Going up a Generation

It is not very often in ones lifetime, that you get elevated from one generation to the next. Unlike the grand families of yore, when it was "normal" for parents to have a multitude of children ranging from 30 to 2 running around them, todays scenario sees a far lesser number of cousins/siblings and by extension, a lesser number of nephews/nieces.

I must admit I'm not ready for a change in Generation. I'm too busy still growing up, silly for a person who'll touch 23 this December. I still find myself making some spectacular bloopers( such as calling women 3-4 years older than me "Aunty" ), and a few lesser ones( calling their husbands "Uncle" ). Having lived a highly sheltered existence, it is a rather refreshing yet strange experience watching the changes in my immediate family - my little cousins all growing up( they're bigger than me now. I wonder when the retribution will begin for all my, ahem, lessons in discipline ), the ones older than me are getting married, and most significantly, one of them just gave birth to a handsome, strapping young lad. And just to rub in the significance of the event, she sent me a snap of when we were little.

I'm going to have to get used to walking on the streets and getting called "Uncle" by the little kids. It's funny though, how my peers/elders believe I'm still childish, and how the youngsters in my family believe I'm all grown up. In languages like Hindi or Malayalam, there happen to be words that describe the age I'm in perfectly, say Bhaiyya or Chetta. Funnily enough, English doesn't seem to have an appropriate equivalent.

Enough about the old geezer, this is a tribute to Akshay Menon Pullat, the boy who pushed me up a generation.

The Proud Parents:
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7186/pict0176wq8.jpg

The Proud Uncle:
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4171/pict0101aj5.jpg

The Proud Uncles: One had a bloody fever
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/8241/akshaynikkimepz9.jpg

The Mother and Me:
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9411/dhanyamesmallwa9.jpg

Personal_

Can I sing?

After Adis( http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=2377501227096695570 ) highly flattering and cheeky testimonial on Orkut, I've been getting a few queries on the lines of "You sing??!!??". Well... I decided it was time to let the interested ones figure out for themselves where I lie on the scale between a Crow and a Cuckoo.

Disclaimer: Coldplay fans. Please do not lynch me. I love them too.

As part of the campus to corporate program in our Office( McAfee for those who don't know ), we were asked to come up with a "Song" summarizing what we'd learnt. Well, this is what I had to say. Please note that this footage is around 8 months old... you'll notice my hand is still intact.



Compositions_

My Online E-Snips Playlist

E-Snips continues to amaze me... what a site :) !

Here's my playlist from the site. Try it out on your own blogs... this post is mostly for my own benefit though.

Powered by eSnips.com

Fun Stuff_

Pullart - Franco ( Initiation )

The second worthwhile bit of music to come out of the Pullart music factory. Once again, my thanks to esnips and Dance Ejay 7 for making this possible.

Song: Franco
Artist: Pullart
Album: Initiation
Year: 2007

Franco.mp3

Compositions_

Pullart - Boy Oh Boy ( Initiation )

This is the first bit of music from my "album" called Initiation. Thank you esnips, for hosting the file, and Dance Ejay 7, for helping me come up with some decent music. Enjoy the music, and praise is welcome.

Song: Boy Oh Boy
Artist: Pullart
Album: Initiation
Year: 2006

Boy Oh Boy.mp3

Compositions_

ATB - 9pm (Till I Come) - Ministry of Sound Trance Nation 31 mix

I first came across this beautiful DJ beat in a football game called "Premier League Stars 99". This is the remix of a Dance track that rocked the UK in the latter half of the 90's. Be patient, the best section is in the middle.

And by the way, in case you would like to Upload your creations, esnips looks very promising. I'll get some of my own compositions up there soon.

ATB - 9pm (Till I ...

Fun Stuff_, Gaming_

Configuring Bittorrent on the BSNL DSL Broadband Router

After finally getting broadband connectivity at home, I spent a couple of days configuring my router to get maximum efficiency for the bittorrent technology. I won't go into much detail as to how I much trial and error was involved in this... we'll go straight to the solution. There are hundreds of tutorials out there on port forwarding, this post will just give info on how to do port forwarding on the router mentioned below.

Connection: BSNL Home UL 900 ADSL2+
Router: Starcom UT300R2U

1) Get your hands on a bittorrent client. I'll explain the next few steps using the uTorrent client.
2) Decide on a non-default port for your client. ISP's are attempting to strangle normal torrent ports, so using a non-default one will help. We'll refer to this number as PORT.
3) Access the router by typing in "192.168.1.1" on your browser. Enter "admin" and "admin" as your default credentials. If your password is non-default, you already know the device well, so I needn't explain what to do.
4) Ensure your PC has a static IP address. You can get its value using the ipconfig command on the Windows console. Let us assume it is 192.168.1.100 for now.
5) Go to the "NAT" option under "Advanced setup", type this IP into the text field, and click on save/apply.
6) Follow the path Advanced Setup->Security->IP Filtering->Incoming. Click on Add. Once the new page loads, follow the following instructions for each field:
Filter Name: uTorrent (or any other name - does not matter)
Protocol: Select "TCP/UDP" from the drop down menu.
Source IP Address: Leave blank
Source Subnet mask: Leave Blank
Source Port: Leave Blank
Destination IP Address: Enter the same IP here as you did in step 5.
Destination Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.255
Destination Port: Enter the PORT value here from step 2.
Click on save/apply and you're good to go.

Now configure the torrent client according to the tutorials for the same, and you'll have finished setting up the device.

Note: Save your router settings before and after you do this setup in two different files. Also, my device goes back to default settings when switched off and on again. You can use these backup files to restore it to a functional state.

Hope this was of help.
Bits, Bytes and Nibbles_