Bajaj Avenger 200 DTSi - Ride Experience

First day to office on my new bike. The traffic is moderate. I was under the impression that flicking the Avy between cars would be difficult. Not so. Agreed, it's longer than the Pulsar, but if you got space, it's a pretty easy bike to maneuver.

City Ride
You can count on it to respond to the throttle. Not a sports bike acceleration, but enough to get out of tight spots. And pretty well anchored to the road. I like the overall stability I feel. I did stall the engine a couple of times, which I would attribute to my relative inexperience to the bike. But like I said, it picks up on the 3rd gear pretty easily.

The brakes are responsive although the rear one is somewhat weak. Could do with a little adjustment, plus the positioning is somewhat new to me. So I am not too used to it as of now. The disc brakes are neat. Very effective.
Oh yeah, before I forget. Heads DO turn!!!

Highway Ride
This is exactly what the Avy is for. Smoooth steady slick ride at 50-55 kmph. The handlebars vibrates mildly, barely enough to notice. And I like the feel. I did notice the mirrors vibrating and blurring the image which is a mild concern.
The engine is pretty smooth. Won't say that I like the sound. Doesn't sound like a cruiser (a nice Bullet thump would be awesome). From what I hear, Bajaj had to work under some strict norms, but I wonder how the Bullet gets away with it.

Country Ride
Not much to write about here. On a bumpy dirt road, you WILL feel the bumps. Don't expect a cushion ride. That said, it's still more comfortable than a Pulsar. In fact, the ride would have been smoother if the rear shocks were gas chamber ones like the Pulsar has.

Night Ride
The headlights are so damn bright. I have a tinted visor on my helmet and rarely ever use it at night. But with the high beam on, it's pretty easy to see thru it. On a stretch where there wer no lights, the high beam illuminated half the lanes on both sides pretty well.


The indicators are pretty swell. I love the bullet-nosed rear on them. And they are adequately bright. One gripe though. The indicators are pretty useless on the tank. I hardly ever see them. In fact, I would have to take my eyes off the road completely to look at them. The brake lights are bright as well. Didn't see them directly, but the illumination on the road behind me was proof enough.

Overall, I have enjoyed the first few rides. Just waiting to get the running-in complete. Not that I want to cross the 3-digit mark. Just to have the peace of mind.

Bajaj Avenger 200 DTSi - Awesome!

Finally got (one of) the bike of my dreams. A spanking new Long Beach Blue Avenger DTSi 200. And it rocks!



ProBiking
It all started about 3 weeks ago, when I passed by the ProBiking showroom (Vasant Vihar, Delhi). I decided to pop in and show my gf the Pulsar 220 and Avenger. The attendant promptly told me there were no test rides available. I am pretty sure they do have test rides cos I read it in some blogs. Guess he tagged me as a non-potential customer. EDIT: Just had a chat with VV ProBiking Showroom. Apparently they saw my blog (which I posted yesterday night :-O) and wanted to get some feedback. Test-rides are NOT available in Delhi because of the traffic situation, and cops. They are trying to come up with an interim solution though.


We walked into their dyno room and my gf (used to ride Bullets) went ahead and pushed the starter on the Avenger. Needless to say the attendant was taken aback, but punched the exhaust button after recomposing himself. GF definitely liked the bike. I was in any case in favour of the Avenger myelf (220 is great, but the Avy is still more exclusive).
Didn't really like the VV ProBiking showroom attendant's attitude at the time. But more on that later. EDIT: He was right when he told me test-rides are not available.

So the next week, I went to the Connaught Place ProBiking. The guys were much more helpful there and pretty much devoted all the time to explaining the features, caveats, finance options. Kudos to them cos once I understood the finance options, my decision was pretty much concrete. Tried the Avy on the dyno there. Was a totally useless experience.

The ProBiking Dyno Room

K. This is basically a sound proofed room with the 220 and the Avy on a dyno machine. The display is read out on a LCD monitor.

That's because you dont get any feel of how the bike reads on the real road. The readouts are something you would already know. And seeing 60kmph on the screen while gunning the bike and remaining absolutely stationary is just plain stupid. Maybe a moving scenery on an LCD in front would have been a good idea.

That said, it allowed me to test the gear box, and as expected, it was awful. Which is fine by me. I have a Pulsar 150 and have discovered the art of gear shifting over the past 3 years. Besides, these flaws are characteristics rather than defects. Ask any Bullet fan.
So I upped and decided to just go for it. Had to get it financed of course.

Finance
The CP showroom chaps told me to find out if banks were lending at lower ROI. Hah! HDFC chaps were offering a 9.99% loan, but the the moment they heard Avenger, it came up to 14%. Premium Bikes.
SBI was 14% (Personal Loan). Fixed.
PNB was 13.5%. Fixed.
Indian Bank was 13.5%. Fixed.
Dena Bank was 11.75% reducing. But only for exiting customers. When they found out that I wasn't they (rudely I might add) told me to open an account and then talk about loans.
The advantage with the nationalised banks were they didnt have any pre-payment penalties.
Bajaj Finance was 11.99% for 1 yr. Decided to go for it. I filled in the papers at the VV showroom cos it's closer to my office. Took them 10 days to verify that I existed, worked where I claimed, lived where I claimed and had little intention of eloping with the bike.
Finally (after many verification calls) they called my up and told me to get the downpayment and the docs.

VV ProBiking Showroom
This time around, the guys were pretty interested. Got all the paperwork done fast and sent me off to the Bagga Link (Karol Bagh, Delhi) to get the bike. This was a Friday evening. I just got stuck in the traffic and couldn't make it. One more day (AAARGHHH!). But to their credit, the VV guys really rushed thru the paperwork and made quite a few calls to get things rolling so that I could get the bike the same day. Another great thing was I insisted on selecting the piece from the warehouse myself. They were hesitant at first but then got the things done so I could go ahead and select it.

Bagga Link (Karol Bagh, Delhi)
Saturday 1.00PM
Met Ms Shilpa. Gave her the documents. She got them verified. Then took me to the warehouse (open space actually) where there were around 10 Avys lined up, neglected in the dust and grime. Four were blue. I took a good hour cataloging the minor defects (rust, side panel fitting, scratches, paint job, welding, lights, switchgear etc.) and finally selected my piece. Prayed over it. Asked God to bless it as He had done my previous bike (my Pulsar 150 never broke down once in the past 43000Km, and had only one punture till date, saved me from numerous accidents. It is a truly blessed bike).

One of the mechanics came and wheeled it away to the delivery area. Cleaned it. Polished it (Teflon coat - Rs500). Tightened a few loose nuts I pointed out. And had it ready in about an hour while the RTO and paperwork got done. The only blunder (and I hope it wont prove to be a costly one) is that I agreed to have a lube additive (Nano something - Rs225) put. It only occurred to me yesterday that the damn thing will probably ruin the running-in of the bike. Plan to get my oil changed as soon as possible. I took out a hundred bucks when he sent the bike for polishing and asked him if he'll be here still or was that the last thing he needed to do. Needless to say, the next half hour, my bike got "extra" special treatment. I did give him the 100 bucks at the end. He did a good job and listened to all my directions.

Long Beach Blue Avenger 200 DTSi
The first time I rode my bike, it took a bit of time to get used to the raked forks and handlebar. Almost rammed into a guy when taking it out of the center. So I revved up and went along the link road to get a basic feel of the bike. 15 minutes was all I needed to get settled. Decided to head back home and got stuck in traffic again. I HATE rush hour traffic. I was crawling at 20kmph for the next 40 mins. Once I had some space, I was able to take it up to 55kmph. am not supposed to go beyond that for the first 750km. But considering I've done the stupidity of adding the lube additive (curse those service center blokes), I intend to ride it hard for sometime.

Problems
1. Gearbox - It's a pain. Finding neutral is an art.
2. Ignition Lock - Stupid place to put it. Forward, under the tank. And I've already bruised my fingers taking the key out. EDIT: Also, now I have managed to slightly burn my hands while trying to fish around under the tank for the key after riding back home.
3. Handle lock - Separate from the ignition lock. I wish Bajaj had not followed the cruiser bike feel this far. It's just cumbersome. Or I'm too lazy. EDIT: Its also not very intuitive to lock. There seems to ab another artform involved in locking the handlebar.
4. Mirrors - Wont raise up enough for me to see the road completely behind me. I've had to tilt it diagonally to get a moderately better view. But I really need to lean back to see something worth while.
5. Parking - Its big. And it's long.
6. Tank Chrome - Minor gripe really. But every time you pass under a street light, it gets reflected into your face.

Perks
1. Heads WILL turn. In fact, there is a certain perverted pleasure in seeing a dude on a bike ride by, while his GF behind him checks my bike out. Hah!
2. Bright headlights. The high beam could petrify a deer. It's bright! As bright as a car with both headlights on.
3. Comfort. The initial 15km gave me a pain in the hips. But it's been great once I got used to the position. No pain. And when you get off the bike after a long ride, it doesn't feel as if you've been riding a thick pole (Pulsar seat are a bit too thin).
4. Heads WILL turn. Expect bikes, cars, tourists in buses, foreigners, autos, to slow down while passing you by. And dont drive fast. This babe is meant to be ridden slow, say 50kmph.
5. Power. The 200cc powerhouse is pretty eager to get ahead. I've not pushed it, but can't wait to once I'm thru 1500km. Picks up on 3rd gear effortlessly.
6. Cool dude look. Lean back and pull on the handle. You will feel awesome. Not like God, cos thats blasphemy. But you will feel like you own the road. And this is the only bike with which you can do that.

Been 2 days/130km now. I feel good. On an average, there are 60 Avys sold per month in Delhi. That may sound like a lot, but if you hear the Pulsar figures, you'll have to crank your mouth shut. Avenger is an exclusive bike. Joining the club is something I wont forget for a long time.

SUN Identity Manager 7.1

I have been working SUN IDM for some time now, and frankly SUN has made a deep impression on me. I'm not taking about the product, but SUN as an organization. The latest Gartner report shows SUN to be behind in terms of vision. Cant imagine what brought about that idea, but I guess Gartner are more qualified to judge than me. However, I believe SUN has a much stronger vision and purpose when it comes to Identity Management. Either that, or they are much more aggressive in advertising their ideas and innovations. Probably both.

INSTALLATION
The SUN IDM was a piece of cake to install. Minimal configuration with the DB (the provided sql scripts work great without much modification). Doesnt require a seperate Directory Server unlike IBM Tivoli IDM. And if you are installing it on Tomcat, just put it in the webapps folder.

I did some PoC work on Tivoli and Oracle Xellerate. Compared to either, SUN is definitely easier to install, well documented, and more feature packed. The extra feature being that SUN has merged Auditing and Identity Management into a single smooth package. And believe me, that is a major point of concern.
Our latest client had to choose between SUN and IBM IdM solutions, and they went for SUN cos the inclusion of Auditing was a major USP for them.

FRONT-END
The GUI is a bit confusing, after having worked on Tivoli (I'm not even bringing Oracle into the picture... Lord knows what mad rush to meet the deadline brought about their front-end). Tivoli gives you big large buttons, in-built GUI based workflow design, clear and concise help topics on their front-end. You would have to be a moron to go wrong with their GUI.

SUN seems to have crammed a lot of features into the same space. I am still addicted to the vertical + horizontal menu system of Tivoli. Sun uses a horizontal menu at the top, with drop boxes on each to present most of the options/commands.

The Organisational view of Tivoli is also better. It shows you the organisation in a tree structure, with distinct icons for Organisation, Organisation Units, Location etc. A first glance at the tree gives you a clear idea of the organisational structure.
The SUN icons are a lot smaller, and not so distinct. And there are no unique icons for OUs, Locations etc. Just a Directory Junction icon.

I think the SUN front-end can be made easier to understand and work with. Or probably it is my prejudiced eye. However, I do know it's going to be a tad difficult to train admins and hel;p-desk personnel to use the SUN IdM GUI.

Out of Box Operation
As expected, SUN delivers excellent OOB capabilities. I really liked the fact that most resources are managed using agentless mode. AD requires a Sun Gateway to be installed on a trusted system, but does not in any way sit upon AD. And custom applications, custom adapters are required, but of course.
We had the SUN Idm up and running for a demo in less than half an hour. Which is pretty impressive onsidering we ended up wasting a whole day setting up a Tivoli Idm demo. Even then we didnt manage to deploy it properly.

FEATURES
In the end, all Idm tools do the same thing. Some are easier to work with, some are easier to maintain. The really interesting feature I read about in SUN Idm 7.1 was the inclusion of Auditing. I have zero experience in this area. But I do know that most vendors sell Auditing and Compliance tools as a seperate suite, and I have always questioned the logic behind this. SUN seems to agree with me.
I have not tested this feature out, but I'm sure this will make a big difference in the future. In fact, one of our clients chose Sun over OBM specifically becos of the hype about the in built Auditing capability.

IBM Tivoli vs SUN Idm?
I really cant pick among the two. Both are strong products. SUN seems to hold more promise in the future because I like their plans and ideas that they are working towards. Plus, I'm a strong supporter of Open Source, and when SUN announced the OpenSSO, I became a fan of SUN. I can easily envision a future where SUN offer a true IAM single solution. Which will have Identity, Access, Auditing, Federation in one package.
Tivoli on the other hand is very stable. Easy to work with, fast learning curve. The only disappointment is that they seem to be out of new creative ideas, which could easily revolutionise a customer experience.

MotoMing 2

K. Like I said, I just cant stop myself from harping about this phone, and I just love it. It's become a part of my daily life. I'm using it to listen to music on my way to work, manage my cash flow, remind me of my appointment, keep track of due tasks, and sometimes making calls... In fact, barring EDGE/WiFi and GPS, iPhone doesnt have a thing over MotoMing. OK, maybe a slight exaggeration, but heck, I got one of the coolest looking phones around and it isn't just a trophy piece.
Ever since MotoRazr arrived, I have been impressed by the innovative ideas that Moto keeps coming up with. Granted that the Razr has been recycled a tad too many times, but it's the model that turned Moto's fate around, at least in India.
Along with Razr, we got MotoPebl, not an altogether feature packed phone, but still a style statement. We got MotoFone, the indian phone. Only Moto could have made a style statement using just a simple LCD screen. And with a cost so low, you might just buy an extra piece to give to your two year old as a toy.
The Krazr, Slivr, Slidr, Rokr all represent milestones in the company's design ideology.

Well, nobody's perfect. My phone has definitely got a very low battery backup. Lasts only a day and a half (might as well be a day, cos I dont risk running my phone at half charge). The Linux OS seems to forget I installed Java apps and they seem to disappear every now and then, only to reappear after a few hours. Haven't really figured out that one yet.
The 50 item limit in the Real Player Playlist is something I'm not really happy with. It maybebecause of the 8MB system memory, though I am less inclined to lean towards that theory. And the flip is prone to getting scratched very easily. Something to keep in mind at all times. But hey, after shelling out Rs12k, I'm definitely more careful with my Ming as compared to my previous phone (an LG phone, the worst phone makers on the planet, even considering LG Chocolate).

MotoMing!

After pining away for a two whole months, finally got myself the MotoMing. And "hot damn!" its a feature packed powerhouse. K. I am one of those guys who crawl all over the net before buying anything with even a single little diode inside, and I pretty much did a biography on the Ming.
Heres a useful link btw: A1200 review
if you are planning to buy one (and I DO recommend this baby).

I wont go into the details of the phone. I dont think I can possibly give more details than the above link. But yeah, a few of my personal experiences.

One of the major concerns for me (and for a lot of people on the net apparently) was the low battery life. Realistically, mine lasts for about a day and a half. And I listen to a lot of music. And play a lot of games on it. But its not something that has bothered me too much considering the fact that the phone gets charged thru USB. So all I need to carry on me is a mini-USB wire (if ever such a need arises). So its pretty easy for me to charge my phone in office. Or at home for that matter, cos I've never really used the charger till now.

Another issue most people seemed to have was the lack of applications for this phone. They must have been talking about native application, or maybe I read some very old posts. But the number of JAVA applications available for this set was mind-boggling. And amazing games. I’ve got Need For Speed Underground, Midnight Pool and Age of Empires 2 on my phone. Can you beat that? Those are full fledged computer games. OK, so the mobile versions are smaller, but damn! I would have never thought I would be able to play NFS in 3D on a phone.
Check out these links:
MotorolaFans Full Screen Games
Motorola A1200 Apps
OK. One problem is that most of these applications require soft buttons on your phone and obviously the Ming doesn’t have any. So some of them are not really usable.

A couple of friends told me that the set was slow and the camera was awful. Well, I wouldn’t say that the set is slow, a bit laggish, but you would rarely notice. And the camera is OK. Definitely useless at night, but gives clear shots during the day. Especially outdoors. And 2MP packed into this little baby is something to be thankful about. No complaints from my side.

The MotoMing is easily the sexiest looking phone in its price range. And that’s not my verdict. A couple of my female friends told me. I tend to agree though. When I first saw it, it was love at first sight, and the love still carries thru. The beauty of the screen thru the transparent flap (which magnifies it a bit) is something you’ll only realize once you see it for yourself. Man, the concept of a transparent flap in itself is something that puts this phone beyond any of its counterparts. And the earpiece with the two thin wires running parallely…Motorola really knows how to build ‘em.
The flip is quite thick, and so far I haven’t really been worried about breaking it off. In fact, the phone itself is quite sturdy. Wouldn’t try dropping it though. If nothing, am sure the top would end up getting scratched.

Anyway, enough said. This phone is a winner. Its got some weak points, but one’s so inconsequential that I don’t even want to bother listing them here. You thinking of buying it, then go for it! It’s beautiful, sexy, feature loaded, and economical. i GOT MINE FOR Rs12K The nearest touch screen in this price range is the MotoRokr E6 (which happens to be pretty much a clone of MotoMing, albeit with a bigger body and no flip). In fact, I don’t see why people should pay more for the E6 when they are getting the same thing for about Rs1500 less and that too in a much more attractive body (I just cant stop harping about how beautiful the Ming is).

Truth is, MotoMing rocks!!!