc. point – Set this to either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. In case you set it to ‘No’ the you need to setup the access point values. I have set it to ‘Yes’, so that whatever my preferred access point at the time of sync is, will be used.

NOTE Database names is a place where SyncML protocol lacks standardisation as different providers use different names, so you must know the database name in case you have a different provider.

Next the sync settings can be configured as below –

  • Settings -> sync & backup -> sync with server -> sync settings
    • synchronised data – select the databaes which needs to be synced here. I have all three databases viz. contacts, calendar and notes selected
    • sync settings – Since this is a dual SIM phone, you will have to select either SIM1 or SIM2 and the select the configuration profile which you created above viz. ‘Gmail Contacts’.
    • automatic sync – This can be set to daily, weekly, monthly or off modes. In case you set it to off then you need to initiate sync manually when you wish to sync the databases.
    • rules for incoming – There are three possible values – Always allow, Always reject, Confirm first. The meanings are obvious. The first will always allow the incoming data and sync it, the second will always reject incoming data (in this case changes on your phone will be sent, but changes from google server will not be received) and confirm first will prompt for appropriate action each time. My setting is ‘Always allow’
  • Settings -> sync & backup -> sync with server -> sync now can be used to initiate the manual sync.

Hope this post will help interested folks.

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The Visible OPS Handbook

ITIL is a “collection of bThe Visible Ops Handbook Imageest practices codified in seven books by the Office of Government Commerce in the U.K.”

Visible Ops is a collection of best practices organized into four incremental steps.

Phase 1 – The primary goal is stabilizing the current infrastructure. In order to do this first the identification of the most critical IT systems is to be performed, followed by restricting the change access to these systems and ensuring that each change to these systems is viewed as potentially most impacting. This will also involve creating Change Advisory Boards and a Change Request Tracking System. The ultimate goal is to do more proactive work and reduce the Mean Time To Recover (MTTR). At the end of this phase there is a general increase in the confidence level in the IT systems.

Phase 2 – During phase 2 the focus is on identifying the most critical IT components (s/w & h/w), interdependencies between them and then prioritizing the most critical services.

Phase 3 – Release engineering as an essential component and a standard and quick deployment process is being looked at in this stage. Essentially the most experienced team members needs to be pulled out and their focus and attention diverted to the release engineering tasks and the relatively inexperienced people left in for firefighting.

Phase 4 – The final phase is the Continual Improvement. Here the goals are to improve the change success rate and increase the effective rate of change followed by continuous monitoring to measure any potential slip in performance.

If you just want a gist of ITIL, this is the book you want to go for. Based on the 4 steps provided in the book, it will become a lot easier for implementing ITIL in an organization.

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Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark

Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark ImageThe book started with the murder of a rich old man and the brutal rape of his young wife. The police investigations reached no where and then the young wife, one of the victims, vanished. Thus forcing LAPD to close down the case and forcing the detective to resign.

All was seemingly set when the detective, now married and settled in france as an interpol investigator got a call about the murder.

And then there were a series of similar murders unearthed.

After some pages we could guess who the killers are, but still the book keeps you glued because the intention behind these murders is not yet clear. And to be honest, towards the end of the book it was feeling like the book can logically end at three or four different places, but still it continues and the real mystery unfolds in just the last two pages.

Quite an interesting plot, a good read.

I havn’t read my Sidney Sheldon’s books to claim if it was matching with his style, but worth the time spent.

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If Tomorrow Comes

If Tomorrow Comes ImageThis book is about a young girl – Tracy Whitney, who works for a renowned bank as a computer operator. Tracy’s life was looking all set and she was about to marry a wealthy guy until one fine morning when she receives the news of her mother committing suicide. And the next thing which happened was that she finds herself in prison framed by a mafia don.

Tracy’s life turned upside down when her fiance refused to come to her rescue to protect family name and then she was sexually assaulted by fellow inmates. All these experiences strengthen Tracy’s determination to avenge herself on those who destroyed her life. In the prison a whole lot of drama unfolds when she was trying to escape but she managed to secure a pardon from governor after saving the warden’s daughter from drowning.

Once outside the prison Tracy eliminated her enemies quickly and then was unable to secure a job because of her prison background. This forced Tracy to get into a different world and she became a Con. There she was very successful but was continuously challenged by another Con called Jeff Stevens. During all her adventures as a Con, Tracy was continuously followed by an evil genius investigator Daniel Cooper.

Towards the end both Tracy and Jeff fall into love and decided to Mary and retire until Tracy met…… (Read the book to find out what happened)

When I started this book I was under the impression that the entire book will cover Tracy’s adventure in trying to avenge herself, but that was quickly over in few chapters the moment Tracy was released out of the prison. The rest of the book consists of Tracy’s life as a Con where she dupes the rich and ruthless of their prized possessions.

This is another page turner by Sidney Sheldon and the continuous flow of Tracy’s adventures doesn’t let you stop.

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