Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Airlines, quote, commutes

Friday, October 31st, 2008

http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/oct/31slid9.htm

Too bad I don’t find Air Deccan, Go Air, IndiGo here.

—X—

The safest way to double your money is to fold it into two and keep it in your pocket.
- Unknown

—X—

Apparently Forbes does not want to be left behind on the India growth story, so they have compiled a list of ten best commutes in the world.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/28/commute-cities-world-forbeslife-cx_mw_1028realestate_slide_9.html?thisSpeed=15000 (via Shankar)

I don’t think the guy who wrote this, or the guy who provided the inputs had ever been to Chennai.
Chennai’s population @ 5 million? MTRS? IT highway! Grrr…. Ennale Mudila!!

Dial 108

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

I saw the ‘108′ ambulance while coming to office today. Which means the system is working. I hope, pray and beg this system works fine for ever. I hope I never get a chance to write anything negative about it in my blog.

This is a step in the right direction and one hopes a lot of good initiatives like this come through in India.

Kudos to Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju for funding such a neat initiative.

Is Lifeline a death knell?

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Very often, i keep getting e-mail forwards about the harrowing experience of patients in Lifeline Hospital, Perungudi. Just how bad is this one? Does anyone have/know a true, first hand/second hand bad experience there?
Please feel free to share your experiences at prabukarthik at gmail dot com with your contact information.

Phishing attacks

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

I guess not everyone might know about phishing attacks. I wanted to explain with a good example for sometime, and I got one this morning:

Here’s the first screenshot, a mailer which says due to invalid login attempts my Axis Bank Net Banking account has been temporarily restricted and limited.

Mailer

Removing the restriction is simple, all I need to do is click on the link, go to the URL, enter my user ID and password and be done with it.

Everything looked genuine, till I saw the URL:
http://flachmotor.de/testshop/root/index.php?bank=www.axisbank.com

Why should a German site be so concerned about my online banking restrictions??

Here’s the fake version screenshot:
Fake Net Banking login page.

Here’s the actual AXIS BANK Net Banking page screenshot:
original-axisbank-netbanking.jpg

Very hard to tell the difference except for the missing verisign logo, and the warning message in RED.
I do not think many would actually read it. People tend to ignore the text so long as they see the open text fields to enter their details. Overall, a very professional phishing attempt.

Just for those who did not get the message till now, DON’T EVER CLICK THOSE MAILERS AND START ENTERING YOUR NET BANKING USER IDS AND PASSWORDS. It’s as good as sharing your user ID and passwords with the whole world.

Give a life - Chennai marathon

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

‘Give a life’ was the theme in the messily conducted Chennai Marathon. 22 year old Santhosh obliged and gave his life.

Unforgettable trip, Unforgettable people

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

I am back to Chennai after a fabulous 3 months in San Jose.

To me personally the most amazing thing about this trip was the set of people i met and interacted in these 3 months. I could never find answers to questions like “What have i done to them for being so incredibly nice and helpful? How will i ever repay them back?”

Special thanks to bloggers Sundar Narayanan, Adengappa, Dinesh, Subhashini, Kutti priya for tolerating me in person and over phone. Do call me whenever you come to chennai, i owe you guys a big treat!

Narayanan sir and his family were beyond words.

People who i have never met nor worked in my workplace were more than willing to accommodate and help me out on my shortcomings.

Will i ever invite a person who i have not known nor seen before, and is from a different culture to my place for an overnight stay along with his friend? My senior in workplace did precisely that during my yosemite trip!

I am leaving out my close buddies without whom this trip would not have been possible. I am sure they are reading this blog but hey they are my close friends and in some cases i know everyone in their family and i don’t need to say more.

If anything this trip was a lesson for me in trust, broadmindedness, friendliness, and willingness to help from some of the folks who are definitely a few notches above me in all aspects of life.

Vaanga Vaanga

Friday, December 15th, 2006

Maha janangale,

Welcome to my new home. Well actually, it’s not exactly new because I’ve had this domain for sometime. I’d wanted to post on some arcane professional stuff?

What happened? Well naane indha pakkam varlai! leave alone my readers!

So, i decided to move in to this blog completely.

Naan wordpress ku maariten, appo neenga? :D