Bad Airtel Customer Service

Recently I had gone on a kshetradanam to South Canara in Karnataka. Unfortunately while staying at Mallige Lodge in Udupi, my Nokia 6600 was stolen from the room.

As soon as I found that the mobile was missing I decided to call the Airtel customer service and block my SIM as well as the IMEI. On a Nokia phone you can find the IMEI number by keying the hash code *#06#.

So I called up Airtel 24 hour customer service number 98450 12345 and was greeted by
a dismembered automated voice response system “Welcome to Airtel customer service, Press 1 if you want in English , 2 for Hindi, 3 for Kannada”.

After 2 more such queries I finally ended up giving my phone number. My request was queued while Rahman tried his best to soothe my nerves with his airtel tunes, the only time I hated listening to AR Rahman’s tune.

I waited on the line for 1 minute, 2 minutes…. 3 minutes…. 5 minutes and finally was disconnected from the line. I tried croaking ‘Hello’ on the phone for sometime before finally deciding that Airtel’s pathetic service would be of no use.

While Airtel’s ads have been boasting of service availability even in remote inaccessible places, its service in urban Bangalore itself is awful. Most of the time the phone calls are disconnected after 1 minute and hasn’t improved even after complaining umpteen times.

Will it ever improve ?

A new outlook

OK. I agree the thoughts on the blog are still the same and will still be the same in future. So whatz the change in outlook ?

I was just talking about the looks of the blog. Since I added Google search and Ads I found that the space provided by the previous template for the sidebar wasn't enough to squeeze in both these features.

But I didn't have enough time to change the blog design. But 2 weeks vacation has given me enough time to pick up a newer template.

For sometime I tried tweaking the old one. Although it was easy to tweak the colors and other such parameters I foud this nice pleasant template and changed it.

Easier to use a new one rather than changing the old one ;-)

If you feel that anything more can be changed do put them in the comments section.

Thought for the day: Weakness

I am a avid follower of KBC 2 since it started 2 weeks back. Usually at the start of the serial Amitabh Bachan gives a short speech which most of the time is pretty good.

This time he had an anecdote to share that is presented here in my own words.

There was a person who had a big paunch. Once he went with one of his friends for shopping.

When his friend suggested a small T-Shirt, he dismmised it saying, "The T-Shirt is not designed well since it reveals my big waistline."

His friend replied back, " The problem is not with the T-Shirt but with your big paunch."

So the moral of the story is don't blame others for your weakness. Instead improve yourself and convert your weakness into a strength. That is the way to success.

Identifying counterfeit Indian Rupees

I mostly use citibank online banking facility. But since arun wanted a demand draft I had to visit the citibank branch near South end circle last friday.

While at the branch I noticed a circular about the security features that each of the Indian rupee notes have to desist anit-social elements from generating counterfeit notes.

The 500 rupee note has around 9 security features, each of which is created using special techniques. Some of the features like the watermark and the security thread are well known to everybody.

But did you know,
1. that the note is printed in variable colour ink a.k.a colour-shifting ink so that numeral 500 will be visible in green and blue at certain angles.
2. On the top side , to the right of the Gandhi image, the number of the denomination (ie 500 in this case) is written as Latent Image. The lettering will be visible only when viewing it by keeping it horizontal to the eye.
3. Numbers are also printed in flourescent ink and hence can be viewed with ultra violet light.
4. On the front (left side) and the back (right side) there is a small floral design. The front design is blank while the back side design is filled. When seen against light both of them should match to form a single floral design.

Apart from these, it also has features to help the visually impaired. The numbers and certain other features are prined in Intaglio printing ie raised prints. This allows the visually impaired to recognize the denomination.

One more feature that helps the visually challenged is the Identification mark. These are small shapes (Vertical Rectangle - Rs20, Square-Rs50, Triangle-Rs100, Circle-Rs500, Rs.1000-Diamond) found on the left side of the note.

The Indaglio printing and the Identification mark are one of the reasons why the RBI has ruled stapling of notes as illegal.

Also people should know more about these features since finally these are created for our benefit. Finally I request who ever reads this post to refrain from writting on notes since they might overshadow some of these security elements on the note.

To know more about these features visit RBI website.

Ignorance is not bliss !!! ;-)

Google indexes me !

Just yesterday we had managed to setup my roommate arun's laptop to access the NET through the WiFi hotspot that we had setup earlier. And any guesses for the first website that we tried out ?

Yeah thatz right it was google . From the time google burst on the web it has been on the top with new inovations and has always been a little special.

So I was really surprised when my site was listed by google search . Me and my room mates have been trying quite some time for this and my room mate rajakumar had proudly announced some time back that google Ad Sense had started working at his blog.

But after the good part comes that sad part. Google is yet to index my blog. So as of now only my blog URL can be searched in google ;-).

WiFi spot @ home

My roommate arun recently bought a Linksys WLAN Router.

So with the arrival of the Router 2 days back our home has one more thing to boast about a "WiFi Hotspot".

My roomate rajakumar has covered the whole idea of connecting our BSNL broadband to the WLAN router @ his blog

So I wouldn't add anything more about the how to configure WLAN Router with a BSNL broadband which also provides a router.

But it felt really good to get hands dirty with routers , networks and some real thinking on how to get the configurations working. ;-)

Update:
We finally configured my roommates Dell Laptop yesterday night and got the WiFi access up and running !!