Thursday 28 April 2016

Pull from a shared Windows machine

As a distributed version control system, one of the benefits of using git is that you can pull from anyone's repo just as you would do from a server. With Git's support for SSH, it is very easy to do it on Linux. Two Windows machines don't talk SSH to each other though. So, I was not sure  how to pull from my repo on one Windows machine to another. It turned out equally easy though (may be easier).

git pull file:////<machine_name>E$/path/to/repo/root

Drives like E: and C: get replaced by E$ and C$ respectively. As both of my machines were on the same domain, it was easy. Sharing might come into picture for machines on different domains.

Sunday 3 April 2016

Adhaar card woes

I have had my Adhaar card for a few years now; much before the government started incentivising it. However, then the card did not have a phone number information with it. Now, when I want to use it, it seems the new portal needs phone authentication. I guess whoever implemented that feature never thought of backward compatibility. Now, even though I have an adhaar card, I can't use it.

I guess I am part of collateral damage in government's march for progress. I talked to adhaar customer care and they told me to go to the Adhaar office at Banjara hills, Hyderabad and meet the manager of the institution, who should be able to update my phone number. When I went there, the manager was a difficult person to find as the place was jam-packed. He told me that he can't do it in the afternoon and asked me to come during the morning some other day.

All this while I wasn't aware that there is an adhaar office at Madhapur. The customer care associate (read moron) had asked me for my PIN code and she could not find which office is nearer to me. So, this time I went to the nearer office. The manager of the first office had told me that the office will be open on weekends too. However, when I went to the second office, it was closed on weekends.

I guess this is the bottom line of "digital India". You still need to make multiple trips to government agencies to get the simplest of things done.