• ~75kms from Koyambedu and took 2hours by car. Used Google Navigation for the route but there should not be any confusion if you correctly spot the sigh that asks you to take right turn from the Chennai-Trichy NH ( ~ 60kms before Thindivanam )
• This place is safe and well maintained with Toilet facilities. You have place to sit in the 1km stretch.

If you want to take photos of birds you need camera with good zoom. Here are some of the pics taken with my Sony HX100V which has 30X Zoom.

Sony HX100V Macro Mode is fantastic!

What I like:
1) It’s my first Android phone. I was able to use most of the features setting without going to Google
2) Still pictures are very good : comparable to standalone digital cameras. This is when we have enough external light source.
3) Love the HD video recording. I use the 720p mode. Don’t use 1080p mode as it drains battery and requires more storage.
4) The earplug provided is good.

What I dislike:
Very difficult to find fault with SGSII. Following are some items that I wish could have been done better.
1) The speaker volume is very feeble. Most of the time the speaker phone option is useless because of this.
2) The default Music player is not so good. I bought Power Amp full version

I am completely satisfied with this phone. Never had a moment to regret the high price tag of Rs30000/-. It’s worth it!
I could not say the same thing with my previous phone: Nokia N95 8GB.

Recently upgraded my Wifi router to Asus RT-N16. The tech specs are follows:

wireless N, throughput of 300Mbps , 3 x external antenna , 2.4~2.5 GHz
Output power

n mode: 15.8~19.5dBm
* g mode: 15.5~16.5dBm
* b mode: 15.8~19.5dBm
4 x giga port ethernet , WAN x 1, LAN x 4 RJ-45 for 10/100/1000 Base-T, Supports Ethernet and 802.3 with max. bit rate 10/100/1000 Mbps and auto cross-over function (MDI-X)

2 x usb ports ( hdd / mem stick / print server )

CPU: Broadcom BCM4718 533MHZ
RAM: 128MB (2x 64MB)
ROM: 32MB
ETH: 4x GIGABIT (LAN) 1x GIGABIT (WAN)
USB Ports: 2
Wireless N 2.4 gig

Updates the Router firmware to TomatoUSB.

http://tomatousb.org/tut:installing-on-asus-rt-n16

Now I have complete control over the router. Have access to root shell and several popular Linux packages( Perl,Ruby,Python,curl…name anything ) is available via Optware

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Optware

What is that I gain from it right away:

1.  Running Transmission Bittorrent Client. It’s a simple and lightweight Bittorrent client that has a Web interface. Now the torrent can be downloaded and scheduled from any machine on the network. The router downloads it to the connected USB drive without a need for PC to running 24×7 !
2. Second advantage is auto login to Reliance broadband. Reliance BB has an annoying Web based authentication even on a unlimited connections. We can not use the net unless the form is submitted with username and password. This makes connecting to the Wifi router via mobile phones / or use a non browser based apps roundabout process. With libcurl installed( thanks to optware) this is automated with router startup and scheduling every 12 hours( as they have 24 hours session limit)

Find a sample ssh screenshot to the router:

As requested following is the script that I use for reliance auto login. Optware libcurl needs  to be installed first.

curl -A "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091201 Firefox/3.5.6 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)" --referer "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do" --cookie-jar /tmp/mnt/FLASH/tomato/reliance/relcookie "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do" --connect-timeout 15 --max-time 20 --retry 2 --retry-delay 5
curl -A "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.6) Gecko/20091201 Firefox/3.5.6 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)" --referer "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do" --cookie /tmp/mnt/FLASH/tomato/reliance/relcookie --data "userId=3432432444&password=paswd" "http://www.reliancebroadband.co.in/reliance/login.do?action=doLoginSubmit" --connect-timeout 15 --max-time 20 --retry 2 --retry-delay 5

1. Rekindles my reading habit: Read 4 books after getting Kindle(4 months back). Didn’t complete a full books in the previous two years!
2. Fist best thing: Battery life. I need to charge it only every 3-4 weeks time!
3. Second best thing about Kindle is : Font setting. Set the size which is more comfortable.
4. Looks like paper. Yes!
5. Light weight ~250gms
6. Delivery of books  and magazines are very good via the Wifi.( Whipernet)

What would have made it better:

1. During page turn it goes to full black before showing the next page. Initially it was annoying. But, now i don’t notice it at all
2. Wish the books were lot cheaper. Average price is is ~10$. So have to look for other means to get cheaper book

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/tell-me-what-should-i-tell-them

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinions/6984715.cms

In Tamil:

http://idlyvadai.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post_9755.html

BarkhaGate:

http://swathipradeepworld.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/barkha-dutt-exposed/

Waiting for it to reach Chennai

Nice to hear Tamil songs on American Raidos.

URL:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2010/oct/07/superstar-rajinikanth/

Direct Audio Link

This movie is one of my all time favorites.