Intel P4 3Ghz (HT), 1GB Samsung DDR2, 200GB HDD (80GB SATA, 120GB IDE), XFX NVIDIA 6200 TC (128MB onboard, supporting 256MB), SoundMAX onboard audio, Sony DVDR/CDRW Combo Drive, Creative Vista Webcam, Widcomm Bluetooth Adapter, 17″ CRT monitor, TVC Gold 104-key keyboard, HP optical mouse, Labtec Axis-301 headset, Sennheiser HD 212Pro.

Not bad for an office machine, huh?

The only change to the above configuration is that I’ll put putting in another monitor (I think I’ll only get a 15″ monitor though) to the setup for a dual-display workdesk (the first in the office I might add).

The TVC Gold keyboard is the best in the world and there is no keyboard built (at least none that I know of) that I would exchange it for. Incidently, this and the combo drive are the only ‘white’ hardware left in my corner (everything else is black/silver).

Intel Corp., the world’s largest computer-chip maker, plans to spend up to $400 million on a chip assembly and testing plant in India, Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said on Tuesday.

In addition to Intel, Mr. Maran has apparently been making rounds of other offices as well as is amply clear from his statements mentioning other potential investments. He threw up some big names there.

Anyway, what is especially cool about what he had to say about Intel’s agreement is the presence of Noida in the list of cities that are supposed to be in Intel’s potential site for their investment. Noida is just 5 hours away from me by road.

Potential locations include the southern port city of Madras, tech capital Bangalore or the Noida industrial township near the Indian capital, Maran said.

Madras (now called Chennai BTW) is where I’m betting Intel will finally settle down. The two factors I see being key in that decision would be that it is an international port and a State capital. If Intel wants this to be a manufacturing hub, they’ll need easy access to an export site. Chennai gives them that. Tamil Nadu (the State) will of course bend over backwards to accomodate their wishes in light of the investment and potential employment to be generated.

Bangalore is a city that has grown too fast for its own good. I don’t think it’s going to be able to cope up with this fast pace much longer and the city, already straining on the seams will likely see a collapse of infrastructure. In a recent report I read, Bangalore’s hospitality industry is charging rates equivalent to New York (one of the most expensive cities of the world) only because the demand if far in excess of supply. It might have surpassed Silicon Valley to become the biggest hub of IT, but in my opinion, given the state of affairs, a significant investment in that city would be foolhardy.

Noida is a cool city. Planned. Maintained. Indulged by the politicians. Almost a suburb of the National Capital. It has everything that Intel could want. The only reason I think Intel will not want to set up it’s infrastructure in Noida is because it’s not a port city and they might not get that kind of resources made available to them as they would in Chennai. IMHO, Noida might be a better city to be in, but not necessarily vis-a-vis Intel’s business point of view.

So let’s see where they finally land.

OMG! Run! Hide! Stock up stuff. They will take over the world! All those movies about robots taking over Earth are coming true! Nobody is safe! Nowhere is safe! It’s the beginning of the end! OMG! OMG!!!!

Interesting article though.

"I am meeting Intel chief Craig Barett in the end of this month and I have one point agenda to press him for setting up a manufacturing facility here," Maran told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar.

Reuters has a slightly differently phrased report but says more or less the same thing.

If it were any other person, I would simply shrug and say, “Bah, another reason for a foreign visit.” But when it comes to this man, I sit up and read the reports carefully. Why? Because Mr. Maran is one of those rare politicians who also work well. He’s 37 or maybe 38 (not sure) and that was perhaps one of the reasons he was chosen for the IT Ministry in the first place. Among his achievements are the recent opening up of .IN domain and a comprehensive broadband policy where it was made clear that anything below 256kbps simply can’t be labelled as ‘broadband’. That put a lot of ISPs in trouble since IIRC at least Sify was selling a 64kbps limited connection under its broadband range of products.

What is also significant is his statement that it that he is going there with a one point agenda. That would mean that he has specific plans and offers to put across to Intel people. Besides, since a Cabinet level minister is going, that itself says a lot on how seriously the Central Government supports this move and overt solicitation. He will have a significant arsenal of candies and goodies in his bag when he sits down with the Intel bigwigs.

Mr. Maran has already convinced Nokia and Motorola. That itself takes care of the mobile market. We will soon have locally manufactured units. And with the Intel manufacturing unit under his belt, he will find it much easier to convince others in the hardware manufacturing business. It’s the brand power baby! That is why it is so important that India gets this unit instead of China (the other contender).

Good luck Mr. Maran!

• RAM
  I had 512Mb RAM a few weeks ago (266Mhz) but I saw that WinXP was using 500+ Mb of page file all the time and a lot of write activity was slowing down my work. So, I got myself another 512Mb. (Aside: Earlier there were two 256Mb DIMMs and now there are two 512Mb DIMMs). Only, while doing the transfer, some dust transferred into one of the slots. That’s not good and made my system super unstable. That slot needs cleaning and once RAM is installed, some non-critical work to be done to test the system stability. Oh well, 2 weeks is a long time to wait to do that. So here it comes.
• Sylpheed-Claws
  My MUA, Sylpheed-Claws has reached v1.0.0! There’s even an interim release v1.0.9.1 (development) out. I am still running 0.9.13cvs23. So a lot of bug-fixes and enhancements awaiting ahoy! I thought about doing this in-between many times but I’ve not had that much time to myself past few days when I would want to do this.
• Gaim
  I have completely shifted to Gaim for all my IM needs. I don’t voice and I don’t webcam—the only two things missing (for now) in Gaim. They have released the next version 1.1.2 with some changes. Apparently a major re-write is in progress in some component since I keep coming across loose mentions to that effect (Note to self: Pay more attention to Gaim!).

Okay, time to get all that done and tested. Hopefully, I’ll be able to clean the RAM slot and the system will continue to run stable. As of writing this, my system has been running for 2 weeks 1 day 10 hours and 35 minutes without having to reboot. This is by far the longest in 2 years that I have had this mean machine.

I panicked. I simply took it off, and out of my system and like a good boy in an IT company told the tech support guy what had happened. He, of course, wanted to hook it back in and boot a few times to see if it was still ‘alive’. Anybody with even a little experience with tech support will know they don’t listen. Anybody who’s ever provided any tech support will know there’s no point in listening to the users (hearing and listening to are two different things!). So, after a few attempts, I put my foot down and told the guy there was way too much precious data in the HDD for me to lose because of his experiments. I was given a 40G drive from the office to back up ‘critical’ data. I sourced another 80G to back-up the ‘not-so-critical’ data. I had another 40G which is already full of ’somewhat-critical’ data.

With all backups done, the 120G gone for replacement and the four HDDs hooked in, it looked funny. Here are the pics:

This is from the side.

This is from an angle.

Up close and personal.

Obviously, I did it myself with the tech support person giving me moral support whenever I would bump into him. I should’ve been fair and perhaps let him do everything like others though. I’m divided on that.

A few days later, the replacement drive came in. However I had enough work that I didn’t want to spend a few hours shuttling the drives, then data, and then drive letter associations in WinXP. But soon I did. And now I’m back to ‘normal’ (if there is such a thing).

Yes, I have 180G installed in my computer at office.
No, I don’t know what’s on the drives. It’s all encrypted and belongs to an imaginary friend I met on the Internet.

The wireless service is designed to forward customers’ e-mails from a desktop to a mobile device and synchronize changes between the two. RIM will offer three BlackBerry wireless devices–the 7730, 7230 and 6230–to customers in the country, the company said.

I am an Airtel subscriber. Let’s see what these guys come out with for the consumer and how soon it reaches my circle.

• Script Mail (a regional language handwriting recognition & mailing system) – HP Research Centre, Bangalore
• K-yan (a compact media center with a projector) – IIT Mumbai
• Shakti (an English to Indian languages translator software) – IIIT, Hyderabad
• Digital Gangetic Plain Project (Connecting regions without last-mile connectivity through Wi-Fi) – Media Labs Asia (in collaboration with MIT)

You really have to read the article to actually appreciate the level of work that has already been achieved–Script Mail will probably be selling early next year as a finished product; K-Yan has already sold 180 units; Shakti is going strong and translating to Hindi, Marathi & Telugu pretty fairly; and DGP has an active wireless triangle between Kanpur, Lucknow and Allahabad and is expanding.

Wow, huh?