1. They do not study the area carefully - they lay grass (lawn) where there is not enough sunlight - The grass does not grow well and you end up having to remove it later and put something like baby chips, gravel, etc. This shows their lack of expertise.

2. They do not have much knowledge in different types of plants. They have a standard set - heliconia and some creepers. These they force upon you saying that it will look great. You will end up having a mini forest of Heliconias.

3. They do a standard set of things for all projects - they do not show any creativity in coming up with new ideas. So unless you are willing to micromanage the design and layout, they will do a terrible job.

4. Their monthly maintenance is extremely poor. Do not even consider signing an annual maintenance contract (AMC) with them. They will take your money and give you scant service for the full year. If you have some issues, there is a government like red tape to ensure that it is taken care of in the lease efficient way. You need to give the complaint to them in writing. They will get the complaint (through their sub contractor) after one month and then decide if to take action on the issue! - all this are written based on my experience with them

5. If you are not careful, they will try to use expensive items and charge you a fortune for them.

6. As Perfect Agri is doing big projects from govt and other private companies, they are unlikely to give house type projects much importance. This is reflected in their overall service and efficiency.

We had to do all the designing of the landscape region ourselves. Perfect Agri was OK in executing what we had designed. We did not have to micromanage the everyday operations. However, that is the only thing positive about them. In all other respects they are terrible.

If you plan on getting your plot landscaped, the best option might be to get a gardener and make him do all the work under your supervision. If you need to have larger scale landscaping try to go with some of the other small companies that are starting out in Trivandrum these days instead of Perfect Agri Management Corporation.

Fist set (from my server log analysis):
toseeka.com
angelinajoliewatch.com
bestyellowpages.com
challengethisdeal.com
codesheaven.com
forallcouponcodes.info
k-live.com
localpages.com
metacrawler.com
onlinecouponall.info
rr.com
superfreshgrocery.com
tlc-ceramics-and-gifts.com
webcrawler.com
usfreebie.com
grocercoupons.com
shoppingessentials.com
mypoints.com
freecoupon-s.net
mywebsearch.com
nexplore.com
parkingspa.com
pantone-music.com
searchnut.com
direct-us.net
couponmoms.com
shortcut.com
cuponsonline.com
optimum.net
burrocacao.net
bradslist.com
smartsourcecoupons.biz
couponbook.com
shopica.com
wwwfreebieforce.com

Second set (from sources on internet):
LoanForSmallBusiness.info
nuseek.com
creditcard1024.info
instafinder.com
instantcreditcardproviders.com
creditcarduk.com
center.us.com
yourcreditcards.org
frequentflyer.com
www-creditcards.us
globalcreditcard.com
www-creditcard.biz
www-creditcard.info
wealthygeek.com
moneysearch.com
creditcardclub.com
cards.com
creditcard4you.info
goodsearch.com
loanspersonal.info
boakwon.com
findstuff.com
starware.com
dalsemi.org
avantfind.com
cencoinc.com
personalweb.com
credituniondirectory.info
equestbiz.com
unsecuredcredit.com
br11.com
alsaunders.com
janicevidal.com
ebay.com
bankcard.com
gascreditcardsinfo.com
creditcaard.net
consumerratings.com
flowersland.com
checking-accounts-101.com
cheapcreditcards.com
yoursearchfinder.com
avotv.com
unsecuredloandirectory.com
banks.com
cardfind.com
evahuang.com
homeloansafterbankruptcy.net
wrenkeasler.com
loan-bad-credit.com
credit-card.sc
unionworkercredit.com
surveynetworks.com
applyforacreditcards.net
pages.us.com
techbuyer.com
searchcreditcards.com
moneyorder.com
radiofreecash.com
acreditcard.org
acceptcreditcardonlineguide.info
ezfinda.com
wwwcreditcards.com
etctv.com
look-up-results.com
vcd1688.com
apersonalloan.net
mysmallbusinessloan.info
personalonloans.com
mojizu.com
the-personal-loan.com
onlinepersonalloans.info
bad-personal-loan-cash.com
loanscalculators.net
onlinepersonalloan.info
onlypersonalloans.com
personal-loans-101.info
loanportal.biz
personalsloans.info
peoplepc.com
gocoole.net
l-o-a-ns.org
loansz.com
badcredit-yesloan.com
creditloanpoor.com
chemeketa.edu
dpxmldsl.verizon.net
zerodown.com
www-personalloans.info
waumucards.com
loanaloan.com
collateralnow.com
lighthousefinancial.com
bankruptcyamerica.net
exciteher.com
personalonloan.com
tastefulfindings.com
allbestloan.com
tsp.com
cardltd.com
firstcommonwealth.com
mortgagesportal.net
bestpersonalloans.us
armeniaweek.com
picks-finder.com
ownloanpro.com
homebusinessmag.com
unsecuredbusinessloansusa.com
quackloan.com

As I was already using a Xincom 603 Twin WAN Router (with VPN endpoint capabilities), I aimed to make use of the VPN functionality of the Xincom 603 for this purpose. For the client side, I used The Greenbow VPN client.

Setting up a VPN is a complicated task. There are many parameters that you need to get right. Essentially there are two phases of negotiation for IPSEC VPN. You need to make sure that the client and the router are configured correctly with the same parameters.

Xincom documentation for VPN set up is very minimal. So I was having a tough time setting it up. What came to my rescue was documentation for similar hardware from Syswan. This documentation does a very good job of describing the various steps involved in setting up the Xincom 603 router. As the underlying hardware of Xincom and Syswan is essentially the same, you will have no problem getting your VPN configured with this guide.

VPN configuration on Xincom consist of two pages - IKE Global Setup and IPSec Policy Setup. Do not get overwhelmed my the many options. Spend some time playing with these pages and the VPN client and you will figure out the essentials.

As for the configuration of the client, Syswan documentation comes to your aid too. It so happened that the VPN client that I chose - The Greenbow VPN client - is essentially the same as the client that Syswan provides to its users. So if you follow the guide for the client from Syswan, it is very easy to get your VPN up and running in not time.

Xincom has the "distinguished ID" in the IPSEC Policy setup page for Remote Security Gateway. This is what you need to use if you do not have a public static ip address for your client side. The corresponding entry for distinguished ID is "Local ID" -> Email on the P1 Advanced page of The Greenbow client. You also need to make sure that the "Aggressive Mode" under "Advanced Features" is checked.

I however had some issues with the VPN client running from my LAN network at home. The problems were caused by the Xincom box that I used at home - Xincom 602. Though I was able to establish a tunnel through the Greenbow client, I was not able to ping the remove endpoint or any computers in the remote network.

Xincom 602 supports VPN passthrough. However, its firewall has some strict rules and it detects the packets from the VPN router as "port scan" and drops them. So you need to configure some Firewall Exception rules in order to make the client work through Xincom 602.

I was able to get some guides by contacting Xincom support. These guides tell you to Sysfilter exceptions for UDP ports 192, 500 and for ESP and GRE protocols. For ESP and GRE protocols give port range as 0-0. You also need to do protocol binding for these UDP ports and ESP & GRE protocols. I also added UDP port 4500 to the list. You can find these guides from Xincom here - see "Advanced Configuration Guides" towards the bottom of the page.

The Greenbow VPN client costs money. So if you want a free VPN client, you may want to consider Shrew Soft VPN client. I have not tried the Shrew Soft VPN client but it looks promising.

The Economic Times reported that in major cities, the prices have fallen by about 5% - 10%. In some cities like Kochi where the prices had sky rocketed in the past few years, the fall has been even sharper. The ET also reported that there is a sharp fall in the number of transactions. The property developers were also adopting a wait and watch stance to see if they need to shelf some of their more ambitious projects.

Todays Malayala Manorama - the leading daily in Kerala - also had an article as to how the not lowering of interest rates by RBI has dashed the hopes of real estate dealers and developers of a recovery. A recovery - meaning the prices have started to go down.

The other interesting tidbit that I came across is that the number of real estates "for sale" advertisements by brokers have gone done significantly.

All this points to an impending crash in real estate prices in India.

One need not look back as far as the internet boom to realize what is in store for real estate prices in India. The recent bursting of the housing boom in US is a more accurate reflection of the scene currently in India. The only difference is that the bursting of this bubble is not yet over. It might take another 2 more years before the housing prices in the US reach bottom.

The rise in land prices in India has been so drastic that there seems to be no logical reason behind it. Much of the rise in price is due to speculation. There are land brokers and real estate agents who pay an advance for a plot of land and then resell the land to a third party for a huge profit. This practise has been so rampant that it has created huge artificial demand.

This method of advancing a token amount and then flipping the land to a third party in effect creates highly leveraged conditions. High leverage, in layman's terms means the method to generate profits without putting the required capital. Using leverage is required for certain business activities, but when it is carried out on a scale that is not controlled, it leads to a highly unstable situation.

When the prices start to fall, these speculative interest will collapse as a house of cards. Panic will set in and people will just stop buying houses or property. This will create a huge surplus supply and the prices will bottom out.

In a normal cycle this increase and decrease in prices will usually be on a slower pace. However, when the increase has been so drastic, the fall in prices will be even more drastic. The fall in prices will also create a huge vacuum in demand as genuine customers of real estate and housing property will wait to see how far the prices will fall.

This is what is currently happening in the United States. The crash of the real estate prices in India is guaranteed. The only question is when. As many said after the internet boom & bust, what has gone up will have to come down - gravity still rules!

I have the recording quality on my Windows MCE kept to the best available option. With this option an hour of recording usually comes to be dvrms file of about 4GB size.

The first step in my process is to use DCut to edit out the unwanted commercials and buffers at the beginning and end of the file. DCut is an easy to use program that is controlled with the MCE remote. I do not use the "compress" option only the "cut" option. The compress option converts the dvrms file to wmv. However I find that the resulting wmv file quality is quite bad.

The cut option of Dcut takes out the unwanted portions of the program and re-saves the file as a dvrms file. Those who do not want to cut out commercials can skip this first step.

The next step is to convert the dvrms file to wmv file using Windows Movie Maker. By default WMM does not take in dvrms files. However, this post explains how to work around this problem.

I import the dvrms file into windows movie maker and then drag it onto the story line. Note that while importing the file uncheck the option of creating clips. If this option is set, it will take a long time to import the file.

Then I save it out to the computer and use settings of 2Mbps for the output file option. Windows movie maker takes a while to save the file. On my computer, it take about 1 hour to save out a 1 hour program.

Once Windows Movie Maker has done its job, you have a wmv file ready to be burnt onto DVD. To burn the file, I use DVDFlick. It is a free (open source project) DVD authoring tool and it supports many formats. I find it to be very reliable. It has option of manually adjusting the bit rate if required.

DVDFlick also takes a while to do its job. Once it is finished, you have your DVD ready. Store it away in your DVD album case and you can now delete the huge dvrms files and also the intermediate wmv file.

Hope this description has helped you with your problem of converting dvrms files to WMV and then to DVD. If it has, I really appreciate it if you could leave a comment.

The people at the reception and leasing office are very polite and courteous. However the real test of customer service is evident only when there is a problem. For us, the problem was bad cable TV (comcast) reception.

Every 30 seconds or so the TV screen will go blank and then come back on again. The very first day we noticed it and made a complaint. The people at the reception told me that they will take care of it. Nothing happened for the next 2 days. Then I call them again and they tell me that somebody will come in and repair it the next day (4th day from complaint).

We were not at home when they came in and tried to fix the problem, however when we came back home, the problem was still there. The next day I call and complain again. They inform me that within the next hour somebody will come and take care of the problem. It has been 4 days since. No one has 'taken care' of the problem.

So in short, the place is nice, but the service is awful. They do not keep their promises. If you are lucky to go through without a problem, your stay will be nice. However even if you have a small problem for the management to solve, you will have to wait and wait and wait....

I thought it might be helpful for people considering GetFriday virtual assistant to have an idea of what they might be getting into. So I am providing below excerpts from the emails that I have exchanged with my assistant, her team leader and team leader's leader. (Names have been suppressed to protect the identities of all parties involved)

Email to Team leader's leader:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Xxxx,

I have been using the services of GetFriday for about 2 months. I am writing this email to let you know of the terrible experience that I had with my assistant (Yyyy) over the past few weeks. I am providing below only a summary of the series of events. If you need more details like the chain of emails, I will be glad to forward them to you.

October 26th - I ask my assistant to create additional content for two web pages. Specifically, I mention the following:

"Please make sure that the content is not duplication of content already present on the page. Please also make sure that content is not lifted out of pages on the internet. Ideas can be taken from the internet, however wording and sentences need to be original - that is no plagiarism ."

and I also mention:

"Once the content is ready, please send it to me."

October 29th - Yyyy informs me that she has sent the contents to some technical person.
I inform her that she has to send the contents to me. She then sends me the contents.
To my surprise I see that most of it is just copy of the content that is already present on the pages (to which the content is to be added).

October 31st - Yyyy sends me revised contents
I notice that some paragraphs are lifted verbatim from pages on the internet.
I send a reply with copy to Zzzz (Yyyy's team leader) pointing out this issue.
Zzzz replies that the issue will be taken care of.

November 2nd - Yyyy sends me revised contents

November 6th - I notice that some other paragraphs of the content are lifted verbatim from other pages.

If I had trusted my assistant and used the content, I would have been in trouble. How can I have an assistant who does not follow the instructions and whom I cannot trust? It almost feels like I need another assistant to manage Yyyy! Rather than saving me time, she seems to be costing me more time. Escalating this matter to the Team Leader (Zzzz) did not make any difference at all.

Please look into this matter and take necessary action.
Regards,
Jjjj

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another Email that I sent to the team leader:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Zzzz,

I have something that I need to bring to your notice.

The assistant who currently works for me is Yyyy. I feel that she has very low level of comprehension skills. This is not the first time that I am feeling this way. I have been hoping that she would show some improvement. At times I even wonder if it is genuine lack of comprehension or just a ploy to buy time and get away with doing less work.

An example is a task I gave her recently. The description was as follows: (please read below to understand the chain of events) ....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These experiences are on the Dubai - Paris (CDG) sector.

1. Standing Room Only in Business Class Lounge
October 1, 2007 - the day of this writing.
After wading through the usual crowds at Dubai airport, I reach the business class lounge to find a big queue (about 20 in line) to enter the lounge. As I look for some explanation for this, I find passengers holding economy class tickets in the line - apparently some flight was delayed too much and the economy class passengers were given business class lounge facilities.

When I finally reached the receptionist, she told me discreetly that there is another business class lounge. We went there and the situation there was slightly better.

2. Boarding
Emirates do not call first & business class passengers at the beginning of boarding. What they announce is "First & Business Class passengers may board at their own convenience." This means, either wait till all the rush is finished or squeeze through the line, inconvenience other people and get it. Even after you get through the boarding gate, you will be in line with the economy class on the boarding platform. At times, there will be a separate entry into the aircraft further down, but this is rare.

3. Meals Sold Out
One time when I mentioned my selection for dinner, the hostess politely informs me that they have run out of this option.

4. Broken TV
On the Paris - Dubai flight, my TV & remote were not working. The crew tried a few times to 'reset' it, but to no avail. They informed me that the flight was full and no place to re-seat me. I asked if they had a portable DVD player - the answer was no. For the inconvenience caused, they gave me a box of Godiva chocolates.

So, if you are considering flying business class on the 'renowned' Emirates airlines, think thrice. You may be better off flying economy with Emirates or business with some other airline.

Bon Voyage

So if you have to decide between Taj Green Cove and The Leela for buffet lunch, it is a no brainer - The Leela wins it hands down.

She had a drivers license, but it was a few years since she had last driven a car in India and she needed a refreshing of her India driving skills. We had been in the US for sometime and she had gotten used to the automatic Accord and US driving conditions.

The receptionist at the Maruthi Driving School explained the options we had. My wife could do a 22 day regular course for about Rs. 5000 or do a 8 day refresher course for Rs. 2000. MDS teaches driving in one of 3 cars - Maruti Esteem, Alto or Wagon R. The cost for the Esteem course was slightly higher than that for the other two. The 22 day course would have 3 theory classes, 5 simulation classes and the rest would be on road teaching.

We decided on going for the 22 day course with Esteem. The receptionist mentioned that the next batch was starting on the coming Sunday and the first class would be a theory class. She asked us to call on Saturday evening or Sunday morning to find out the exact time for the class.

So far the experience was OK, but this is where all the trouble began.

When I called the school on Saturday evening at around 6:30, the person informed me that all the instructors had already left and I can call the next day at 6:30 in the morning to find out the time for the class. So the next day I call them at 6:30 AM and the lady at the other end has no clue as to when the class is to begin. She tells me something like "T3 is at 3pm - is that what you are asking for?"!! Well what is T3? I had not clue, but I guessed it might be Theory Class 3.

Once I explained my situation again, she asked me to call at 9:00 to know the time of the class. When I call at 9, the lady who answers still has no idea of when the class is to begin. She however takes my phone number and promises to call be back.

She calls back in about 20 minutes and it was my wife who answered the phone as I was driving. The lady tells her that there is no new batch starting that day. So my wife wants to know when the next new batch will start. The lady seems to take a guess and say "Wednesday". However, she wants us to go to the school right away and register.

When my wife informs her that initially we were told that we needed to join only on the day the class was to start, the lady asks her to come and register on Tuesday. Why on Tuesday? They wanted to give the schedule. Why can't they not give the schedule on the day the class starts? The lady gets irritated and says curtly "OK, Come on Wednesday".

Since the classes were not being scheduled as they had mentioned why should we pay fees upfront and wait indefinitely?

So here is the bottom line - The Maruti driving school is not professionally run - the people there have scant idea of when the classes and batches start. The people you interact with does not have the courtesy of even talking to you in a professional way. Avoid Maruti Driving School, Trivandrum

1. OS - Windows Media Center Edition 2005 (I was able to buy MCE 2005 by itself - this was the last piece that they had)
2. Motherboard - Intel D975XBX2 codenamed Bad Axe 2
3. Processor - Intel Core2Duo E6300 1.86GHz, 1066FSB, 2MB Cacahe - retail box
4. Memory - Two of DDR2 1GB PC6400 800MHz CAS 4-5-4 (2GB)
5. HDD - ST3500641AS 7200RPM, 16MB Buffer (350GB)
6. Video Card - ATI X1650 Pro 512MB PCIe (PCI Express)
7. DVD Drive - Pioneer 18x18 Double Layer 8x Dual
8. BTC Wireless Keyboard & optical mouse
9. TV Tuner cards - Two Hauppauge WinTV 150 MCE
10. Atech Flash 11 in 1 Internal Card Reader
11. Case - Silverstone SST-LC17-B
12. CPU Cooler Fan - Zalman CNPS9500AT 775
13. Power Supply - Seasonic S12 650W, 120mm Fan
14. AirPace Wireless Network Card WiFi (802.11g) PCIe
15. Custom cooler fan & kit for ATI video card - I guess this was from Arctic cooling

The main functionality that I wanted to add to my setup was the DVR (digital video recording) capability. I also wanted to add the ability to watch movies downloaded (legally) over the internet. As more and more companies (iTunes, Netflix, Amazon Unbox, Cinemanow to name a few) were moving rapidly into the area of legal downloadable movies, I wanted to be prepared for the emerging scenario.

The other motive that I had in being prepared for internet movies was that I live in India where renting a good quality DVD can be a real challenge. More often than not, the DVDs that you rent from the DVD/VCD rental shops are scratched all over and midway through the movie you realize that you are not destined to know the full story. DVD after DVD, myself and my wife have been frustrated with this issue.

In addition, most of the VCDs (Video CDs) available for rent are either pirated versions or of very poor quality (often called "camera print" - guess what that is). For the uninitiated, "camera print" refers to the process of recording a film with a video camera while it is being played in the movie theater. You can often hear people laughing or making all sorts of noises and shadows moving here and there.

Once I decided to go for a home theater PC, I had two options - 1. Buy a branded HTPC (in India they are available from HCL) or 2. To build one myself. As I was to visit the US for a few weeks, I decided on the latter option all the while drooling on the prospect of spending endless hours at Frys. I knew that it would be impossible to build, assemble and make it all functional in the short period that I was in the US - this not being the main purpose of my visit to the US. So I decided to buy as many components as I can and to assemble it as best as I could and leave the main configuration and set up for when I was back in India.