Unexpected Outing: Sun Temple of Modhera

Jim has been here since few days and as we are ahead of schedule for our projects deadlines, on Sunday morning, we managed an outing to a nearby Sun temple in Modhera. It was built in 11th century and was partially destructed during Mogul era . But the remains hint at how beautiful and well planned it was.

When we reached, it was 20 mins past noon time – just bad time for any interesting photography.

This is that famous visual of this Sun temple. Till now, I thought that this is the temple where deities were installed but it is actually an open air auditorium (Sabha Mandap) of the temple.

The real temple is behind this Sabha Mandap.

This is the temple where deities were installed and worshipped in the time of King Bhimdev in 11th century.

The temple looks very beautiful.

It’s walls have interesting carvings all over…

The auditorium also is breathtaking…

The step well in front of it has made it unique architecture…

The steps are so perfectly made that entire well is a geometry delight.

And Jim was kind enough to pose for me !

Saga de Ammerika - 2011

When you are offered luxuries on a regular basis, it forms an expectation of such favors on a regular basis. That’s what happened to me when I boarded Emirates flight from AMD to New York via Dubai . For all my past travels, I was upgraded to Business class and thus I was expecting the same this time. But this time it did not happen… too bad too bad!

At Dubai airport, things were as usual.

Starbucks counter was full and a long queue turned me away from a morning spell of Cappuccino.

I then walked to Costa counter and my favorite seat was occupied… After loitering for a while, I boarded a flight to JFK. Being Friday, this flight was full and I missed my 4-seat-bed this time.

Mitulbhai came to pick me up at the airport and I spent rest of the day at his place.

Next day, Darshan brought me to his place.

Beside delicious food of Disha and Aruna aunty, one of the major attractions at Darshan’s place is to see Darshan’s daughter Arya growing up…

This is how she was when I visited her in October 2009…

This is how she looked in March 2010.

And this is how she is now in June 2011…

She loves posing and throwing her cute smiles in front of camera…

But beware… if you go too close to her… As Darshan says, she is a prefect drama queen!

From Philadelphia, I flew to Orlando. Bhavesh came to pick me up and brought me to his new house he bought few months back.

It’s a beautiful house and almost double then his previous one.

Next three days, Bhavesh and I attended InfoComm 2011at Orlando International Convention Center.

All three evenings, we loitered in few different malls to find a specific pair of Adidas flip flops… We were at Orlando Mall one evening where I had my first (and only) Java Chip of this trip…

I then flew back to Philadelphia and stayed at Darshan’s place for a couple of days. I spent my last night at Mitulbhai’s place and attended Yogesh’s baseball game that evening.

On my return flight, I was lucky to get a 4-seat-bed!

On last day of this trip, J-Lo asked me to get a Macbook Pro from B&H… He exchanged it with the 13” MBP he had given me earlier… It has replaced my long-time companion Dell’s Latitude E6500… As I can’t find Visio, Outlook (Native MAC version of Outlook sucks big time) and other few software I use everyday, I am using Windows 7 on Bootcamp for a while. Once I find a better email client and Vision equivalent program on OS X/Lion, I will see if I should go native on MBP.

Oh No! Yet Another iPhone Post…

This morning, I decided to give iOS 4.3.2 a go on my iPhone4 and iPhone3GS especially to check how its Personal Hotspot feature works.

I downloaded iOS 4.3.2 for both iPhones and downloaded to the phones via iTunes. As soon as both  the phones were restored and synced, I checked the personal hotspot feature in Setting…

I was happy to see iPhone4 showing the personal hotspot.

Selecting Personal Hotspot further revealed that it can be used 3 ways - either using WiFi, Bluetooth or USB cable. Once Airtel starts offering 3G in Gujarat and I can opt for it, this would be an interesting way to check what throughput I will get on it.

I then tried to check the personal hotspot on iPhone 3GS. It was originally on iOS 4.0.1 and to avail, I first upgraded it to iOS 4.3.2.

Upon checking Settings, I found no menu item for Personal Hotspot the way iOS 4.3.2 showed it on iPhone 4.

I then quickly Googled it and found from this page that Personal Hotspot for iPhone 3GS is buried under General->Network setting.

The page mentioned that Personal Hotspot on iPhone 3GS is available only through Bluetooth or USB. I wanted to check it but somehow, the option kept of spinning indefinitely but did not get further in…

Suspecting the lack of 3G service on my Airtel SIM, I loaded the phone with BSNL CellOne 3G SIM.
The Network menu now showed “Celular Data Network”. It still did not show 3G connection as I had not setup APN.

After  setting up BSNL’s 3G APN, 3G icon did show up.

Scrolling further down on this screen, I saw the famous “Internet Tethering”! Why famous? Till Apple came up with this personal hotspot feature, there were plenty of Jailbreak applications used for Internet tethering. And in jailbroken iPhone community, internet tethering applications allowed the users to tether the internet without paying for it. I set up the APN value there too and I was now ready for personal hotspot on iPhone 3GS.

The parent menu now showed the personal hotspot option.
Going inside it, gave me a choice to turn it on/off and two ways I can connect.

I then tried to tether Internet on Macbook Pro. I connected the iPhone 3GS to Macbook Pro and it immediately showed this notification…

On Macbook Pro, System Preferences also confirmed the connection.

And browsing on 3G was indeed faster than my DSL broadband connection!

Since this is an iPhone post, let me also write about how I used it in recent past…

Barista at Bangaluru airport… Captured on iPhone with HDR turned on…

Our newest and youngest Barista member Swar!

Only few months old, but he seems to be loving Barista…

Romantic blending…

… and interesting blending… Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks Coffee!

Kuns and Viral… Attacking Rumali Roti!

Luda- the Sally lady!

She and John traveled to India from Jacksonville! John is enjoying his ice-cream…

…and he enjoyed his cone too!

We flew IndiGo airline from New Delhi to Ahmedabad and while waiting for luggage at the belt, I noticed below sign… Any idea why it said IndiPo to Chennai and not IndiGo to Chennai? Go figure!!!