Random Musings

Upgraded to Android 2.3.4 over the air

2011-05-19T23:08:00.004+05:30

Upgraded my new Google Nexus S, to android 2.3.4 over the air, a very smooth process. The long awaited voice and video calls from gtalk is the main attractive feature. Just had a quick video call with my brother in India, very nice experience.

Along with battery life, sudden power cycles and simultaneous appearance of 3G and WiFi icons a serious security issue is also fixed in 2.3.4 release.

The ClientLogin authentication protocol implementation was not proper in version 2.3.3 and earlier. After a user submits valid credentials for Google Calendar, Contacts and possibly other accounts, the programming interface retrieves an authentication token that is sent in cleartext. Because the authToken can be used for up to 14 days in any subsequent requests on the service, attackers can exploit them to gain unauthorized access to accounts. I never expected such moronic mistake from google. Nevertheless I am on 2.3.4... :D

Money+++

2011-03-04T20:29:00.005+05:30

It's such a nice feel to see a big amount in your bank account, which used to be your salary account.... the first salary account. Today my account got credited with EPF money, the money that was deducted from my monthly salary for last 5 years.

Any establishment in India with employee strength of 20 or more is required to put amount in Employee Provident Fund (EPF) scheme. The contribution is at present 12% of basic salary as employee's share and matching contribution by the employer. This is a substantial amount for me, around 15% of my CTC, the major contributor for reducing my in-hand salary apart from Income tax. After every salary hike, I used to feel happy until receiving the pay stub, as most of the hike used to go in income tax, PF and other deductions. Now I have that 5 yrs investment back :) a nice feel.

Generally people say that, if you have got that money every month, you might have spent that somewhere else. I feel that, I am quiet systematic in investment and I am sure I would not have spent all the money, nonetheless its awesome feel to see my bank account today. The irony is, when I was working (I am still working :), but not using this account for salary) my bank account was never this rich.

Now looking for good investment options... iPad 2??? ;)

Running up the down escalator

2011-02-25T20:42:00.004+05:30

Today while coming out of Du-College Metro, I started running up the down escalator. I was not gone crazy neither I wanted to draw people attention doing stunts. Then why I was doing that? Even after realizing that there is something wrong, I was persistent to go up at least for a couple of seconds.

Once I realized what was happening, I was laughing at my stupidity. For some unknown reason, today right side escalator was coming down and left one was going up, exactly the opposite way it operates on a normal day.

So am I turning into robot?.... No way!!!

Bot programmers are smart enough to consider these facts. :)

I really used to believe that STM (Société de transport de Montréal), Montreals public transport system is sane, and walking on escalator is no-brainer and left it to my muscle memory to figure out.

Hello World...

2009-08-20T19:18:00.005+05:30

"Hello World".... and this my entry in the Blogosphere... !!!

Since I was doing my graduation, I always wanted to start my blog. (sad... but this is around four years back). I am sure you must be thinking that this is the limit of laziness, but its true with me. My office friends have tried in every possible way to make me blog, Mohsin even went ahead and started following my blog (Sorry for all those NULL pointer exceptions :). Yes I have blogger account since some time and that some time is more than six months). Thank you Mohsin, Charuta and Manish for making me realise....
I will make a point to update this blog regularly, thank you all for reading. Keep visiting... :)

My office gang (standing from left) Mohsin, Amit, Zarin, Lalit (sitting from left) Charuta, Manish, Khyati, Vinaya