Arif's thought

Which water purifier to buy?

2010-12-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

Water is one of the most important thing in our life.

If drinking water is not pure, you and your family's health may get affected, so you should be using the best of best water purifier which will cost you just 15000-20000 , off course that amount is not as valuable as your family health.

That's what you watch/hear in commercials of allwater purifier manufacturing companies.

But before you listen to any of them or get impressed by a commercial of any water purifier,

Know what you need, which depends on source of your drinking water ( Muncipal/Corporation supplied or Borewell) .
Summary(Final recommendation) :

If your drinking water comes from Muncipal/Coporation :
Any water purfier that UV purification stage is good enough for you.
If you are drinking Ground water( borewell,well) get your water's TDS level tested and if your water's TDS level is below 500, you can still go for UV filtration based water purifier, if you water's TDS level is above 500, it's recommended that you go for water purifer that has RO filtration stage.
Detail explanation:

Water Purification stages in home water purifiers:

UV purification
Reverse Osmosis
Activated carbon filtering
Distillation
Ion exchange
Electro deionization

Not all of them may be necessary for you, it depends on the source of drinking water.

RO is most important(wrong): Water purifier with RO filtration comes 5-8K costlier than the general one (UV filters) , and most people consider RO to be best without knowing if it is actually needed or not? ( and there are some people like one of my friend who says ...costliest product is the best product, because it must be having more/better qualities than other ;o).
"Gaurav bhai ki Jay ho" ).

What is TDS?

TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids.

What is the recommended level of TDS?

If you are drinking a water which already has TDS level between 100 to 500, that good enough,

If you are drinking a water below TDS level 100, you missing many minerals and salt that you body is suppose to get, and you are advised to increase salt intake to fulfill your body's need.

What is the TDS Level of my water?

Municipal corporation water: If you are drinking the water provided by your municipal/corporation , your water is most probably suppose to have TDS level below 500, and you do not need and RO purifier, and if you are still using RO purifier, purified water's TDS level will be below 50, which is not good.

If Municipal/Corporation is providing you water it means, it has to be less than 500 TDS,

As per Mr. Sunny(associated with research water purification industry ) highest TDS level of municipal/corporation supplied water is in Kolkata which is 450, most of the city's are in the range of 150-350.

Ground water( bore well,well ) TDS level : In general it is suppose to have high TDS level ( 500-1000) and may need a RO purfication, but there is no thumb rule that ground water's TDS is always high , so it's better to get tested. some places it's ground water TDS can be as low as 300-500, like some areas in my native Indore(M.P.)

Where to get TDS level tested in Bangalore?

You can get in touch with Public Health Department of Bangalore Municipal Corporation or analytical laboratories like Public Health Laboratory (BWSSB) 22210248, Mineral Engineering Services - 25432968, 9448024304, Cosmic Industrial Laboratories Ltd - 28520541, 1522, 1523, Essen Labs - 23341230/1567, Crystal Aqua Purity Systems (CAPS)- 23362882, 28601762, 28603450, Bangalore Test House - 23356415/23388895/23502684, Viswas Environmental Laboratory - 080-25262987,25277870. These laboratories conduct variety of tests on taken water sample for impurities, TDS, turbidity, minerals (calcium, magnacium, Ph value, chlorides, Nitrates, Arsenic, pesticides, bacteria etc. It costs around Rs 1,000 and onwards. Electrodes used in on-spot testing may be meant for pH levels, but doing through testing will give reading on variety of components and their permissible or ideal limit in water

but after you get it tested please post the result here as comment.

Source: here

How long purified water would stay good if stored?

Answer to this question does't come from any source, this is my own and personnel view.

I think we should not keep purified water more than 24 hours,

I currently use a UV + Carbon purifier and once I have observed, larva in the purified water after 4-5 days..

Perhaps the reason for this was that I did not get the filters changes from long time 8-12 months or the water consumption was less during these days and stagnant water can always get infected.

requesting reader of this post also to conduct similar experiment, do not cover the glass/mug/bucket completely, let there be some place for ventilation,

and also do not keep it completely open also, else life in water can come from outside too ;o)

Best price of water purifier?

I personally prefer referring to Compare India before buying any electronics item, for two reasons,
one is I can compare the items based on their feature and second is i get to know "almost correct best price"

Being an Indian I encourage you to still bargain on the best price mentioned on compare india :o) .

References:

All About TDS

Permissible TDS limit for human consumption

Is Low TDS level water safe for drinking?

http://waterpurifiers.in/

Microsoft Teched-2010

2010-04-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Recently attended Microsoft TechEd in Bangalore and

I have a mixed opinion.

Event organization:

Though it was held at one of the famous "Lalit Ashok" but still i felt even organization company

was not able to properly manage such a huge event but it's OK i don't blame them , because

whenever we also have organized any event Be it a marriage in family or Bday or any other company event,

we also make some mistakes.

But what I disliked most was making us have lunch in full son...it the summer ,
Forget about a AC hall ( even though it's Lalit Ashok) , there was no shelter also.

Visual Studio 2010 DEMOs:

a) IDE:

The presentation began with Launch of Visual Studio 2010.

Where they demonstrated two features of IDE, which I found

other products have since last 5 years.

1. Zoom in/Out in source code (Notepad ++ already had it, since year)

2. Docking out the documents from IDE ( Common this is a very common feature)

b)IntelliTrace:

but later on when they came up with the Demo of IntelliTrace.

I said "Ohh boy, that's awesome".

IntelliTrace can help developer debug & fix, Non reproducible bugs reported

by QEs.

c)Team Foundation Server : Basically it's version control + build server. It can help managers,team lead and architect enforce rule for check in.

Architectect can enforce architectural rule for example SetProperty Functions should not be called from
this DLL/this project etc.
Don't allow check-in if doesn't compile or breaks architectural rule.
Scenario execution : QEs/Dev can record scenarios and build server will automatically run all these scenario test once the build is over.
We can also set a rule if any scenario test fails don't allow check-in.

But What I dislike most is Microsoft is continuing to put on it's efforts on .NET and forgetting their C++ users. IntelliTrace doesn't work at all for C++ on other hand Team Foundation Server's
Scenario execution part doesn't work with unmanaged code.

Bug in the hand of customer or pirated version

2010-04-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

I was given this thumbs up on a bakery in BTM1st stage. Thumbs up in bottle of Maaza, however the cap of bottle was Thumbs-up's. Not too sure if it was a manufacturing defect or a fake thumbs up.This happened on 17th April and bottle was packed on 7th April. so I really doubt if it was fake thumbsup, because i think 10 days is too less for making fake thumbs-up?

Tree for free

2010-04-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Check out this new initiative Tree for Free
and their blog too.

Nice initiative. I would have loved to ask for one, but where will I plant in Bangalore.
Those of you who can, please do.

Now extra small condoms for 12-yr-olds (LOL)

2010-04-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

London: Switzerland has probably become the first country in the world to sell extra small condoms for boys as young as 12 years, though the official age of consent in the land-locked nation is 16.

Called 'Hotshot', the condoms -- with a diameter of 4.5 cm as compared to a standard cap's 5.2 cm -- have been produced after a Swiss government research revealed that 12 to 14-year-olds didn't use sufficient protection when having sex.

Check out the full story at CNN-IBN

Movie Review : Hum tum aur ghost

2010-04-05T00:46:00.000-07:00

Though the main concept was taken from "Ghost Town" but still I would love to call it Arshad Warsi's Script.

As expected it was full of humor + it has the emotional touch also.
You must not watch this movie with Navjot Singh Siddu or Sundeep Mylarapu (a friend of mine),
else all you will hear is their laugh...

Arshad warsi 's performance was superb, loved it.
Dia Mirja is looking not looking less than any angel.

Trailers of this movie had made me suspect that she is ghost.
but was she really that you have to find out?

Till interval movie was full of comedy, and after interval when real ( suspense) story
starts unfolding ... it's silence in theater ....everyone was so involved...

I enjoyed three comic sequence a lot.
1. Muffins flashback
2. I am some like keanu reeves
3. They are Armaan's guest

Overall it was full masala movie, with emotional touch and above all "with some story",
but unfortunately, even after being weekend, theater was still 60 % empty.
Had it been Sharukh spreading his hands and saying "Yes.....I can see dead people"
people would have fallen for tickets...
Well that's India...here fans make a worst movie (Rab ne bana di ...) also a super hit movie.

My first experiance with Income Tax dept,Bangaluru.

2009-10-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

On 3rd Sept 2009, I receivied an email from IT dept. bangaluru with title "it scrutiny ay 07-08"

Emails said "Notice under Section 143(2) of the Income - Tax Act, 1961 "
it was mentioned that postal notice has already been sent to my old address, and in that notice
I was asked to report to IT officer on 31 Aug, 2009,

and it was also mentioed that "if you fail to comply with this notice a sum of Rs.10,000/- per default is leviable u/s 271(1)(b). "

and I said oh my god 143(2) and 271(1)(b), what is all this ? I never heard about it before,
why is this notice issued to me? I am a salaried employee who pays the tax regularly, infact
every month thousand of Rs get deducted from my salary by employer.

Gosh what will happen now? I was too worried.
I sent emails to all frined, they sent to their friends, no one had ever recevied this notice before,
I also searched those scary numbers numbers 143(2) and 271(1)(b) on internet but did not find much.

First of all I was worried about that 10,000 fine, which was applicable if I fail to attend IT office on 31 aug 2009, I received email only on 3 Sept, How could I ? thousand of question were in mind.

Friends suggested to go to IT office and check out what's the matter.

I thought ok lets do it, found out the address of IT office it was famous HMT tower,
while riding towards HMT tower,which is close 10 KM from my place,
I was recalling my old experiance with govt offices, Rashan card office in Banglore, BSNL office, Bangalore Unitverisity, Indore university, Indore municipal .

I said ohh boy you gone, they will not be co-operative at all and will make you run some 15-20 times ....
or to listen you first they may either ask for money.

But when I entered the IT officers room, there were already some 3-4 software engg engaged in talking with him. all of them were also victim of those scary numbers like me.

That's when I got to know that my case ( and their case ) was randomly selected through their sofware...
the "Unlucky draw", oh man that's when I took a deeeeeeeep breath.

We had a chat with IT officer who turned out to be quite co operative and interactive and above all a techy himself too.

He asked me about my free and open source software PMW too, what it does etc.
not only IT officer but other staff too were very co operative and helpful.

IT officer gave me a list if documents that I need to submit before 1 Nov, 2009
and when I asked him can I come on weekend and he said "we are also IT people like you, we also don't work on weekends :)"

Overall it turned out to be very proffesional environment unlike any other govt office which I had experinaced so far.

So not all govt offices are same.

Why India...Why not Bharat? Why not Hindustan?

2009-09-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

Now and then I keep watching over news channels people protesting to get their City's name change to the old one ,
1. Bombay to Mumabai
2. Calcutta to Kolkata
3. Cochine to Kochi
4. Bangalore to Bangluru
5. Mysore to Mysuru
6. Madras to Chennai
7. Calicut to Kozhikode

Why are we thinking only about cities, and not about the country?
India is the not the orginal name of bharat, It was Bharat, Hindustan.

Well the answer is politicians are the one who provoke people to change thier city's name
just for their own benifit, and as we know politicians are as small as their thinking...

They can't think of fighting for changing India's name on the globe to Bharat or Hindustan,
becuase for doing that, they have to approach the people outside their state, which they are not interested in...

Behind all these cities name changes, it has been small parties only whose scope of work has been limited to thier state...

I wonder why no big party like Congress or BJP ever took up this issue ?