Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Google App Engine

Since the release of Google App Engine, I wished to try out something with it. But it was a long time pending work, as I didn't want to try out things in my office PC :P So, the first thing that I did after getting my laptop net connection (which was active only for 2 days as mentioned in my previous post, and its still down!), I downloaded the SDK for the App Engine.

But then, no idea striked me immediately, so I went on creating a sample application which would try to collect ideas from others for developing applications :P Okay, I know that ideas are something great and no-one would just wanna post them in my application! I just wanted to try things out. Period. :)

It was all in python, and I knew nothing about python. I just followed through the getting started link of theirs, and I realised how easy it is to deploy a web application using their SDK. It was so cool and amazing, and you get so many APIs from them for Google users, datastore, image processing, mail etc etc

And today, it took just 2 seconds for me to upload my application!! The Dashboard for managing the application, the usage logs, are all very nice.. Google rocks as always.. :)
Click here to checkout my sample application :)

PS: I might probably try to implement the winning idea, if its easy enough to do :P

Monday, August 11, 2008

Say 'NO' to Tata Indicom Broadband

Instead of trying to make 'a post a day' which I said in my previous post, I'm making more than 2 customer service calls a day!

I've to apply for Tata indicom broadband as there is no coverage by Airtel in our area :'( But still I went for these guys, as my lucky room-mate is already having a Tata indicom connection and hasn't got any problem so far with the connectivity. So, if and only if you are one such lucky persons, you can go for Tata Indicom I guess. I had my issues started with these guys right after applying for the connection. It took almost 3 weeks for me to get the connection activated (Since I got no response for my first request, I logged 1 more to get the connection. How stupid am I to do this? Huh!)

So, I got the connection on 30th July 2008. And my connection was active only for 2 days. The link went d0wn on 1st August. And, its been 11 days now that I'm struggling with these guys to get a proper response of what's going on. Every time I call the customer service, I get the same reply "Sorry for the inconvenience", "Work in progress", et al. But no one has called me back.

It's been a mental torture for me to come home everyday to see the state of my router and to call the CSR to start explaining the issue all over again every time. I even got this obsessive compulsive disorder of keep on restarting my router every day to see only that my BP raises every time. I even threatened them that I'm planning to cancel the connection, but no response for that as well. I've paid 4 months tariff as advance to get free installation :'(

After googling today for "Tata indicom customer service", I got to see a lot of frustrated posts and complaints overflowing everywhere about their customer service. But then, I guess its all too late for me. I should have done this before applying the connection :'(

If you do have any plans to apply for internet connection, please don't ever go for Tata indicom. Huh!