2013 - The Path traveled

Time for some blabbering here

Take a man to a deep forest or some highly isolated place. Leave him there as such for long. Slowly he will loose the sense of age, calendar and time. It isn't inherent or natural.We created so called time and calendar and calculating ages. We run behind it, curse or celebrate. For the universe, nature or whatever we call, the concept of time is infinite or non existent.

 Why this lecture now?

There is nothing special in a New year or so. Just YET ANOTHER DAY.

But still as a formal mark I just could not neglect looking back or forward a year.

Was trying to understand why I did not do this all years?
 Inference is  I usually keep looking back and repenting for my actions and planning and worrying about future day by day or even hour by hour.So never felt like recalling a year or planning , as so called making resolutions.

But this year was quite different.Did quite a few things and lost track ,  planned few failed or some unplanned events were cherishable.

இரண்டாயிரத்துப் பதிமூன்று - நான் கற்றதும் பெற்றதும்... My Path on 2013.

Friends:
Not much of change. My close circle has remains the same.

Social:
 Grew more open. Circle has widened I should say.

Family:
Good side is, I was able to communicate and be open to my parents on my views of life like never. First time I spoke out to them on something of my dreams., I usually dont communicate much with cousins. Esp female ones. Thanks to whatsapp it has totally changed. We stay connected.
Bad side, One of my aunt passed away.

Personal/Passion:
 2013 is a mark. Pretty emotional. I bought the camera on January 16th 2013 without even approval from parents. Later told them though. Almost one year. So much of learning and much more to go. This litle light capturing box inspired me to travel more.Did travel too.

Donated blood 3 times. (September, June, March)

Munnar trekking was an achievement in my scale. Read more here

Learnt to neutralize my view on people. Ongoing still. Less judging on them.Got some idea of what not to expect from people in general.A major overhaul in my thinking pattern about relationships.

Got in touch with few NGOs for some grass root work. Though not much of progress, kind of feels good to look back moving with younger unpreviledged ones.

Career:
Last quarter of the year proved to be the best.Undaunted working with interested project. My work being showcased at CES 2014.
Learnt some technical things personally too. Building my own android for my phone. Quite a deep learning curve. Feels good.

Studies:
This went down. MS in cyber physical systems hanging in air. Did not pursue after 2 papers.

Fitness:
Not upto mark. Bought cycle but could not ride regularly.
That concludes. It was mix of good and bad.

Overall I got lesson of life, people and more and more inspired to travel.

Moving onto 2014, not much. Will keep short. All related wishes. I never make it as resolution

1) Fall in shape. Probably am at m peak of my physical ability. Have to grow fit. Fit enough to trek and travel longer.
2) Learn swimming and one foreign language.Probably  should start cooking.
3) Visit two countries
4) Complete the Himalayan trek
5) Restart the MS course
6) Read more books
7) To make difference in a tleast in one unprivileged person's life.
8) Mentally get prepared to move out of country for work. Try for possibilities which are readily available in my company.
9) 4 times of blood donation
10) Last but not least and most important. Stay immune to all emotional pull down and turn offs, which has affected my past and has potential to make all my above listed wishes will go null and void.

Major travel plans:

1) Dubai - January.
2) Himalayas Sar pass trek in May
3) July- Ladakh/Leh (Proposed)
4) One island Andaman/Maldives in last quarter.


Just a journal which I shall revisit by the end of the year to see my progress. :) :)

Moments : 4 days Munnar - Bodi National Trekking expedition 2013

This was my first trek with YHAI . There were 43 heads in the batch.  50% were from Maharashtra and a good composition southern states. Atleast 80% of  the gents were above 40 and all ladies were above 35. Mostly retired people and  central govt employees who get special casual leave for these treks. I was the youngest. 

Day 1 ( 24 October 2013 ) :

 Reported at the base camp in the afternoon after a long ghat travel via Cumbum to the National Adventure academy at  Devikulam near Munnar. A kerala State govt. maintained institute. The brochure claimed pucca accomodation and sanitation facilities were  missing.Many werent mentally prepared to this like me.It was raining too. Then somehow tamed the comfort longing mind to fit the place.

By 4.00PM we went for a acclimatisation walk in the Lockhart Estate area.The moment we were on the full mist covered road, it started raining heavily. We walked and hiked small steep slopes for a long time till sunset and later came to know that it was a 8 km stretch

When the walk ended rain too stopped.Then dinner and  sleep.

Day 2 (25 October 2013)

Early morning warm up walk/sprint jog and exercises again in rain.

After breakfast, there were some official formalities like a small talk , flagging off session by some cheif guest etc.Then we were taken in  jeeps to a village called Yelapatti  which is the base of a hill. 40- 50 minutes journey.

The actual trekking started from there. We hiked around 8 kms to a place called Top station.  The path was full of leeches waiting to suck blood.

Though many in the batch were experienced trekkers on Himalayas, all were screaming and jumping around when they see leeches climbing their pants. Many leeches were successful quenching their thirst.

One of Western ghats notables is leech prone moist soil. The keep wobbling their body like worms in 3D  sticking on to us. Even shoes or pants doesn't matter,they somehow find ways inside.The person going in front will disturb it from rest under leaves and people behind feed them.

We reached Top station by Lunch.  That falls under Tamil Nadu , actually a mountain view point. Food was arranged at a hotel there.

Then  climbed down ~8 kms to middle or central station on the other side of the hill. 

 This was a  terrain down hill with spectacular view of a  green majestic massive chain of mountain range in the oppsite which we would climb the day after. The clouds floating over the peak with sun setting behind was just a priceless view.

Deep in the jungle was our campsite.A small blue concrete house could accommodate 12-15 ppl for a days stay.Maximum were packed inside and remaining in tents put outside.

Staying in tent was a new experience. Felt so good. That house had cook who prepares food if we take things with us. They plant coffee nearby and have a small grinding machine. The stay was awesome. Needless to say how calm it would be and how glittering the sky will be with stars.

Climbing down a hill is presumed easy but the fact is fingers hit shoe walls often and create pain.

That too i have a broad foot with no appropriate type of shoe to fit,  got my fingers injured. More than tired it was pain..

Day 3 (26th October 2013)

Starting in the morning we climbed another ~8 kms to the hill base cvillage named Korangani. That was our camp too.Carried packed lunches and had them in the banks of a stream we crossed. We reached there late afternoon. Stay in forest guard quarters.

About the village, one must be lucky to be in a place surrounded by green peaks with floating clouds, clear water stream  fairly big enough filling a dam. It is a 400 + houses village 16 kms away from Bodinayakanur

Bus comes one and an half hour once. No mobile signals. Paddy fields n coconut trees around

 They said only a staff nurse will be there in the hospital for day hours.Any emergency they take jeeps to Bodi.

We talked to a boy there and found ways to play and bath in the stream inspite being tired. He took us to a nice place. That evening was fun again.

That village is was where kumki/Gajaraju was shot. That elaphant and village sets. The elephant watch tower place all were korangani.

Had a tired sleep and everybody was warned the subsequent day's trek will be toughest.

Day 4 (27th October 2013 )

Some left to base camp in morning and we sent our unwanted luggage with them.

8 km rough terrain 50% of which was so hot at a  65 degree slope. Sweating like hell. Everyone ran out of water. I  There was a time difference of at least 20 mins for the first and last person moving in the group

Half way we got a news that one diabetic person is being carried in shoulders down to korangani by our sweeper guide  as he could not climb.

By Noon  we found a very small stream just a leak through rocks.Had lunch there and filled bottles.

It became dense from there.

The path was very narrow slippery moving in zigzag on mountain.Not to mention that the trekking view was again majestic to see the top - middle - base station hill range which we climbed down a day back.

It was evening and 8 hrs since morning a sudden view came in to  picture when tall trees ended.A beautiful tea estate and  village called kolukkumalai.

Worlds highest tea plantation processing the organic way.Tea leaves are generally plucked then weathered and then oxidised , dried and ground.This estate factory does them without adding any chemicals

Had a garden fresh milk  tea there. We saw the tea processing machine.Then a view point nearby

Then had   travel downhill in four jeeps back to our  base camp at Devikulam.

Our guide Shaju Lawrence was a Munnar localite and a naturalist. 

It was 7.30 PM we stopped at a view point to see Munnar .It was spectacular to see a town from a height

Just looking above i was like WOW! Never saw so many stars at night anywhere.A light trace of milky way was visible with naked eyes. Venus looked like a LED bulb

Reached Base camp and left to home immediately.

That was an experience.Four days. Simply ones city and so called decent or cultured mask will peel off

with less resources.Far from home.No connectivity. That was a sense of accomplishment in spite of problem , pain faced.

200 years of Munnar history in short. 

Our guide  was telling all about flowers plants birds vegetation weather geography economy etc during the treks.

Britishers started tea plantations and took people  from TN through the top station trek route for work

Let stay there and trained them at a place they called "Oozhiyaan chathiram" ஊழியான்சத்திரம்

Then keralites joined. This trek route was first historical gateway to munnar from East. Transported tea down from hills though rope transport with facilities in 3 stations named Top, Middle and Bottom stations.

1930s the rope transport system destroyed by some calamity. We saw the remnants

After Independence the Tea estates sold to private companies. 

Now only 3 companies own the whole tea estates there

* Harrison malayalam,a cochin based company owning all estates named lockhart

* Kannan devan hills tea planters association

* TATA tea

All hill areas are owned by government but leased to  companies like these in a damn cheap rate for price in paisas per year for an acre for 100s of years.

 Most of the time we were in rain or just below or into the clouds. No much Photos but I just loved clicking than ever.

Other Photos can be found here

Bodh Gaya

 First time I stepped down in Bangalore to join my college, this was the only place I  visited with family  as "Places of Interest" inside the city. That was July  2006, Never bothered to visit again in the four years of engineering. It was just a land mark to me till I came back to Bengaluru in 2012.

Some thing preventing me  from liking malls and the window shopping culture, beach was my most haunted place in Chennai which I  still miss a lot in Bangalore.

Searching for a calm  place in the city free to move around without much of the disturbing  human crowd, the city sounds and commercial hoardings, I revisited here again. A place in the city to sit, roll down,  feel the earth  without footwear outside my room.

Now, I have breathed into this space countless times and it almost  has seen  all of my solitary Sunday afternoons.Almost like where ever I am in the city and I need some private time, then to me,

" All roads lead to Lal Bagh"

 Hyder Ali commisioned  and Tipu sultan finished setting up this 220 acre crown inside the city. Britishers added some more  jewels like the Glass house to it. Now maintained by Horticulture department of Karnataka.

Park the bike and start walking in,  Nature starts embracing in.

At least for me , its not a place to  visit once, just  walking around hasty to cover the park  for see everything one shot.

Houses not only Flowers, the huge bird community chirping and squirrels running around. Those lonely benches,  shaded trees and green lawns will make you forget that you are in a traffic cursed concrete jungle.

It really takes time to look into the colours, patterns, feel the petals of each and every flower and livelihood around and everything is new when I visit next time.

Lalbagh lake inside  is one of big lakes in the city.

The huge and century old trees.Touching  and  hugging around their huge barks tell a lot of unltold stories. It feels like Avatar :-P

Many of the trees have finished reading Vairamuthu's  Kallikkaattu Ithikasam and some more books  with me :-D :-D.

After buying the camera, the story is different.Its common that people who slowdown, feel the nature and things around to frame and photograph them. its the other way around  for me.

Mindlessly walking in and start clicking whatever I find. Once, a visitor mistook me to be a regular cameraman there, who clicks and gives instant prints to visitors.

 Doves assemble and feed in a place in late evenings in a place. It was long wish to click them on flying.

It feels different when people give odd stares on me suddenly go on knees to click at eye level of something or having my  head into the random bushes :-D :-D

You can sometime artists who find subjects and draw to their heart's content.

Recently got into the vast nursery. They have so much to sell. Seeds, saplings and accessories to  guide for self gardening.

Any friend or relative visits Bangalore , the first place suggested by me is to visit  Lal bagh .

 Kind of similar looking roads and signals at all gates of the park confuse most times .

Had been umpteen number of times, yet haven't seen fully . Definitely one of the places that occupy a special place in my soul.

"Lal Bagh - Inner Peace"

PS: Where ever I read about gardens I read more about its  Mughal background. Wonder why others were not interested in  gardening.

Multicore CPUs and their processing speed.

Its common  to assume that a quad core CPU for example , quoted 2 GHz would offer a 8GHz .      
  4 x 2Ghz = 8GHz ? !?

But does this really happen? Answer is No and also Yes.

Its purely dependent on the software used. Software here means the Applications (Games, Browser , word processor etc)  and the way how the  operating system (Linux or windows) handles it.

Lets have a brief look .

Simplicity sake I use a quad core 2Ghz example in this article from now on, whereas it can be scaled to any number of cores.

I have written an article long back on 'what' and 'why' multicore processors quite some time back here

So,first lets see why a NO 8GHz?

A Multicore processor consists two or more  functionally independent processing cores embedded into a single physical chip.
I remember reading this analogy somewere, four cars each at at 20kms/h racing  parallel in the same direction never means 20 x4 = 80Kms/h.

It similar. Performance of independent cores cannot be seen as a combined one.So its more apt to call it a four core processor with each 2 GHz and not a single 8 GHz one.

Now, the answer for  YES. How can it give a 8 GHz operation?


Bit more technical way.

Ultimately the operating system controls the processors and coordinates the actions between the cores.

Any application will run as a process in an operating system and in turn processes are just a collection of operating units called threads. These threads run  in  the CPU core as per the scheduling algorithm for a particular execution time.

Assuming a Game like Need for Speed  (NFS) creates 4 equal priority threads and its the only application being executed. In an Unicore CPU , one of four processes get executed and other 3 wait.

If there are multiple cores, the operating system may a allow waiting threads to get executed in the other cores.Purely the OS discretion which thread executes in a particular core.

It is also possible that processes may be waiting for execution in single core even though other cores are idle. This phenomena is called CPU affinity. Windows allows setting CPU affinity in task manager by right clicking a process.

Assume only the above four NFS application process threads with equal priorities having 1 minute execution time (practical values in msecs or less) get assigned to four independent cores rated 2GHz at the same time. Only now the NFS application can be theoretically called to be running at 8GHz for the next 1 minute.

But this condition will never occur in our systems due reasons which include the following.

* Most of the applications we use are still not coded with proper threading for multicore architectures. It needs a major operation and code overhaul. These applications will always prove reduced efficiency on multicores.

* Practically the OS will run many more threads which may be scheduled simultaneously and different cores might be running different process threads

*Priority of each thread in single process itself can vary.

Even if the above factors are taken care, still a 2 x 4GHz  will never be equal to a single 8GHz core because of overhead involved in instruction level parallelism defined by Amdahl's Law.

Any mistakes above, discussions and comments welcome :-)

Destiny?

Playing with and still an amateur  even after 4-5 years of meddling with Linux and Embedded environments.  Defining in short , it is random learning in bits and pieces rather than a structured learning approach , which I had tried to adopt many a times and failed. Professional commitments and pressure triggers the thinking process but the  learning is the same, slow and un-organized. Since college days it became customary to find something interesting, work on it  (sometimes a mad learning), Get the feel and shelve the topic in concern.
 

Two and a half years in the industry and recent times, the self started throwing some serious idealistic questions and learning seemed to be stagnant without answering .

* There is always more interesting and high paying jobs available.What did you achieve by entering or being in this domain?

* There are experts and people with high knowledge and experience ratings along with.How do you differ?

* As and with, its an IT job again, which has it own buzz. Beyond certain limits it becomes mandatory to take up management roles. How to cope with the technical interest?

Such kind of thoughts with the mere  motto of questioning my  professional existence.

Answering and above all satisfying the self is one of the most tedious work according to me. The mind doesn’t just settle for anything.

Looking back 4-5 years it was a time where I was ready to learn anything and everything  other than college curriculum which was forced.It was a search and even got few options to work on some technologies. Either took those opportunities light and lost it or handled it to a decent state but never attained mastery. Mindless actions. Krisshnan and Dhanasekar were the funny partners.

Got introduced to Linux and it was sluggish learning. Had took up some courses on embedded systems but then came the ultimate college corporate placement phase projected as the only future to exist. Not placed? then Life is gone. Such was the mental picture created.

Attended 8 ‘eligible’ companies. No sign of clearing. Finally Got a job in 9th one. Seemed to be at the top of the world. 2-3 months of vacation, joy and came the joining letter.

Destiny planned  a Mainframe computer career for me . When I requested for a domain of interest the Human resource personnel gave a blunt answer that , a fresher cannot have such attitude of not accepting what was offered.

The first time in life self simply told QUIT. Some gut feel and  help of Harish Kumar, there started a fresh work on the domain of interest. Parents were supportive accepting me to leave a high paying job (relatively).

Professional commitments and the area of work is purely dependent on the projects won by companies, especially small firms, that too for freshers its no where a concern. Thrown into different areas but the ground state was fixed interest in linux systems.

It was another point of time after an year , self told to fight again,  where I was deployed into a Vxworks project which only later I knew that it was a ever happening long term project and my skills would be locked.  for a newbie and young soul with full of thoughts on interest and future, it is a mental disaster. You don’t have power or voice in a corporate /semi-corporate setup.The same gut feel, managed to get it changed and there came the android into picture.

One more year passed there came a state where it at least seems my interest would be there in the road map some way or other. Advantage of joining a huge (in terms of quality) service company, it gives a chance to have in peep into all big semiconductor companies in the world as a consultant.

All over It has been a fight with self  for self. Even though many people with same or better skill sets the answer becomes,

“ It’s the career by CHOICE  and not by CHANCE ”

Now gonna be a consultant for a biggie in the build,  integration and debugging  role for a large software architecture. Hectic work presumed but the learning would be gorgeous.

It’s the path  and Miles to Go…

Apps in my Android Phone

    It has been almost an year I started "using" android on my Samsung Galaxy R  - i9103. Pretty decent phone with 4.3 inch SLCD, 1 GHz Dual core Tegra 2 processor and 1 Gig RAM

    I was on Stock Indian 2.3.5 Ginger Bread (GB)  and switched to Cyanogenmod 10 (CM10) with 4.1.2 Jelly Bean (JB) recently. I have been trying out many apps for different puposes and this post to list the ones I use regularly.

    Of course, a part of them are rooted apps I use to enjoy tweaking my phone for performance. Almost all are free and copy of paid apks can be found online easily.

Classified as

• Messaging
• Contacts
• Media
• Internet
• Location services
• Local information
• Communication
• Interface (Look and feel)
• Documents and Notes
• File management
• Tamil
• Travel
• Hacks
• App for Couples
• Finance
• Tools : control
• Tools: Automation
• Tools: Backup
• Tools:Misc

Messaging

 GO SMS Pro  for texting.Has many features like theme support, sms backup local or cloud ,  scheduling , private SMS etc. 

Does Whatsapp need a mention? 

Contacts   

I have more than 1300 contacts   Google contacts, my one stop contact management tool. 
We all have so much of junk contacts. Cleaning up and syncing contacts to a single place from all  sources like phone, gmail etc is a time consuming  process but worth. Never loose contacts after in lifetime. I shall make a separate post on this soon.

 Media 

MX player for video playback.It uses hardware acceleration based on the device. The User interface and touch gestures are pleasing. 
 

Winamp  for music. It was far better than default one on GB. Auto and manual Playlists, Lock screen widget and headset controlled Play/Pause/Next/Previous with a decent user interface.
    CM 10 has DSP manager equalizer with Apollo Music player which gives great music experience with a high bass I love. 

Instagram - Must have for smartphone photography buffs. So many filters and effects.

Ringdroid – Provides a easy and accurate  interface cut songs and set/save as ringtones 
   

Internet 

My data manager helps tracking data usage on mobile network according to the internet plan I dictate.It shows the data used/left on use with days remaining on the plan. Gives statistics on data trafic through various apps and activities.Pretty useful. 

 Seesmic - The most used app on my phone and my favorite twitter client. Its light weight and comfy. Gives maximum screen space and does not baffle with bright colours.It lacks push notifications and draft or scheduling of tweets. I use the official twitter app occasionally.

Google chrome and Dolphin browser interchangeably for browsing .Opera mini if I am stuck on a slow network.

utorrent to download torrents directly on mobile.

Tubemate to download youtube videos directly on mobile in various resolutions or even as MP3.It is not on Play store. 

    Mobile banking apps. Almost all the banks give mobile app access but with restricted transaction limits. I prefer logging into their websites in desktop mode from both browsers mentioned above.

Location  Services

Google Earth Not as good as PC. Root needed to enable US market in India.

FasterFix - Gets faster GPS fix by downloading prior auxillary data based on my location.

Google SkyMap - It you watch stars and constellations, then this the app for you

 GPS logger to have a memorable GPS coordinate log of places I visit or to trace a new path I travelled to a place. The log can be later imposed on Google Maps for better visualisation.

Indian caller info displays the caller information on screen live on an incoming/outgoing call.The information includes which network operator and state in case of mobile numbers and city name for land line numbers. ISD numbers too. 

 Google maps doesn't need a mention, I use the most on travelling. Directions, distance, offline caching etc. It rocks.

 Local Informationn

Bus routes – BMTC in Bangalore or MTC in Chennai have many apps in market for knowing bus routes between stops or Path of route numbers.

Justdial provides all local yellow pages information like its website.

Google Now is my favorite feature available from Android version 4.1. It gives awsome features of voice search and assistance, local information, personalised information cards etc. 

Communication 

Skype Not many phones have front camera for video chat. Mine has a 1.3MP. Skype calls in phone are more comfortable than on a Desktop/Laptop.
 

 Interface (Look and feel)

 Go launcher EX   I loved this simple and clean launcher over hefty Touchwiz by Samsung on GB. Now the default trebuchet launcher on CM10 seems sufficient. 

   Battery Solo widget - Displays numerical value of battery remaining as a widget on Home screen

Documents and Notes   

 Kindle by Amazon is my PDF reader.UI and the feel is good. 

 Scan to PDF - Take a snap and convert anything to PDF.

 Springpad is a nice app allows feature rich note taking with a synced web access   

 Google docs (Drive ) with 5GB online storage, offline storage and local edits helps accessing Google docs synced everywhere.

 Kingsoft Office is so for the top free office viewer and editor in the play store

File management

Undelete to recover deleted files in your android.Its a root app.

 Airdroid is interesting. Lets access the phone features for Messaging, Files etc in a  PC browser when the phone is connected over same wifi network.   

 Androzip to work with zip files

Dropbox and Google Drive for syncing files and documents on cloud and access anywhere.

ES File explorer and Root browser are my favs.

 AndFTP   Host a FTP server on your mobile for easy file access from phone on network.

Tamil 

Tamil unicode font - Needs Root. Needed to display Tamil font in phones which do not have default support.
  

 Tamilvisai  - I post a lot in Tamil on social networks.This app makes it easy with Phonetic english keyboard. Also supports direct tamil typing which I hardly use.

Travel

PNR status and train  info gives almost all train information including live status of a current running train. 

mBus allows mobile booking for RedBus, KSRTC and TNSTC.

Hacks

Market Enabler  is a root app which allows access of blocked apps in India by simulating required country's identity.

AdFree - Root app. Blocks all Ads in your mobile by changing the hosts file.

App for Couples

Of course I did not have a chance  to use this app. But as per the review, this app seems good.

Pair has private wall feature only between couples and other usual sharing features. Give a try

Finance

Splitwise   sharing costs with friends? This is the app with web sync. Billmonk does not have a mobile app.

Tools

Control

Team viewer  View and control your PC/Laptop from anywhere.

DroidVNC server allows viewing/controlling phone as such in a network connected PC browser on the same network.Root App. 
  

Automation

llama  is an amazing automation app which is location aware. It first learns your locations based on cell towers like home, office or anything you instruct. Then we dictate few tasks to perform when entering/leaving an area. It does automatically from there on. I use it to Toggle wifi on/off, change ringtone volumes based on my preference etc.

Tasker  is a true paid automation app.It automates almost everything based on rules we set. Few simple scenarios are when I plug in my earphones, the volume is reduced if its high and winamp is opened. Toggle Auto-sync feature automatically when I am on Mobile data to conserve battery.It can send automatic SMS to partner when you leave office and what not.Its a beast app. Learning curve is there. 

Backup 

App backup and restore helps in backup of applications as .apk files in case if some mishap happens to phone and you don't loose any application.

Titanium backup (TB) pro is the best. But rooted. It has multiple functionalities of which app backup with data like game achievements and saved states etc.One more notable fuctionality is it helps moving apps to external SD card if ou are running out of space on phone.Pro version support batch restore. Restoring a TB app on a different android version or ROM may throw up issues.

Call log Backup - Backup all call logs  on SD card

SMS Backup - Backup all SMS on SD card 
 

Misc.
   

Flashlight will lets using the flash only without getting into any camera app. Direct and Useful.CM10 has a "Torch" feature on the Notification drawer for easy access. 
 

Android lost helps tracking lost phone.It works and I have heard real stories. 

I shall try to update the list in a regular basis. Comment with other apps you enjoy.

  

NEET PG 2012 registration and the related Chaos

               


For any one who is not aware what this NEET PG means is its a nation wide PG entrance exam in India for Medicos introduced in 2012 and there had been some chaos related to its registration, on which on share my views here.


Being a life deciding factor for medicos I could see a lot of frustration in this front. I too have  registered NEET for my medico friends. It is a concern and I lack knowledge to comment on the time of notice for the exam or quota or syllabi as I am a non - medico by profession.

But I wish to share what could be the other side of the story or a broader picture of this NEET scenario, a couple of things on technical aspects related to computers as a 3rd person. No offense meant nor I support to any one.Sorry for making it lengthy.


Why is it a Computer Based Test and not on papers as usual?

Being one of the important exam and a high population of more than lakh people writing every year which increases every time, the old paper-ledger methods don’t work. There needs more human effort and cost in transport of exam papers, where comes the SECURITY of exam data and the most important evaluation. Its highly error prone and time consuming at a large scale. 

Thus at any point of time moving to a computer based test (CBT) becomes default. A machine dedicated to evaluate your results would not  commit any error unless there is intended human manipulation. And if in case there is a question on security in a CBT, if designed properly, the exam question would be distributed to you only at the moment you sit for the exam from a digitally secure single centralised server where we have more control on handling questions .

Why is the exam conducted across multiple days and not just on a single day?

Setting up a CBT for a lakh people  is a huge cost and task again. It is not just booking a school or college in a city to make the candidates sit with paper in any class room. It needs secure computers networked to connect with the centralized exam question server.

You could see all the venues are engineering colleges this time. The reason is only engineering colleges have 200-300 computers in a single place  and possibly  good network infrastructure to handle the scenario. 

And it is not possible to book all colleges to make a lakh people sit on same day , monitor them. It needs a very great computer server facility like a IRCTC server or a Google server kind of setup to allow lakhs of people to a single computing machine. Its very high cost consuming process to set up for a single day exam in a year.

Thus a single day test is technically not possible at the moment and so the exam is spread across multiple days.



Reliabilty?

You might be aware that the NEET exam seems to be out sourced to a private organization called Prometric who is a world leader in online exam delivery. Prometric has a clear success story conducting almost all certification exams world wide and some more like USMLE, GRE etc. So possibly this exam should not have any question leakages or any mishap.




The Registration chaos 

The web server could only handle a specified number of users at a time, or else it would load itself and fail to work for none. If this kind of loading is done intentionally it is called as ‘denial of service attack’ in computer hacking terms. 


Though it has been declared as a first come first serve service , there seems to be incremental addition of seats based on registrations which was not announced. It is a mistake. And it is also a fact that they have given dates for online registration till November 12th so which they would not have  expected so much load on the registration server on the very first day itself.


The major cause for such happening is the candidates rush to register themselves to reserve a seat in a centre nearby. There had been 57000 registration requests to the server on a single time which ultimately would cause the system to fail and also its a fact that they have restored the server in an hour which is really a commendable job .


In case if they allow such a thing to happen as CBT in a single day, no doubt you will be writing exam the scenario of NEET registration, waiting for questions to appear to you where the pages will load for ever.


There had been more than 120 intended hacking attempts to bring down the registering server for NEET  itself it seems as per the twitter status of NBE. https://twitter.com/neetpg2012  and all are avoided and protected. 


Its such a secure system, if not, all the registration data would have been circulating in public web collected by hackers.

If  CBT happens on a same day , it would be the same case and  imagine all the question papers circulating public web. It would be awkward than anything. Such things wont happen as it seemed to be planned ahead for a good going. Hope for the best

More or less, major exams across the Globe are CBT and successfully go by this way. 

 Point of contacts :

After all machines are just human creations and they too have only limited  capacity to handle.
It seems due to over loading , the candidate help line IVRS number has also failed and had been restored back .
 
They have given a contact page to resolve issues  and I get to know that they are responding on calls from yesterday.  
Try them.
 http://www.nbe.gov.in/neetpg/contact_us.php 
and also a web mail link in the above page.

Seems they respond well on twitter too, giving live updates of their status and they have mentioned about uploading a practice test soon.
No Panic.
Keep cool and Wish you all the Best!