Some time ago, I was requested to be a judge for a technical paper presentation competition. As usual the inauguration started with an invocation from a young lady. Everybody stood up for the invocation and so did I. She started the invocation....

"Maithreem Bhajatha Akila Hrith Jeththreem
Atmavat Eva Paraan api pashyata
Yuddham thyajatha, Spardhaam Tyajata ...."

Now I think.... should I declare the competition null and void?

A few people went into trans immediately. These kind of people see God in everything. So, they see God in the prayer too. It doesn't matter what prayer it is. A prayer is a prayer for them, even if they do not understand the meaning of what is being sung (and the aptness to the situation)!

Some people were nodding (their heads, and some people whole body). The nodding may be because of many reasons, like, they enjoy the music (raaga of the prayer), they understand and appreciate the meaning of the prayer....

Hey wait! Does the young lady understand the meaning of the prayer? Would she have sung this prayer if she were to know the meaning? In a competition? Do the organisers of the competition understand the meaning? By the way, among the people assembled, how many do understand the meaning?

Well, if I am influenced by the prayer, I should be asking the contestants to forsake the competition rather than judging them! But it will be an ugly scene. So I decide- I will not do anything silly this time. If I am requested to be a judge for any other competition in future, I would ask a question- what prayer will be sung during the inauguration?

By the way, the full text of prayer and the meaning can be found here.

Within a span of 20 days, I have moved my website twice! In fact the second movement is yet to be completed. Reason: the strange way of moving a wesbite from one server to another.

Well to move your site between two servers, you got to take a backup on the old server (in the zip format) and move it to the new server using remote FTP technique. I was able to do thie very quickly. The old server compressed my files into a zip file (of size 37 MB) and transferred to the new server, within a span of 2 minutes! You may ask- if the process is so quick, why should I categorize this post under "Rants".

Well, the next step is to deploy the files on the new server (remember, your files are still in zipped form). The moving of a website is not just zipping files, transferring and unzipping. The website stores the data in the form of MySQL database, php programmes, and so on, not in the form of files. You got to deploy (or install) the site on the new server, not just unzip. This can be done by just clicking "restore files" icon in the cpanel. Well, when you click the said icon, the popup form asks for the location of zipped file (which is very much on the server). But there is no way you can point the browser to the location on the server. Instead, it asks you to upload the file from your computer. In that case, what is the use of remote FTP as far as moving a website is concerned?

After spending a couple of hours, I found the (only) way it should be done. Even though the zipped file is verymuch on your server, you got to download it to your computer first. Then click the restore icon, and upload the file again! After uploading, the deployment is done automatically by the restore function!Strange isn't it? My webhost also confirmed this procedure.

There was no way I could download and (again) upload a 37 MB file using my dial up connection. I am/was so frustrated that I am posting this rant at 12.55 A.M.!

Workaround: I just requested my present webhost to do the needful!

P.S: This post is applicable for shared hosting, without shell and root access.