In Case Your Business Partner Harasses You, What Would You Do?

You and your friend have started a business together. After some point in time, he wanted to separate out. Eventhough, you don't like it, but, you agreed to separate out. When the process of separation is going on, your partner has started harassing you and your family. He started destroying your wealth.

The separation is not completely over, and you are holding more than your share of the business. The extra share of the business is less than the damage that caused to you by your partner, either directly or indirectly. In more technical terms, if your partner had not destroyed your wealth, then you would have saved much more than the extra share of the business that you are holding.

Now, would you return his share of the business, when he is harassing you and your family, and still continuing the destruction of your assets?

I am sure many people will not return his share of business. Few kind hearted people may return after everything is settled, and only after he stopped the harassment and fighting.

If a person who calls himself as a well wisher of both the parties advise you to return money, would you really call that person as a well wisher. If he threatens you to return the money, still do you call him as a well wisher? Let's suppose, if you call him as a well wisher, do you think your family (who is suffering everyday) will also call him as a well wisher? If you decide to return the money to your partner after listening to your well wisher, how does your family feel?

Disclaimer: This post is completely fiction, and resemblance to any actual incidents is purely coincidence. If there is any resemblance to any actual incident, and if anybody posts that as a comment, that comment would be deleted immediately.

Google - Best to Worst

At one point of time, Google was the best in everything, and there was no feature that could have been developed in a better way. I don't know, what happened in the recent time (don't know whether the changes in the top management effected this or not), Everything is becoming worse, and one had to continue with google, since there is no other competitor for most of the things.

Gmail - The new interface is very bad. I don't know who is the new program manager for Gmail. It seems, he/she gets one or two mails per day. That's why, he/she might have designed that way. The old program manager designed gmail for heavy load. They might have fired him/her to save the cost.

Google Reader - All comments of gmail are applicable to reader as well. They removed sharing feature to promote plus. So, those who read others' shares have to visit plus to read. Even then, it won't share the entire post. It would share only the first few lines, and the user has to visit the original site to read it.

Blogger - Initially, they made the interface worse for the advanced users. Now, they changed it to make it usable for advanced users also. Still, In the new interface, they have given more preference to icons rather than text. If I see New Post and the corresponding icon, I always would act faster for the text rather than the icon. [Don't know, whether some doctor would call this as a disease or not.]

Buzz - I don't know what made them to kill Buzz. But, it was the most simple interface, and only because of that, visitors to my blog has increased by many times.

I am still using the old interfaces for gmail and blogger. I could not find any way to use the old interface for google reader.

Security - Previously, Google has given the maximum preference to the security of the user's accounts. Now, it seems, they are least bothered about it.

Android OS - (Tested with Samsung Galaxy i5510). When you login to the gmail account from mobile, it stores the password. One cannot sign out, and removal of the password is also not possible. One has to do restore to factory settings to actually remove it. User can login to a dummy account, and from there, they can add another account, by which they can login to gmail and others. When they are done, they can remove that account. But, the problem is, till, you remove that account, it stores the password. If you lose the phone, when the account was added, they would get the access to the entire account. One has to change the password in that case. Or one has to enter the password, everytime, they want to access their account, and remove the account, once they are done. It is too tedious for anyone who worries about security.

There was one old gmail app from google, which works in Nokia, that does not store the password. It stores only the cookie. So, the user can access the gmail account at any time without entering the password. Since, it stores only cookie, we can remotely sign-off, in case we lose the phone. But, I cannot find that app now.

Another worst thing is, once you change the password, you cannot reuse the old password.

Google App Engine:

To upload any application in google app engine, you cannot use a browser. You have to upload it from command prompt/eclipse or other tool. When you use command prompt, while uploading, it asks for the username and password of the gmail account. Once you enter the username/password, anyone from that system/login can update the same application without entering the password again. It stores the cookie in the system and google never says where the cookie is stored. The cookie would expire after the time period that is set in the settings of the google app engine. The time period varies from 1 day to 2 weeks.

In windows, it stores the cookie and email id in Registry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> JavaSoft -> Prefs -> com -> google -> appengine -> tools -> admin

In Linux, it stores in ~/.java/.userPrefs/com/google/appengine/tools/admin/prefs.xml file.

If we delete those, then while updating the application, it asks for username and password again.

Credit Card details:

If you are having paid version of any service from gmail, then to renew it, you have to store the credit card, or should be ready to bring down your service for some time.

Any service provider would give option to renew their service before the due date. But, google does not give that option. You have to store your credit card details in the account, and on that specific date/time, it would charge your credit card. If your credit card does not work on that date for any reason, your service would be disrupted. If you do not want to store the credit card at all, then one day before, you have to cancel the service, and immediately take the service. But, during that process, the service may be disrupted.

Google says the data they store is secure. But, they made everything else as very insecure. For those who do not know how the google authentication/security works, if they login to google account from android mobile, or login to app engine or give their credit card details in a shared gmail account, then there is no security to their account/credit card.

Since Google is indispensable, and there is nobody in the competition, we have to live with these. There is no other option.

Thanks to Michael and Rajesh Tiruveedula

Way To Protest

The present day politicians have defined the protest as troubling the people and not allowing anyone to do their work. They defined it in such a way that, anything that does not trouble others is not a protest at all. Unfortunately, people also started believing the same.

Recently, I came to know a different way of protesting.

Some time back, the Gopuram of Sri Kalahasthi collapsed, and after that, Government has started a committee to check all the temples and the strength of the structures. The committee has given a report on many ancient temples. For the Gali Gopuram in Mangalagiri, which is the tallest Gopuram in A.P., the committee has given report that, the foundation is not very strong. Then, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh has sanctioned a bill to demolish the Gali Gopuram and construct a new gopuram in the same place and granted Rs.10.5 crore.

This was objected by many people at Mangalagiri. The Gali Gopuram is popular, mainly because it is an ancient structure. If they are going to demolish it, there is no need to create that Gopuram again. But, if the Gopuram can be protected by any means, then it must do that. The social organizations have consulted few Professors of Civil Engineering to check the feasibility. They suggested few measures by which the Gopuram can be protected with an expenditure of Rs.1 Crore. But, the Government has sanctioned Rs.10.5 Crore to demolish and construct a new Gopuram of the same size. Of course, the amount is no way enough to construct the same.

The social organization in Mangalagiri wanted to protest the government on this. They have conducted drawing competitions to all the students in Mangalagiri in front of the Gali Gopuram. Since, it is also a main area in the town, it attracted lot of crowd, and almost everybody came to know about this issue. The organizers have also conducted signature campaign for this. By the awareness of this in the public and their support, the government came down and withdrew the demolition of the Gopuram.

People must encourage positive ways of protests and strongly oppose negative protests. If we are not going to discourage the negative protests, then it would trouble us only. If we encourage positive protests, it would help us solving our problems easily.

Thanks to Aasara organization and Madiraju Govaradhana Rao for fighting to save Gali Gopuram of Mangalagiri.

Having Bad Time in Buying Books

It seems, I am having bad time in buying books. After not buying anything in the books exhibition outside ISKCON store, now, I could not buy even ISKCON books.

ISKCON has published the Bhagavatham in 18 volumes in different languages long back. But, in Telugu, they have taken a lot of time to publish. Starting from 5th volume till 12th volume, I bought the Telugu Bhagavatham books as and when they were published. Recently, I came to know that, they have published all the volumes in Telugu. When I asked for the last 6 volumes, they said, they would sell only the entire set and not individual books. I said, I would buy the entire set, and would sell the first 12 volumes back to them, and asked how much would they willing to pay me. But, they rejected that, and said, they won't buy back, because, they already had enough of the first 12 volumes. I did not want to spend three times money, and have written to the Head office in Mumbai, and they said, they would take around 2 months to publish those books separately.

By using the astrology chart and the present planetary periods, the astrologers say, during a particular period, whether one gets money or loses money etc. Probably, in my present planetary period, the planets are against me buying books.

Definition of Pure Vegetarian

Almost 15 years back, one famous telugu hero released a spiritual movie which was a big hit then. After that, in an interview, he said, he was a pure vegetarian. In the same interview, when he was asked what was his favorite food item, he answered Chicken.

One person that I know, boasts as, everyone in their family are big devotees of Lord Krishna and everyone of them are pure vegetarians. As another statement, I was told by the same person that, their son was not feeling well and he could not eat eggs.

One of my friends is from a caste, in which people do not eat non-veg. He never utters the word meat, non-veg etc. When he wanted to refer non-veg, he says something like, "The one that you eat" (Eventhough, I don't eat non-veg). He eats eggs, and he argues with me that, eggs are vegetarian, and he is a pure vegetarian.

Another person whom I know, eats non-veg, but does not eat on tuesday, friday and saturday. That person says, they are better vegetarians than me. The reason that I was given was, they use different utensils for veg and non-veg. So, on those days, they avoid non-veg completely. Since, I eat in hotels, it is possible that, they might have used the same utensils for non-veg also. So, they are better vegetarians than me.

Many people claimed that, I am not a devotee. After accepting that, now the people who eat non-veg claim that, they are better vegetarians than me.

One must watch video for non-vegetarians. (Vegetarians, please forward it without watching.)



Courtesy of the Video: Rajesh Tiruveedula