Important Message: Entered Phone Number Has Insufficient Characters

Amazing Amazon

 

Always been a big fan of Amazon. They have such a wide range of products and shopping online truly has never been easier. Also, they are a pioneer in the field and online stores like Flipkart that have struck it big have followed the Amazon model to their advantage - even beating them at their own game here. Indeed, Amazon doesn't have a very large presence in India - but then again, they have a wide range of goods to offer globally.

 No Indian Jenny on 867-5309

So, I was in the market for a pair of new running shoes since the ones I have need to be switched out. I've been very satisfied with the Saucony Guides and when I recently noticed that Amazon ships to India as part of their AmazonGlobal Saver promo, I was excited. I went ahead and ordered a pair of Saucony Guide 7s. When I was asked to input a shipping address during the checkout process, I filled in the details - including providing a valid phone number (+91 followed by 10 digits). However, after clicking on the "ship to this address" button, I received the following notification.

Annoying message that shows up when an item's shipping to India even if the number's valid

The interesting part is that no matter what I did, the message stayed. Adding digits, removing digits. Just nothing . Zilch. Nada. So, clearly this is frustrating since it prevents the person from shipping items to India. Well, almost...

Turns out that I had another address in India that I could ship to as well (and that had been saved earlier) - and selecting that caused no issues despite having the same phone number. How curious! Indeed even editing that address without changing the phone number displayed the same message.

Solutions

 

Customer's Queen (or King)

 

I was able to get the address I wanted to ship to by contacting Amazon customer service. 

I first reached out to them on Twitter and told them about this issue. I got the following link sent to me as a reply

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us?

On clicking it and after signing in, in the

1 What can we help you with?

field, I clicked on

Something else

Then in

2 Tell us more about your issue

I chose

Account settings --> Update shipping addresses

 Finally, in

3 How would you like to contact us?

I clicked on the 

Start Chatting 

button.

The person at the other end was helpful and they could input both the shipping address and telephone number just like I wanted them.

Wait - It's Eight!

 

Thanks very much to Faheem Mitha for sharing this solution: Another way around this conundrum is to input "91" followed by an 8-digit number. Like so

91XXXXXXXX

No dashes or plus sign at the beginning. I can second that this does the trick.

Unfortunately, land line numbers in India are not standardized so, not everyone has an 8-digit number they can input in this field. Some are shorter - and some are longer. Indeed mobile numbers across India are 10 digits. So, it stands to reason that Amazon update this page to allow for some more flexibility - perhaps after carefully looking at the different phone formats used in India.

What's Up, Amazon? Help!

So, what's going on, Amazon? Is this a silly bug that's been overlooked or is there more to this peculiarity? In either case and explanation would be super helpful. Thank you.

The LS2 FF396 CT2 Helmet Review

(Not) Breaking My Head Over a Helmet

 

So, I was in the market for a good motorcycle helmet - especially since I didn't want to ride my new bike without one. The exponential increase in crashes here in India warranted a full-face helmet - no two ways about that.

If this was possible, I wanted a helmet that had a higher rating than what the Indian Standards Institute ISI gives. After watching the excellent video on buying helmets by the folks at  RevZilla.com, I decided to look through the standards more carefully and spent some time going through this one as well by Louis and Siggy.

My quick takeaway from these videos was that

ISI < DOT < SNELL < ECE 22.05

where the "<" sign translates to "is less safer than".

Crossing (off) the DOT(s)

After researching some online on what's available here, I had my eyes set on the SOL SF-1 Acme TC12. It looked like it was available somewhat locally, priced decently, DOT certified and looked smart. Anyway, long story short, I tried on the helmet and wasn't happy with the fit. The helmet was sold out in the size I wanted to try and the distributor couldn't keep their word on when this would be available. Tough luck.

Not wanting to wait indefinitely, I decided to try a couple shops without a particular model in mind. After moving up the chain of helmets, I soon stumbled across the LS2 FF396 CT2. It caught my eye immediately because of the blackish gray carbon fiber. I used the multi-point helmet fitting video guide that the folks at Reline Motorsports put up and was delighted that it sat well on my head. When I looked at the back of the helmet I noticed that it had a ECE 22.05 certification. Truly I couldn't have asked for more! Here I was getting helmet that had a higher safety rating than the one I had set my sights out to get initially. I bought the helmet and a couple of cotton skull caps (so that the inside of the helmet of the helmet wouldn't get all sweaty).

Back shot of the LS2 FF396 CT2. Note the ECE 22.05 certification.

 

Heading Out

I thought that I'd wait for at least 3 months before writing a review on my experience with the LS2 so that my opinions were well-formed. Now that this time has quickly gone by, here's my review.

For starters, the LS2 FF396 CT2 manual is full of typos. Here are just a couple from the second page.

Page #2 of the helmet manual. Note the the glaring typos (boxed in red). Shoddy proofing work by LS2 - especially since the helmet's such a beauty.

When I was done going through it, I started wondering if I was sold a fake helmet. However, luckily, the build and quality of the helmet allayed my fears.

Let's face it: The LS2 FF396 CT2's a smart helmet. There's badging with the words "LS2" on the sides, back and front. The texture of the carbon fiber's beautiful. Indeed, When I carry it around, people are naturally curious about the bike I ride. However, they seem chagrined they realize that I putter around on a small scooter instead of a mean machine with a gazillion horses. Rather than describe the helmet's aesthetics, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Side shot of the LS2 FF396 CT2. Note the top vent in the open position. The small slide-lever on the side of the visor enables it to be locked.

The helmet's very light. My daily commute on way takes no longer than 15 minutes. But even if I have to make this trip a few times, my neck doesn't feel fatigued.

It is well-ventilated. The helment has four vents - one at the front, the other at the back and two on top. This really helps with airing the helmet. The vents can be easily closed in wet weather (and don't leak).

The the LS2 FF396 CT2 also comes with built-in sunglasses that can be flipped down by the touch of small lever. These are a huge boon in (mostly sunny) subcontinent conditions. The quality of the shades are very good and save me the hassle of having to put on any extra eye wear.

Front shot of the LS2 FF396 CT2. Note the built-in sunglasses and the open front vent.

The ECE 22.05 standard includes tests for the visor as well - and the visor on the LS2 does feel sturdy. Over the course of these few months I've had all kinds of small objects hit it and that's formed a few scratches but the visibility's still excellent. If this is required, the visor can be locked down (so it doesn't flip up on impact).

The helmet comes with an accessory to cover the front part of the face that can be easily removed.

The inside fabric / cushioning of the helmet (right over the head) is removable for washing. This is held  held together in place by two strategically placed buttons and both the removal and insertion are a breeze. This is again a big plus for a country like India where it's easy to sweat.

Bottom shot of the LS2 FF396 CT2. Note the buttons in red at the back of the helmet that enable the easy removal of the fabric / lining inside. Also note the classic D-ring chin strap.

The classic D-ring chin strap's very comfortable and is easy to put on and off.

Price on Your Head

"So, what did you pay for it?", I hear you ask. This helmet set me back ₹10,000 (~$170 USD) but this how I reasoned things out:

The average life of the helmet's 5 years. Say I use it 300 days a year; that's 15,000 days in 5 years. This works out to around ₹0.70 / day to have the best protection that's available for my head. A price I'm gladly willing to pay.

So, in summary, I think the LS2 FF396 CT2's an excellent helmet and I'm very happy with my decision. It's done a fantastic job these past few months and I have no complaints.

I do hope that you find this review helpful as you decide on your next helmet. Safe riding!

Stick 'Em Up! Stick Tennis Stroke Play and Strategy

Love It

 

I fell in love with Stick Tennis since I started playing it on my mobile device back in early 2012. I think the motto the folks at Stick Sports have is true

Easy to play yet hard to master!

In this post, I'd like to share what I learned on the stroke play and strategy front. 

Beach Him

I started off practicing at The Casual Sets Tennis club and honed my skills until I'd won 6 - 0 against all my opponents. Using the Prac-o-meter helped me out tremendously because timing is key in this game. Though beating Martina Shankitova, Horan Ivanitchisac, Moanica Shrieker, Musthav Curtains was relatively straightforward, I had bit of trouble with Chris Cross-Court and a tough time with Willy Beacher. As I got better, though, I was able to achieve my goal - and the opponents in the Daily Challenge using the strategies detailed later on. 

 

Ace Hardware

I play the game with the standard-issue racket - and not with any of the ones available at the Pro Store. Though I started in 2012, it took me a year of playing before I began to see the fruit of my labor. 

As of today I've won the following gold trophies in the Daily Challenge

Figure 1: Gold trophy won on March 24, 2013

Figure 2: Gold trophy won on June 16, 2013

Notice that both of these were earned by playing as Willy Beacher  - the toughest member of The Casual Sets against Horan Ivanitchisac - arguably the easiest opponent. Also, though I have 16 bronze cups in my trophy cabinet, I have no silver ones.

Figure 3: Trophy Cabinet as of November, 2013

 Anyway, so without further fanfare, let's cut right to the chase of sharing stroke play and strategy tips.

Master Strokes

Since most of the tennis players featured on StickTennis are right-handed, the strokes that worked for me will be for these types of players. These can be adapted for left-handed players as required. The following sections detail each of the tips I found useful on the stroke play front.

 

Serve's Up 

 

Serving wide is useful because it can make the ball unplayable for your opponent and earn you a point without too much effort. To do this, when the player is to the right side of the court, first throw the ball in the air by tapping the left thumb. Then when you think the ball is at its apex, with the left thumb, select a point that's left on the screen but somewhere around the service quadrant and tap again to effect the serve. Sometimes you can even swipe the left thumb after tossing the ball up. If this sequence is done well, this can result in an ace. 

"T"-Time

Another trick is to serve an ace down the "T". In my experience, this works best when a player is on the left side of the court. Like before, tap the left thumb to throw the ball in the air. Then, when you think it's up there, with the left thumb select the a point beyond the baseline but slightly to the left of the axis of the center service line to power one down the "T".

No Mirror Image

I haven't had much luck serving wide when a player is on the left side of the court. Also, I've rarely served an ace down the "T" when a player is on the right side of the court. Of course, I've tried using the right thumb (instead of the left one) but with no real success. Perhaps you'll have better luck.

Hot Cross Shots

Playing cross-court shots work well on both sides, though. To hit a cross-court shot that's coming to the player's backhand, swipe the right thumb across the screen - from left to right. Similarly, to play a cross-court shot that's on the forehand, swipe the left thumb from right to left.

 

Drop it Low

One of the most effective shots I've found against tougher players is the drop shot. This is achieved by dragging the thumb downward as you hit the ball. If you also swipe the thumb down and in a given direction then the drop shot is executed in this direction. 

Strat-o-sphere

In this section I'd like to share some thoughts on strategy. Sometimes having just the right shots don't work - especially if you don't hit them well - or if your player is visibly weaker than the opponent (which happens every once in a while on the Daily Challenge).

Location Specification

 

It's important to place the ball smartly. Sometimes, seeing where the opponent is and trying to place the ball as far away from them as possible is helpful. To this end, it really doesn't matter which shot you play. Just tap the position (on the screen) you'd like the ball to go in and if your timing is golden, then the ball will head this way.

Golden Drop

 

As mentioned previously, I tend to use the drop shot a lot. It's so effective because it often draws the opponent to the net giving you the opportunity to muscle the shot down for a winner.

This is also useful tactic to employ if a rally looks like it's going on forever. It helps break the monotony by changing things up - especially since some opponents are strong on the baseline.

Soft Serve

Though the first serve often comes steaming in. This is not the case for the second serve. It comes in at a greatly reduced speed. This is the perfect opportunity to return it back strong - and wide so that your opponent hasn't the time to react. 

Volley Ball

 

Every now and then the opportunity to be at the net presents itself. When this is the case, it's important to realize that you have to react quicker than if you were on the baseline and make sure the return angle for shots at the net are wide from the opponent as possible. 

Video Saved the Tennis Star

Here's a video that sums up all that was mentioned in the previous two sections. Hopefully, the points are illustrated more clearly when they're displayed visually.

 

Recovering Data from a Live USB Version of Linux (by Accessing casper-rw)

If I Die Young

I'm sure The Band Perry was not referring to my Live USB version of Ubuntu 13.04 when they thought of the song with the same title as above; but, this is exactly what happened to me.

A few weeks ago, I created a Live USB version of my favorite linux distro. I'd previously explored partitioning my machine and decided against it since I liked the convenience that a Live USB option gave me. I could transition in and out of operating systems without too much hassle - and if something were to go caput on Linux (which had happened before), it would not affect my machine.

Things were going swimmingly until one day the Live USB version of Linux refused to boot. Long story short, I realized that there was no way that I was going to be able to fix this (without spending copious amounts of time on it). All I really needed from the pen drive were my precious files. I didn't care so much about the rest of it.

(Psst...Look for the song on Grooveshark in case you want to listen to it while reading the balance of this text.)

 

A Friendly Ghost

 

Even though my thumb drive had apparently died, I didn't realize that I would be dealing with a ghost just yet. I looked online for an answer to recover data from a Live USB version of Linux but noticed that most of the solutions were centered around using a Live USB version of Linux to recover data from (other) crashed systems - and not the pen drive itself. After some more searching I found this post by leet hacker. Unfortunately, the poor person seemed to bumping their head - and the post - to no avail. Luckily, the post by seventyeights pointed me in the right direction to the enthusiastic (and I daresay romantic) thread of tg3793 - which is the solution that I'd like to share with you in more detail. 

The idea in brief is to recover the data that's stored on the pen drive in a file called casper-rw by mounting it from another machine running Linux.

 

Double Vision

 

Before embarking on the exciting journey of recovering the files, please take a moment to plug in the pen drive that has the Live USB version of Linux you'd like to recover data from into a USB port on your machine and observe that, confusingly enough, there exists a folder named casper in the root folder.

Figure 1: The casper folder

Please note that this is not the entity that contains the precious files we're after. If you look down a little further in this list, notice that there exists an inconspicuous-looking file called casper-rw.

Figure 2: The casper-rw file

This is the file that contains our data.

 

Virtual Reality

 

After having a disastrous experience with Live USB, I decided to look for alternatives. Also, I hadn't access to another machine - which is what it looked like was required to perform the recovery. To this end, installing Ubuntu on a virtual machine seemed liked a great idea because this meant that I could transition between operating systems in a breeze and it gave me access to another "machine" to read the contents of casper-rw. Jackpot!

I spent a couple days checking out virtual machines. I initially went with what seemed like the more popular Oracle Virtual Box. However, trying to get it to work on my machine and running into all kinds of issues, I just decided to go with the basic version of VMware Player. Take some time to settle in on a virtual machine (VM) that works for you. Now that we have all the tools we need to recover the files, let's see in detail how to do this. 

 

Breathing Life Back into the Undead

 

 The first step is easy enough. Plug in the pen drive containing the Live USB version of Linux into your machine. Fire up the VM and make sure that it recognizes the plugged in pen drive. In Ubuntu 13.04 this indicated by a USB icon on the launcher.

Figure 3: Ubuntu launcher icon

I will add that I had some trouble getting the pen drive to be recognized on VMware player. But getting into the details of that is beyond the scope of this post. In brief, if the icon above appears in the launcher, the pen drive is recognized by VMware player - else it's not.

Now, fire up a terminal. Create a directory in /media called recoveredData that'll be used to obtain the files from casper-rw by inputting the following command

sudo mkdir /media/recoveredData

You may be prompted to enter your admin password as you used the sudo command.

Now, click on the USB icon on the launcher. It should open up a window displaying the contents of the folder. Look for and right-click on the word PENDRIVE. In the list that shows up, select Properties. This should pop up another window with the properties of the drive.

Figure 4: Pen drive properties

Take note of the location of the pen drive. Mine happened to be at

/media/user/PENDRIVE 

It's safe to assume that casper-rw still resides on the pen drive. So, let's mount casper-rw. Issue the following command

 sudo mount -o loop /media/user/PENDRIVE/casper-rw /media/recoveredData

making sure you replace the path to casper-rw you discovered in the previous step. 

After you do this, if you don't see a window displaying the files located in casper-rw, look for the following icon on the launcher and click on it.

Figure 5: Launcher icon when casper-rw is mounted

This should open up a window with all the files on casper-rw - indeed on your Live USB version of Linux that refused to boot. After you're done safely transferring the files, make sure you unmount casper-rw

sudo umount /media/recoveredData

bearing in mind that the command is umount and not unmount.

 

A Haunted Movie

Here's a video detailing the steps mentioned in the blog on recovering data from casper-rw. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth at least a million!

 

 

Dropboxing It

After this fiasco, I decided to always back up my important files to Dropbox - rather than on the machine. I do this now on the VM. This way my data is synced and backed up safely should I run into issues that prevent access to it. Plus, it's available anywhere I have an internet connection. Neat.

 

 

 

 

 

Dropbox Uploader Zoom

The Problem

I needed to be able to allow people I know to deposit files into my Dropbox account. I looked online and came across the popular solutions which include emailing files to Dropbox using a service like Send to Dropbox. However, these didn't fit my bill. I did try using JotForm but gave up eventually since it didn't look like it was too reliable - even though it seemed to (more or less) meet all my requirements (see below). So, after looking some more, I came upon Amit Banerjee's solution - which in turn uses code written by Jaka Jančar - and liked what he'd done with it. But this still didn't cut it. I wanted the software to

1. Enable multiple files to be submitted to Dropbox
2. Organize files by folder
3. Include an upload progress bar (to indicate what percentage of the files have been uploaded)
4. Notify select people by email when files have been deposited to Dropbox
5. Allow only files with specific extensions to be deposited into Dropbox

So, I decided to come up with my own solution called Dropbox Uploader Zoom and would like to present it here.

 

The Solution

I started off by downloading Amit Banerjee's implementation and changing it to include all the points mentioned above.

I don't necessarily want to bore you with the technical nitty-gritties but I will add that I had some trouble initially hurdling over the problem caused by not implementing a Post/Redirect/GET (PRG) design pattern - which causes a form to be submitted multiple times (in this case, this resulted in the file being submitted multiple times too). This forced me to rethink how I was approaching the problem and I ended up adopting the PRG model to fix the issue. To this end, I borrowed code from the PHP Programming Tutorial website. I also looked hard for a good, free, upload progress bar and decided to settle in on using the Flash version of Uploadify (with some modification to the code written by Ronnie Garcia).

 

The Not So Small Print

Note that someone who knows what they're doing on the web could possibly steal your Dropbox account info if you're using Dropbox Uploader Zoom. So, please bear this in mind (and don't hold me responsible).

I'm not necessarily sure how to make things safer but am open to modify the code to do so if someone would like to suggest a solution and help out with the actual implementation details.

 

The Goodie Bag - Video, Tutorial and Software

So, without further ado, here's a short demo video showcasing Dropbox Uploader Zoom. This is followed by the link to the download of the tutorial / instruction manual and a link to obtain Dropbox Uploader Zoom.

Note: The URLs that follow have all been shortened so I can keep a tab on the downloads. If you'd rather not click on shortened URLs, feel free to unshorten them. 

 

Video

 

 

Tutorial

 

The step-by-step tutorial on how to set up and use Dropbox Uploader Zoom may be downloaded from here.

 

Dropbox Uploader Zoom

 

The latest version of Dropbox Uploader Zoom may be obtained from here.

The Jumble Tumble

Spoiler Alert: This blog discusses the answer to the Daily Jumble for October 15, 2013

I love solving the Daily Jumble as it appears in the Comics and Games section of The Seattle Times. However, on some days, I have a rather hard time guessing the "punny" phrase at the end - since the final set of letters can be arranged to form legit words other than the correct answer. For example, consider the Jumble that appeared on October 15, 2013

After rearranging the letters of the four jumbled up words we have

1. RODEO
2. BRISK
3. ICONIC
4. PIRACY

 This leaves us with the following 11 letters to come up with the final phrase

R, E, B, S, K, I, O, N, P, R, A

Now, if we examine the cartoon closely, we observe that the man who's touring Alcatraz seems to have has fallen down a flight of stairs and appears to be in pain. There's some lightning-type lines around his right leg. So, it's probably safe to assume that he is hurting quite bad.

Next, we note that the first word in the phrase comprises 6 letters and the second word has 5. The word "PAIN" might be a good guess but it's only 4 letters. Going off that if we were to add the letters "S", "P", and "R" in front of "PAIN" we obtain the word "SPRAIN". This seems like a great guess since its' 6 letters and fits in well with the tourist's plight. With the letters

S, P, R, A, I, N

gone, we are left with the following letters

R, O, B, K, E

The one word that jumps out given these letters is "BROKE". With this in mind, the final phrase could be

SPRAIN BROKE

But, not really. The two words make sense individually in this context but don't fit in overall.

Let's try again. Observe that if we add "N" to "BROKE" we obtain  "BROKEN" - which again seems like we're heading in the right direction. Since the man says he can't walk, it's possible that his leg is broken. So, with the letters

B, R, O, K, E, N

unavailable, we're left with this set of letters

A, P, I, R, S

now there are a couple words that can be formed with these letters. One is "PAIRS" and yet  another is "PARIS" (it's a proper noun - but anyway). Close, but no cigar. Neither of these paired up with "BROKEN" make sense.

They say third time's the charm so let's give this a final shot. Since the tourists are at Alcatraz - which is a famous jail - perhaps if we look for a synonym of this word we might finally solve the puzzle. We observe that we can indeed form the word "PRISON" with the gamut of letters at our disposal. This is exactly the word we're looking for. This leaves us with the letters

R, E, K, B, A

Previously, we used the words "BROKE" and "BROKEN". So, bearing this in mind, it seems that "BREAK" might be a good bet. Arranging these two words beside each other we have

PRISON BREAK

and this indeed the solution. Huzzah!

So, yeah, guessing the daily puzzle isn't always so straightforward. Sometimes you have to tumble first in order to Jumble!

On the "Right" Side?

I've seen another growing traffic trend in India that has me on tenterhooks. Consider the figure above that depicts a two-way road and on which driving occurs on the left-hand side. Assume that there's a vehicle in the spot marked by the blue arrow and that wants to take a right turn onto the road. It's reasonable to suppose that the driver of this vehicle will wait for the traffic to clear in the lane with the green up arrow and then join the lane with the green down arrow - as is indicated by the blue lines. Of course if there's traffic in the lane marked with the green up arrow, then the driver of the vehicle has to wait for this to clear before they make the turn. Right?

Wrong. What I've repeatedly seen - and this habit is growing exponentially popular - is quite exasperating. A large number of vehicles - most notoriously two-wheelers - follow the path taken by the red arrow and lines when taking the same right turn. In other words, rather than wait for the traffic in the lane marked by the green up arrow to clear, they come barreling down on the wrong side and then "merge" into the lane marked with the green down arrow when they see a chance. So, if you're happily cruising along in your lane, you have to watch out for oncoming traffic on both sides! It's very stressful. To make matters worse some people turn on their lights and continue heading up the wrong way - as if this gives them some royal right of way to continue on!

Waiting a few moments to make the turn correctly to ensure the safety of all involved doesn't seem too much of an ask. In this case, being on the right side is actually being on the wrong one.