I've seen some mention of this topic on many online forums in the fast few days - for the uninitiated, this is about the 2% or 2.5% "extra" that merchants charge for using a credit card at their shops. This is because banks charge them this amount, and they are unwilling to pay it.
Most card users express their outrage at having to pay more. I have a simple story to tell.
Merchant: "That would be Rs. 2500, plus 2% if you want to use a card."
Me: "But isn't that 2% supposed to come from your pocket? You shouldn't fleece your own customers!"
Merchant: "OK, in that case I will charge you the MRP on the sticker... that will be Rs.4000, and I will pay the 2% on my own."
Nov 22, 2007
Nov 18, 2007
Installing Windows
You may well wonder why this would merit a blog post, especially from me. I've a habit of re-installing the OS on my systems about once a month. That's usually because I screw something up or install some weird bit of software that renders my system unusable.
But this post is not about that.
The observant reader may remember that I have a (now old) laptop - the eMachines M6805. It was a nice little thing too, in it's day, though now it would be considered mid-range at best. You may also remember that I had problems with the RAM (which I replaced) and the combo-drive. The RAM went due to overclocking it a bit more than it could stand... oh well.
The combo drive was another matter. When the RAM went, I installed Ubuntu on it instead of the XP-Home that was preinstalled. The plan was to use the restore DVD when I got more RAM, but after the RAM was installed I noticed the failed drive which means I can't use the restore DVD.
No problem, you'd say, boot off a USB stick. Unfortunately, the BIOS does not support that. There is a BIOS update which can fix this, but I need a working CD drive for that. Catch 22.
The next obvious thing is to boot off a network and use RIS to install Windows remotely. But it seems that for some strange reason I need to have a server version of Windows to be able to do that! A normal XP-pro machine does not have RIS capabilities.
Unless, of course, one is willing to delve into the ways of PXE and the remote boot mechanism. Which, of course, I was.
Turned out to be more complicated than I wished for, and I have spent more than 2 days trying out various stuff and running all around the web looking for answers. Fortunately, many people seem to have had the same problems that I faced. Unfortunately, I still don't have a working Windows laptop.
In any case, I thought it wise to write down some keywords so that if I ever face such a problem again, I will have some idea of how it was solved the first time around.
1. Obviously, the first thing to do is to enable network boot in the BIOS setup and set that as the first boot priority. You also need a network cable running between the two machines, heh.
2. Then you need 3 major things running on the server (i.e. the system from which you will retrieve the install files) - a DHCP server, a tftp server and a binl server. You could use tftpd32 for the first two. For the last one, you will need to get the ris-linux package and run the binl python script.
3. You may need updated NIC drivers for the target system. In my case the first problem I hit was that the default windows installation did not have the drivers for the laptop NIC. I used the ones that came with the restore DVD, but they DID NOT WORK either, it gave me weird problems with blue screens during install. I downloaded the newer drivers from Via's site and they seem to work.
4. Set up tftpd32 as a DHCP server, pretty straightforward.
5. Set up tftpd32 as a tftp server, this is also easy enough. You may want to use syslinux as the kernel, there is documentation on how to do this.
6. You need a windows install, grab the i386 directory from your Windows CD.
7. Copy in the new network drivers into the i386 directory.
8. The binl server is supposed to provide these new drivers when queried, for that you need to create a driver cache by running the inf parser on the i386 directory, it should find the new drivers.
More later...
But this post is not about that.
The observant reader may remember that I have a (now old) laptop - the eMachines M6805. It was a nice little thing too, in it's day, though now it would be considered mid-range at best. You may also remember that I had problems with the RAM (which I replaced) and the combo-drive. The RAM went due to overclocking it a bit more than it could stand... oh well.
The combo drive was another matter. When the RAM went, I installed Ubuntu on it instead of the XP-Home that was preinstalled. The plan was to use the restore DVD when I got more RAM, but after the RAM was installed I noticed the failed drive which means I can't use the restore DVD.
No problem, you'd say, boot off a USB stick. Unfortunately, the BIOS does not support that. There is a BIOS update which can fix this, but I need a working CD drive for that. Catch 22.
The next obvious thing is to boot off a network and use RIS to install Windows remotely. But it seems that for some strange reason I need to have a server version of Windows to be able to do that! A normal XP-pro machine does not have RIS capabilities.
Unless, of course, one is willing to delve into the ways of PXE and the remote boot mechanism. Which, of course, I was.
Turned out to be more complicated than I wished for, and I have spent more than 2 days trying out various stuff and running all around the web looking for answers. Fortunately, many people seem to have had the same problems that I faced. Unfortunately, I still don't have a working Windows laptop.
In any case, I thought it wise to write down some keywords so that if I ever face such a problem again, I will have some idea of how it was solved the first time around.
1. Obviously, the first thing to do is to enable network boot in the BIOS setup and set that as the first boot priority. You also need a network cable running between the two machines, heh.
2. Then you need 3 major things running on the server (i.e. the system from which you will retrieve the install files) - a DHCP server, a tftp server and a binl server. You could use tftpd32 for the first two. For the last one, you will need to get the ris-linux package and run the binl python script.
3. You may need updated NIC drivers for the target system. In my case the first problem I hit was that the default windows installation did not have the drivers for the laptop NIC. I used the ones that came with the restore DVD, but they DID NOT WORK either, it gave me weird problems with blue screens during install. I downloaded the newer drivers from Via's site and they seem to work.
4. Set up tftpd32 as a DHCP server, pretty straightforward.
5. Set up tftpd32 as a tftp server, this is also easy enough. You may want to use syslinux as the kernel, there is documentation on how to do this.
6. You need a windows install, grab the i386 directory from your Windows CD.
7. Copy in the new network drivers into the i386 directory.
8. The binl server is supposed to provide these new drivers when queried, for that you need to create a driver cache by running the inf parser on the i386 directory, it should find the new drivers.
More later...
Nov 6, 2007
Indian workers get highest pay hikes?
Read this news, and that set me thinking on multiple planes.
Of course, I had this great urge to laugh out loud at some of the comments made by readers on news sites. They made the point that they thought they were not being paid enough. They invariably made the comparison with salaries in the U.S. One person went to the extent of complaining that he got a lesser salary after returning to India. It reminds me of that old joke:
"Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"
"Then don't do it."
If you were getting better salary in the U.S. why did you return to India at all? Were you so naive as to not know that Indians get paid in INR and not USD? Don't you realize that you spend in INR too?
After that initial reaction, though, I started thinking about what an appropriate wage is. Doesn't it mean different things for different people? What does it mean when a friend complains that he is not getting paid enough when his salary is more than 10 lakhs a year? Note that I want to make a distinction between "I am not getting what I deserve" vs. "I need more to survive" vs. "The market pays more than this to similar workers". Where do people get their sense of entitlement? Why do youngsters think they deserve salaries in multiple lakhs when they have no real-world experience and they will not be contributing meaningfully for 6 months to a year?
It is sheer competitiveness, the free market at its worst - "We need freshers and the only way to get them is to bid more than the other companies" - and then we see people going to various forums to complain about the rising wage bill.
Coming back to the salary hike, a lot of people take it too as an entitlement. I have heard people complaining that their expenses have increased so they "have to have" a good hike. That would make sense if they were from the lower strata of society where a few rupees could make the difference between lunch and starvation, but these are IT pros. The hikes they expect are in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Getting paid as you move up the value chain is not incorrect, expecting it as a matter of right is what I object to.
Then, of course, someone has to ask me whether I am overpaid or not. And that's a tough one, because it is so difficult to put a value on the work that one does. From a personal point of view, I would like infinite money and zero work; so from that angle I am grossly underpaid and heavily overworked.
Oh well, that is life.
Of course, I had this great urge to laugh out loud at some of the comments made by readers on news sites. They made the point that they thought they were not being paid enough. They invariably made the comparison with salaries in the U.S. One person went to the extent of complaining that he got a lesser salary after returning to India. It reminds me of that old joke:
"Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"
"Then don't do it."
If you were getting better salary in the U.S. why did you return to India at all? Were you so naive as to not know that Indians get paid in INR and not USD? Don't you realize that you spend in INR too?
After that initial reaction, though, I started thinking about what an appropriate wage is. Doesn't it mean different things for different people? What does it mean when a friend complains that he is not getting paid enough when his salary is more than 10 lakhs a year? Note that I want to make a distinction between "I am not getting what I deserve" vs. "I need more to survive" vs. "The market pays more than this to similar workers". Where do people get their sense of entitlement? Why do youngsters think they deserve salaries in multiple lakhs when they have no real-world experience and they will not be contributing meaningfully for 6 months to a year?
It is sheer competitiveness, the free market at its worst - "We need freshers and the only way to get them is to bid more than the other companies" - and then we see people going to various forums to complain about the rising wage bill.
Coming back to the salary hike, a lot of people take it too as an entitlement. I have heard people complaining that their expenses have increased so they "have to have" a good hike. That would make sense if they were from the lower strata of society where a few rupees could make the difference between lunch and starvation, but these are IT pros. The hikes they expect are in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Getting paid as you move up the value chain is not incorrect, expecting it as a matter of right is what I object to.
Then, of course, someone has to ask me whether I am overpaid or not. And that's a tough one, because it is so difficult to put a value on the work that one does. From a personal point of view, I would like infinite money and zero work; so from that angle I am grossly underpaid and heavily overworked.
Oh well, that is life.
Blackout?
http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/nov/06power.htm
Regardless of what the article says, one line grabbed my attention:
"Result: More than a third of the power generated in India continues to go into a black hole."
i.e. the daily "load-shedding" we endure is a direct result of trasmission losses and theft.
There's more: "Some states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir have AT&C losses of 60 per cent or more."
Isn't this something that should be made a big issue of? This is a subject that touches everyone, given our enormous dependence on electricity. What meaning do austerity measures have when fully 30% of all electricity generated is lost? Is the government not accountable for anything at all?
Regardless of what the article says, one line grabbed my attention:
"Result: More than a third of the power generated in India continues to go into a black hole."
i.e. the daily "load-shedding" we endure is a direct result of trasmission losses and theft.
There's more: "Some states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir have AT&C losses of 60 per cent or more."
Isn't this something that should be made a big issue of? This is a subject that touches everyone, given our enormous dependence on electricity. What meaning do austerity measures have when fully 30% of all electricity generated is lost? Is the government not accountable for anything at all?
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