Hippie Chippie - Fish n Chips

fish n chips

This restaurant is located almost right opposite Laughs Supermarket on Havelock Rd between Isipathana Mawatha & Park Road. I decided to go there in the spirit of venturing to new restaurants/ take away places which i havnt visited before. On walking in to this place, you smell fish n chips in the air, which makes you even more hungry. Dining in arrangement is lovely. Placed an order for -

Authentic Battered Fish & Chips - Rs.690.00

      Ingredients - Premium Fish Fillets, Sourced Directly From Fish Mongers in Kalpitiya, Seasoned in Our Signature Herbs & Spices Infusion and Cooked to Perfection in Light & Crispy Homemade Batter. Simply The Best Fish & Chips You Can Find in the Country, Served With Our Signature Tartare Sauce

It took almost 45 mins for it to be ready, came nicely packed in a rather small box, which took me by surprise given the cost. It definitely smelled nice. Bought it back home, served it on to a plate. Ok, now this is way different to other " fish n chips " i had before, on the plate were 2 big fish fillets and " huge " french fries, piece of lime, some sauce which on reading the menu is - signature tartar sauce [ potion was rather small ]. On tasting this with the " tartar sauce ", well it wasnt crunchy fish fillets as i imagined it would be but yeah it was okay, nothing special to write home about. Did the food contain MSG, i couldnt really tell, it was rather bland. Was it worth the Rs.690, im not sure really. 

  Hippie Chippie [ open 11 AM - 11 PM Daily ] 
  GPS -   6°53'11.82"N  79°51'54.63"E
  149 Havelock Road, Colombo 05, 
  Tel - 0112002222
  web -  http://hippiechippie.com/

In Car On-The-Go Internet using a 4G router - TP Link MR 3020

TP Link MR 3020 4G router

Package contents
( not included in the package is a usb car adapter
[optional accessory ]  )

Share the freedom of 4G! Powered by a laptop or power adapter, the TL-MR3020 allows you to easily share a 3G/4G mobile connection with family and friends practically anywhere. By connecting a 3G/4G USB modem to the router, a 3G or 4G Wi-Fi hotspot is instantly established. If your exsting device does not support 4G sharing, please upgrade it to the latest firmware.

Travel-sized Design and Mini USB Port

What makes this router so convenient is its’ travel-sized design and Mini USB Port that can be connected to any Laptop or Power Adapter for power. As long as you have your laptop, the TL-MR3020 you can create a wireless cloud that can be shared by iPads, iTouches, Android Phones, Kindles and the vast majority of other portable Wi-Fi enabled devices. 

High Compatibility Globally-Tested in Field

Compatibility is the most important aspect to consider when you're selecting a 3G/4G router. To ensure the best compatibility between our routers and the modem you would use with the router, TP-LINK has made certain that our 3G/4G Routers are compatible with the ISPs in the regions in which they are sold. We have teams around the globe continually testing our routers with newly emerged modems to ensure that end users can feel confident that their routers will operate flawlessly where they live and work.

IP QoS – Control Your Bandwidth

With Quality of Service (QoS), you can determine how much bandwidth is allocated to each application. This ensures optimum utilization of bandwidth by controlling congestion and preventing bandwidth abuse. This way, users of a small network receive committed and specific bandwidth, preventing non-critical applications from degrading network performance.

Flexible Power Supply

TL-MR3020 provides you with a mini USB port to be connected to your laptop or power adapter for power.

Easy to Use

The TL-MR3020 can be installed quickly and easily almost anywhere. All you need to do is insert the USB modem into a router, search for its wireless SSID on your computer, and then connect to it. You can be online and surfing the internet in no time! Plus, a user guide is included in the provided CD to help you easily set up your wireless internet connections.

One Button Security Setup

The TL-MR3020 features Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) which allows you to setup your security by simply pressing the "WPS" button. This automatically establishes a WPA2 secure connection which is more secure than WEP encryptions. Not only is WPA2 faster than normal security setups, you won’t have to remember a password!

Features

Share a 3G mobile connection, compatible with 120+ UMTS/HSPA/EVDO 3G USB modems

Portable design, light and small enough for you to take anywhere

Wireless N speed up to 150Mbps

Quick security setup, faster and safer

IP-based bandwidth control allows administrators to determine how much bandwidth is allotted to each connected device

A mini USB port to be connected to your laptop or power adapter for power supply

3G/WAN failover guarantees an "always-online" internet connection

Three working modes: 3G Router, Travel Router (AP), WISP Client Router

Package Content

TL-MR3020 Router [ latest firmware updates required to get best use ]

Quick Installation Guide

Power Adapter

USB Cable

Resource CD

Ethernet Cable  

DIY In car wifi on the go 

Items required -

• TP Link MR 3020 router 
• USB cable provided in the box
• USB cigarette lighter adapter to power the router
• 4G USB Dongle with data plan & SIM

• pre configure the router via web interface before car install
• since the router has a range of 300 meters, which is more than enough to envelope the entire vehicle in a WIFI bubble, thus enabling everyone in it to use " on the go wifi "
• why use 4G using a wifi router as opposed to a 4G SIM inserted to a 4G device ? whatever signal whether it be wifi or 4G has to travel the distance from wifi enabled device to base station, longer the distance, more power required, thus faster device battery drain. If one were to isolate that power requirement needed to go that " extra mile ", you would be drawing significantly less power as both wifi access device & 4G router is in a 30 foot square area or less. Only problem with this setup is, sudden drops of 4G signal coverage in transit from city to city. And the 4G router can be located anywhere inside the vehicle within reach of a cigarette lighter socket.  
• warning - Do not firmware update via wifi but through LAN cable directly plugged into the 4G router to avoid bricking the router. 

4G wifi access configuration 

wifi router signal strength measured at a distance of 300 meters
from router 

38 Mb/s mobile wifi download speed 

Wire 2 needs to be used = 2A current is needed to power on this router

Mobile Broadband powered up inside the car

Pad Thai Noodles - Cafe on 5th

Ingredients - Dried rice noodles, eggs, tofu, tamarind pulp, fish sauce, dried or fresh shrimp, Chicken, garlic or shallots, red chili pepper, palm sugar, lime, peanuts

• One needs to inform the chef, when preparation, the quantity of spices to be added otherwise your gonna cry buckets while eating this delicious noodles.
• Available only on Thursdays between 5 pm to  10 pm at a cost of Rs.500 

Cafe On The 5th

GPS - 6°54'19.19"N 79°51'25.77"E

108 5th Lane, Colombo 3

Tel - 0112573765

Carlo Rossi California Smooth Red Wine 1.5 Litre

Rossi Smooth Red Wine is made from a variety of grapes grown in California’s sun-drenched vineyards and manufactured by E & J Gallo Winery, one of the biggest wine companies in the United States.

There is no sugar added and the sweetness comes naturally from the grapes itself.

This sweet, well-balanced wine is light to medium-bodied. Lively red fruit flavors, complemented by fresh floral accents, lead to a crisp finish.

Carlo Rossi California Smooth Red in that iconic jug offers seriously good value for money. And though you won’t see it written up often by critics, I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so.

XBMC Media Centre V 12.2 Review

XBMC ( X Box Media Centre ) is a free  open source media centre application which brings together all your movies, songs, pictures, DVR functions & many more, which can be navigated using just a mouse or with keyboard+mouse combo. One does need to change the appearance of default XBMC on initial install to something snazzy because you end up staring at that home screen alot, so, might as well jazz it up a bit.

Though there are tons of addons, plugins etc  for it. I did checkout Youtube integration which works whether your signed in or not. But, yup there is a " oops, gotcha to it ", if one has more than 30 youtube subscriptions, only the first 12 is seen, even though there is a " More " option which goes to page 2 and above which comes up as blank. But, one unique feature I noticed was, DVR function built in for XBMC youtube, which allows you to download now/ watch later.

XBMC in action - 

XBMC Home screen

Config pages

Video Library 1

Weather

Video Library 2

Video Library 3

  

Youtube addon & menus

Shutdown options

Mobile Remote control of XBMC

Mobile Remote control of XBMC

Copyright is held by the respective publishers of these videos/ channels where content transmitted is in its original publication format. 

Fashion TV videos & Download Managers - Howto

With the advent of RSS feeds/ youtube/ web 2.0, watching the latest fashion trends is all but one click of a button where you either go to FTV.com itself or youtube FTV channels to get your fashion geek on. But, as anyone who looks carefully notices, " only " 30 of latest videos are shown on a page, to get more videos one needs to press " Load More ". RSS feeds is the preferred mass transmission medium used to reach a large audience at any given time, where its just " plain text " can deliver [ only ] 30  links with very little bandwidth usage at a time. If one yearns to watch the entire list of videos on a given youtube channel, sorry to say but, it has to be " point/click a link at a time ". In the case of FTV F Hot youtube channel videos, there were 1083 unique links [ 02-10-2013 ]  to { right click save to text file } at the rate of  [ one link at a time ]. No prob you say, you can either select what videos you want to watch,  but for those who want to " download now/ watch later " arrives at this very interesting problem. Having tried online url extraction tools to see if it was possible to " mass extract " [ all ] the video links on a channel by 1 click, i discovered, even those tools only extract 30 links of the entire channel itself, and  its only the " latest 30 videos ". So,  how to complete this task ? and who benefits from " mass downloading " ? 

•  to mass download an entire video library of the youtube channel in question, tried & tested & proven method is 1 video at a time. Err, but not that many of people can sit through an entire channel download. Theory has its flaws but it works !!!. 
• who benefits from this task - those who have " Media Centre PCs" & for long commuters where you can cram a media device with videos to be watched " offline " with no internet usage cost. Also benefited by those who use mass downloaders like Flashget. 

30 latest RSS feeds limit on a youtube channel

30th RSS feed highlighted on the youtube channel

FTV F Hot youtube channel

1083 links for FTV F Hot - 02-10-2013 

               50 of above video links added to the Download Manager 

• Synology Download Manager can only que 50 links at a time.   

It took me just 3 hrs to right click/save to text file [ all ] 1083 F Hot youtube channel links

• Today by accident, i discovered a way to mass download queuing entire youtube video lists with no time consuming 1 to 1 copy/paste which was done as a test which is a bloody waste of time to say the least.
• The trick is, this depends on whether " new videos " are automatically added to a playlist on a channel. If it is, simply adding that playlist will be queuing tons and tons of videos with 1 click. This WILL super saturate your network till every last link in that playlist is completely downloaded.  

sample FTV F Hot Recent Uploads [ 4704 videos ]

various FTV playlists

This howto is  for " single user client " for personal home use ONLY. Sole purpose of this " How to guide " was the automation of daily download of respective videos.  Mass uploading of these downloaded content [ 1 to many ] on sharing sites  is a violation of copyright laws. Copyright is held by the respective publishers of these videos/ channels where content transmitted is in its original publication format. 

Electronic Programming Guides & Google Calendar - Howto

 I thought okay google being a tech firm has solved this file import problem but oh no... for as a simple spelling mistake in a CSV ( comma separated file) used for import/export for various applications can render the import process a " total failure ". Then I tried, " online file conversions " but no solution there. Then  i manually edited the  csv file. ics  is the preferred import/export file format which even google uses. 

In order for a successful import, some changes need to be done to the csv file, specifically the addition of following row of text - 

Subject   Start Date  Start Time  End Date  End Time  All Day Event  Description  Location  Private

One need only be concerned with 1st 3 columns, for this to work properly.

 Fashion TV October 2013 schedule 

sorting of 3 data fields to 1st 3 columns

successful import to google calendar 

for this to be a complete success, create a blank google calendar which is separate from calendar you use daily if something goes wrong, you dont have to edit  " one calendar entry at a time " to undo the import process. 

sadly, FTV EPG is a monthly publication, therefore, one needs to tinker with native FTV EPG released  in a csv format.