Webcam not working with Yahoo / Skype

My girlfriend studying in Germany got a Tevion 85572 webcam as her christmas present. After installing it and hours of struggle no one could make it to work with any of the VOIP messengers that also supports video streaming. Quite surprisingly video from the webcam could be seen with the software provided along but nothing could be seen on Yahoo or Skype webcam window.

We had to just leave it like that as we were not willing to waste anymore of our time. Few months later we tried to fix it again and almost after a hour it just clicked my mind and yes that is where the problem was.

It was quite obvious and at the same time also surprising that neither Yahoo messenger nor Skype messenger could detect the problem and suggest a solution.

Here is what the problem was:

Mysql::Error: Incorrect key file for table

Few days ago my current Ruby on Rails project was been moved to a staging server with similar configuration of the live web site. Suddenly yesterday in one of the administration modules I started getting the following error:

Mysql::Error: Incorrect key file for table ‘/tmp/#sql_61a9_0.MYI’;
try to repair it

After searching about it on Google I landed to a Mysql bug page. I tried several things to fix this issue like:

But nothing worked, so today I wrote to Rimu hosting’s tech support explaining about the problem.

I received a response within half hour and I really do appreciate their promptness. This pointed me into the right direction that the issue was not with MySQL but due to the fact that there was no disk space available on server. 

[root@xxxxxxx ~]# df -H
Filesystem             Size   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda1             4.3G   4.3G   512k 100% /

Tada the problem was gone after freeing up some space on the server :)

Orkut Beta Scrapbook Ajax BUG

imageOrkut in its initial days used to give several exceptions or errors now and then, which has really improved over the course of time. Being Orkut in beta version, few errors in a long lost while are quite acceptable. But shouldn’t Orkut be concentrating on making things more stable before adding more new features, provided that the new feature have improved user experience a lot.

Orkut uses Ajax very extensively even for places where it may be avoided, this is quite different from other Google services. For example when sending a scrap to someone on Orkut, first it is send using an Ajax request and then the page is reloaded. Its hard to make out the reason or purpose for this approach. But this makes sense entirely when replying to a scraps received by clicking the reply link which expands a form below the scrap and goes away after the scrap is send without reloading page.

Now a real dead end situation is when an exception or error takes place while processing an Ajax request. To surprise Orkut seems like not to be handling exceptions or errors which takes place while processing an Ajax request. User will keep pressing the post scrap button again and again as nothing happens but no message is shown, leaving the end user clue less of what happened.

This problem cannot be diagnosed unless special tools are used to study the Ajax requests and their response. After using a very popular tool used by web developers called Firebug for Firefox, failed Ajax requests can be seen very clearly.

orkut_exception_firebug_console
Ajax response on exception or error

 

On further investigating the issue, the response received was in HTML which looked like in the image above and the message contained was:

We did not understand your last request. Please go back and try again. You may also need to re-login, if this error persists.

This is exactly the response end user would see normally that is received in response to Ajax request due to some exception or an error.

After the scrapbook was reloaded this problem was solved.

PS: I have already reported this issue to Orkut with issue# 227669358

Transfer / Send money within India

image   image

Under very uncertain and unexpected situation I was in a grave need of sending some money within India. Now the fine print is that the recipient don’t have any bank account. I started to explore options to be able to send money as soon as possible without any bank account and a scene from a movie came in my mind where the main actress Katrina Kaif receives money from London, England instantly in Punjab, India via Western Union Money transfer. I never thought before that movies can also be of some good help when you need advice. Well absolutely that scene from the movie Namaste London meant exactly what was shown, I can very well transfer the money to India, had it been I was in England or for that matter of fact any other place except India where Western Union Money transfer have agents. I scanned their entire web site to make sure that I could send money within India.

I could find several agents in India, in-fact remotest of the places were being covered including where I wanted to send money and I really do appreciate that. I called up one of the agents and enquired about sending money and oops, money can only be received in India whereas sending money from India to any where is not possible. To avoid any chances of confusion I even confirmed the same with the customer care by sending them an email. Quite surprisingly Western Union Money transfer took more than 24 hours in responding to my very simple query. And not just the customer support response time was slow, I even had the same experience with Western Union Money transfer web site, that might be temporary but it was quite sluggish.

I am really not sure about the reason behind this, even after having such a well established network of agents, why Western Union Money transfer is restricted to only incoming transfers for India. A possible reason could be the benefits of receiving funds in foreign currency or may be Reserve Bank of India regulations.

Now the next thing that clicked my mind was the traditional Indian postal department service of money order. Quite surprisingly I have never had any personal experience of this service, there was never a need before. No prize for guessing where I came to know about this money order thing, tada movies again. Reason why I said money order service of Indian postal department quite old and traditional is that the movies in which I saw people using money orders were really old ones. And provided the reputation of Indian postal department I moved to private shipping services long time ago.

Just to give it a try I went to Indian postal department web site and bingo, on the home page itself I could see a link for Instant Money Order service. In a fraction of second my point of view for Indian postal services changed to a lot better position. Now I was trying to figure out if I can use this service myself. No doubt that Indian postal department web site sucks, a really huge page loaded after taking hell lot of time. Grrrr Instant Money Order service is not available where I wanted to send money, anyhow the service still sounded quite appealing to me.

After placing request for an Instant Money Order a secret number is provided that you need to convey to the recipient and just by telling that number and showing a identity card, money can be transferred instantly to any of the Instant Money Order supported post offices.

It is quite disappointing that even after having so well rooted infrastructure of decades old Indian postal department still don’t have all the services available across all the post offices in India. I tried for all the next best possible options for me, telegraphic money order is being discontinued but is still promoted on the web site, speed post also is not available in all locations. Hence only and the last option left was normal money order service that might take up to a week’s time.

Another very big reason why I never used any of the Indian postal department services was their working hours. Usually most of the post office closes down early in evening and that too depends where it is, few of them even close down as soon as afternoon. Its really hard to leave work at job behind and make trips to the post office cause you are never sure if you will get it right the first time you will go there. But now due to competition from private shipping services the main post office of major cities are kept open till 8 in the night that makes the main post offices also known as GPO (General Post Office) working hours from 10 AM to 8 PM.

I did go to the main post office in Delhi before 8 PM but surprisingly what I came to know was that money orders can only be made till 4 PM after which speed post and postal services are only available.

Now today when I went again to the main post office of Delhi I was able to send the money order and as a coincidence I saw a man possibly not from India receiving Western Union Money transfer at the post office. It is undoubtedly a very powerful combination of Western Union Money transfer quality and well rooted infrastructure of Indian postal department. Not just that, Western Union Money transfer even have collaborated with several national banks and their branches across India.

In the end all I hope for is that the money order reaches its destination soon without any exceptions. I also do appreciate the efforts Indian postal department is taking to attract more customers by providing international level modern services with expectedly improving standard of quality.

So the moral of the story is that movies are not reality, there is lot more beyond what can be seen.

PS: Yes that was quite a fancy moral but what actually I wanted to tell was that even being India one of the most biggest / powerful nations there are still times when one has to compromise for the least best option.