Hidden Wonder !!

The first time i heard about Venugopala Swamy temple was in 2002. When SM Krishna was the Chief Minister of Karnataka, There was a drought in Southern Karnataka and KRS dam built over river Cauvery never touched it's full capacity of 124 feet. It was then that this hidden wonder was unveiled. At that time i never got a chance to visit this temple. When i had a long weekend during Vijaya Dashami, me and my wife decided to visit this temple.

We started off from my house in Mysore and reached KRS. At KRS a bridge over river Cauvery will take us to famous Brindavan Gardens. Instead of turning towards left, if you continue straight, you will reach a village called Katteri. Before getting into that village at a junction where three roads meet, turn towards left and after driving straight for 3 kms, You will reach a village called Hosa Kannambadi. In Hosa Kannamnadi village drive slowly and look for a Sign board towards left which gives directions towards Venugopala Swamy temple. Its a gully which pass through the village and green paddy fields. After driving for half a Kilometer, You can see a wonderful temple on the banks of Cauvery.



It was a huge temple situated at scenic location on the banks of Cauvery. It is somewhat similar to Somanathapura temple in architecture (Hoysala style). There is an inscription in old Kannada on the walls of this temple. When KRS dam was built this temple got submerged in backwaters and was visible only during drought. When old Kannambadi village got submerged new village was built and called Hosa kannambadi. People brought the Venugopala Swamy idol from the submerged temple and still worship it in a temple in Hosa Kannambadi through we didn't visit that temple.




Thanks to Khoday foundation which has taken up the task of shifting this temple, we are now able to see this temple at any season of the year. There is no idol yet at the temple which they are planning to bring in after work is fully completed. The temple looks new as they have polished stones. The architecture of the temple is inspiring and after completion it promises to be prominent tourist destination.
So if you visit Mysore, never miss this temple. You can enjoy the beautiful architecture and serenity of the cauvery backwaters.

Semiconductor industry to grow by 10.3% in 2010

Global research firm Gartner today raised it outlook of semiconductor industry by predicting that revenues will fall by 17% in 2009 compared to 2008, which is better than their earlier estimate of minus 22%. Gartner's research Vice-President Bryan Lewis said in a statement that "The semiconductor market has performed better than expected as was evident when second quarter semiconductor revenue increased 17 per cent in sequential sales". He attributed this to stimulus package in China and strong consumer demand as a result of reduced price of PC and LCD TV.

According to Gartner all major segments of semiconductor market are expected to decline in 2009. The largest segment of the semiconductor market, ASSP(Appliction-Specific Standard Product) will reach $57.2 billion in 2009, but this is a 16.5 per cent decline from 2008 revenue. The memory market, the second largest segment is forecast to touch $41 billion, a 13.5 per cent decline from last year. The microcomponents segments is on place to reach $39.4 billion in 2009, a 19.2 per cent decline from 2008.

In its outlook for 2010, Gartner said the worldwide semiconductor revenue was expected to total $233 billion, a 10.3 per cent increase from 2009 projections. Gartner expects the fourth quarter of 2009 to be positive but foundries have reported they are concerned that demand may drop of more than seasonal in the fourth quarter and it may carry into first quarter of 2010. Gartner's most likely scenario was a negative five per cent growth in the first quarter of 2010 as customers take a pause and absorb all the devices they purchased over the previous three quarters.

Stop operation lotus and focus on development

Today's by-poll election result held for 5 legislative assembly seats in Karnataka is a wake-up call for the ruling BJP. It's true that BJP has gained two seats and has opened an account in Chamaraja nagar district for the first time but two of it's heavyweight candidates, housing minister V.Somanna and C.P.Yogeshwar has bite the dust. Both these people have switched sides and had jumped to BJP within a year after having won on a congress ticket.

It's well known that BJP now having 117 seats is more stable and there is no need of "operation lotus" anymore. All it has to do now is just contain infighting within the party to complete it's five year term. People have given clear mandate today rejecting party hoppers. Now Yeddyurappa should focus on sorting out sickening power issue, improving infrastructure of Bangalore and development of a state as a whole.

Chip sales up in July

Global chip sales in July are believed to have increased by a seasonally adjusted 6 percent over the previous month, according to analyst Bruce Diesen at Carnegie Group (Oslo, Norway). He is expecting that the three-month moving average of global chip sales to be $17.5 billion, compared to $17.2 billion achieved in june. However, compared to June 2008, chip sales are down 21% this year.




Diesen suggests that handset chips, which were weak in June, probably improved more than PC chips. Chinese handset sales improved in July. Memory chips were aided by the trend of more memory per handset including 16GB NAND memory in the third quarter of this year. He also said automotive chips should improve because different governmental initiatives.

ASIC design outsourcing slowed down in 2008 : Gartner

According to the report prepared by Gartner analyst Ganesh Gurumurthy, the survey conducted over 40 vendors offering chip design services has revealed that outsourced design projects saw only a marginal increase of 6.5% in 2008 compared to 34% growth in 2007. According to the the report, growth in full-chip and partial design and back-end physical design outsourcing slowed to about 20 percent, 24 percent and 3 percent, down from 27 percent, 38 percent and 52 percent, respectively, in 2007.

Earlier report prepared by gartner in March said that the number of new ASIC projects will drop 22% in 2009 compared to 2008. Lack of visibility, deteriorating business conditions made chip vendors to cut back or postpone new chip designs in third and fourth quarter of 2008. This took toll on chip design service providers and semiconductor IP vendors as they faced delays and cancellations of projects.

Gartner further advised that with a recovery in chip design activity expected starting in the Q4 2009, design service providers should prepare now to invest, especially in engineering resources, to meet a likely surge in demand for design services and support activity.

Masala Restaurant - Uttarahalli main road

Two of my team mates Mahesh and Santosh gave us a treat today as they got promotion. after considering several restaurants we decided to go for Masala restaurant which is on Uttarahalli main road. Most of my team mates are vegetarians.

Here's what i feel about Masala restaurant and my ratings(scale of ten).

1. Ambiance : 7/10, It was a big hall. Seats were comfortable however there was no AC. There is an attached bar but we didn't order any beverages. There was ample parking space.
2. Non-veg food : 8/10, Wide variety of chicken, mutton and seafood available. We ordered hot chicken pepper soup, chicken Manchurian and prawn pepper as starters all of which were good. For main course we ordered mutton rogan josh and chicken tikka masala. Mutton rogan josh didn't had a taste of rogan josh instead felt like mutton masala. Chicken tikka masala was good.
3. Veg food : 5/10, I only tasted gobi manchurian and finger chips. Finger chips were good but gobi tasted bad. Most people who had vegetarian food had negative opinion about food.
4. Service : 8/10, servers were neatly dressed and serving was quite fast.
5. Overall : 7/10, It's good for non-vegetarian food. For pure veggies near our office, there are better options.

Reliance WiMax broadband review

I am using Reliance Wi-Max broadband since last one and a half years. You can find my review at mouthshut here.

When i was looking to get a new broadband connection, i called Airtel, Sify and Hathway and all of them said they won't provide service in our area(Nagarabhavi in Bangalore). It's surprising that Bangalore is called IT city/Silicon valley of India but it's very difficult to get a broadband connection. After this I went to BSNL office in Chandra layout and applied for a new landline connection along with broadband. When asked when i will get connection, i was told i will get it within a week. When i didn't hear anything from them even after a month i went to BSNL office and enquired about my application and it was all up in the air. They didn't had any clue about my application even after showing receipt. If BSNL can't provide a connection then why do they advertise on TV?. As a last resort i took Reliance Wi-Max connection. I have 400kbps connection and i pay Rs.1100 per month including taxes.

So far except customer service, i am not having any issues with the connection. It's more than 6 months since my net went down hence i didn't find any reason to contact their customer care. It was worst when i started using it. It used to take long time to get dynamic IP. Net used go down a lot of times and when i call customer care, i used to get irritated with the same way they used to speak every time for different problems. Now i keep PoE(Power over Ethernet) on for five minutes and i get a connection. Few months back the antenna installed on top of my house was stolen, They installed a new one in place of that. I heard from the guy who came to istall antenna that many incidents of antenna being stolen has happened lately. The reason he told was since the company which used to provide Wi-Max antenna(Telsima corporation) went bust and stopped production, rival Tata group person may be doing this since they also use the same antenna. I haven't verified the authenticity of this. I have to give Police complaint that my antenna has been stolen and produce the receipt to the reliance to get a new antenna. I can tell you that it's easy to say that i gave a Police complaint, but it was really hard to explain Police what Wi-Max antenna was and how it looks as they never had seen any and refused to take any complaint initially but took it after repeated requests.


To conclude heres my observation of Reliance Wi-Max connection.

Pros
Stable connection, has improved over last year.
Download speed: 40-45kbps(stable) for 400kbps connection
Upload speed : 40 kbps
Outage : No outage since last 6 months

Cons
Pathetic customer care!!. The customer care people are like answering machines. They repeat the same thing again and again. The first person whom you speak won't have any clue about Wi-Max connection nor they have technical knowhow about how to solve your problem. They just give you one complaint number and say technical person will contact you. Many times that technical person won't contact you. If you call them again and tell them about the complaint number you had received before, they will say sorry and give you one more complaint number. This goes on and on and on.

They ping customers 15 days before the last date to pay the bill and ask them to pay. I never missed any payment but still i get calls atleast 2-3 times before due date asking me to pay the bill.