~!!~ Prattzz's Tech Blog ~!!~

Christopher Nolan - The Cinematic Engineer

2012-01-29T00:03:00.005+05:30

I just finished watching director Christopher Nolan's Memento. The movie which was released in year 2000, actually convinced me that Christopher Nolan is a computer engineer, a computer programmer. His direction style , and the choice of screenplay that he directs clearly shows that.

In Inception, there is the concept of 'dream within a dream'. Just like that, in a computer's operating system, there are multiple layers of instructions, and there is a layer within a layer. When one layer in the OS is executed, it completes its task,and while doing so, executes another layer. This topic is covered in a subject called Operating Systems, which is a very important topic when it comes to programming critical software, like Drivers,bootloaders,etc.

In Mememto, an incident is shown. Then the story is reversed in time to show the events that actually triggered the incident. This goes on and on until the root event - the event that directly(or indirecty caused all the events). The lead in the movie Leonard shoots a cunning looking guy at a isolated place. Then its shown how did he reach there. Eventually, the story reaches full circle,and makes sense there only when the audience takes all the small parts and analyses them as a single unit. This is similar to the concept of circular Linked Lists in data structures, or Spiral model of Software Development Life Cycle in Software Engineering.

I'm not trying to prove any point. I'm saying is that its quite interesting to see an Engineer change the way movies are made. Memento and Inception are brilliant movies, one of their kind. Movies like 'The Prestige' and 'The Dark Knight' were also brilliant, but they weren't as impacting to human brain as Memento or Inception. Although, i must admit that Inception was a highly tiring movie, it took me a few cups of coffee to relax the grey cells, that were overburdened links pieces. Though, i still admit that Inception is one of the best movies i've ever seen, and one om my favourites. That's a different thing that only those people with extremely high IQ's were able to completely understand the complex logics that formed the backbone of the story.

So the next time you go to Christopher Nolan movie(which most probably might be the highly awaited 'The Dark Knight Rises'), do think of that movie as an 'engineered' movie.

Kanye West - The future of Music ?!

2012-01-28T23:57:00.003+05:30

Kanye West - the future of music?

I was going through some tracks stored on my PC, and i came across this track from "My Dark Twisted Fantasy". This 'Kanye West' album has exhibited some really good lyrics writing, punched with some really peppy beats. Its no wonder that My Dark Twisted Fantasy went so high at the Billboards.

The track was 'Lost in the World'. The lyrics reminded me of the old Eminem, coupled with the soul of Justin Timberlake's 'Futursex/Lovesounds' which was declared the best album of the decade in a survey last year. Here's a peek at the lyrics

"I'm lost in the world
I'm down my whole life
I'm new in the city
But I'm down for the night

Down for the night, down for the night

You're my devil, you're my angel
You're my heaven, you're my hell
You're my now, you're my forever
You're my freedom, you're my jail
You're my lies, you're my truth
You're my war, you're my truce
You're my questions, you're my proof
You're my stress and you're my masseuse

Songwriters: Odilien Dibango;Justin Deyarmond Vernon;Gil Scott-heron;Jeffrey Bhasker;Kanye West;James Brown

The depression in the lyrics appear just in the way like Eminem represents(although his lyrical writing is differnt). And the writing style is similar to Justin's. The good part is that Kanye has maintained his typical rapping style, which was also included in the single 'Heartless'. Though Heartless was just a depressing track, Lost in the World is a bittersweet track - the classic kind.

Kanye was already good at lyrics in his albums. His first album Late Registration was also brilliantly written, and hence fetched him rave reviews. It was just his clash with 50 cent's party anthem 'Inm Da Club' that impacted its popularity(For those who don't know, 50Cent and Kanye West released their respective firt albums of their career at roughly the same time).

Only time will tell whether Kanye will become the future of the Hip-hop community. Until then, lets enjoy the great music !

What do you think? Do you think the same, or have a different opinion? Feel free to pour in your comments

Facebook - a review

2012-01-28T16:22:00.004+05:30

Its been sometime since i switched to the new Timeline in Facebook. Recently, i decided to check my privacy settings, and make the required changes. As a thumb rule, i check my Facebook privacy settings at least once every month. This was for the first time i was doing so after selecting the nuisance called Timeline. I found multiple changes

Firstly, i noticed that the viewing policies in the lists were changed. Previously, we could easily withhold friends in a specific list to not to view friends from a specific list. Now, this is not possible.

Secondly, it took me a lot of time in finding where was the 'view as' button. Facebook has this feature where you can see what would be your profile's view to a particular friend when he/she opens it. Earlier it used to be on the Privacy settings page. It took me almost a couple of hours, as i had never tried it on Timeline. Yes, it is now very well placed, but because people have been using that feature for two years now, it took me time to find it. Anyhow, i've learnt it now, and yes it is convenient than earlier.

Thirdly, i found one major issue. You can tag a geographical location on the maps page or the home page, but you can remove it from your Timeline only, and still it won't get removed completely. I had tagged such, and i had to access Facebook from a mobile's Opera Mini browser to remove it. Pretty troublesome.

Fourthly, any photo that you share can be downloaded. A few years back, they had this feature where the picture audience could not download it by right clicking. But then,dragging the photo to the comments box or even to the address bar would show the direct URL for the photo. Hi5 had worked on it, and embedded it on the page in such a way that nobody could download it, or view its direct URL in any way. Facebook should implement it and not turn its face away.

Finally, and the most repeated complain of mine - why does Facebook have to make pages so heavy? If you cannot implement Ajax well, why waste effort on it. Google Plus has a brilliant Ajax implementation. Its just that people are so hooked to Facebook, and the Orkut'ish feeling that Google Plus gives is what make people stay there.

Facebook should make Timeline optional. It has been a pain for my wireless internet, as well as for my eyes ever since i committed the mistake of taking a preview.

Comedy central in India

2012-01-27T13:40:00.002+05:30

On tte 23rd, Comedy Central launched its Indian operations. The viacom channel had been airing its popular 'South Park' series through VH1 India finally decided to mmake an appearence in India. This comes after the American major CBS launched its three channels in association with Reliance Big including Spark and Love, and retaining its trademark shows like 30Rock.

Its good to see that the American majors are coming to India. But i do hope that they start airing us the latest seasons of their shows, and not the pre-historic ones. Atleast CBS should air the ongoing season 9 of Two and a half men, whose season 5-8 are being aired by Star World(yes, season 5 to season 8).

Well, Comedy Central's still not available on my Airtel Digital TV

Facebook being a dictator by imposing Timeline ?

2012-01-27T11:16:00.004+05:30

On a friend's suggestion, i activated the Timeline offered by Facebook for sometime now. Timeline had alrady been a disputed application(first some old group of Zuckerberg's classmates had claimed their Intellectual Property right for it, then Zuckerberg was sued by some timelines.com for the same, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU for more). After all this legal hassle, Timeline was implemented. But ever since then, its been under the public ire. People all over the world have been criticising it for various reasons. Some find it too congested, some say that its too complicated. My personal comment on it would be that its too congested, is highly bandwidth and data hungry, shows too much irrelevant stuff, and simply exposes all the activities you might have ever done on your FB account(it showed me what links had i shared back in 2007, that much privacy has been exposed).

In the act of 'Copying the iPhone interface' , Mack Zuckerberg led Facebook has gone way ahead to use other people's ideas in their site. Anyhow, 'imposing' them compulsorily on anyone who selects the 'preview timeline' button shouldn't be there. Thats what happened to me. There was nowhere written, or a disclaimer stating that we would not be able to switch back to the old timeline. So Mark 'Sucker'berg is actually deveiving people into timeline.

And i also found that every activity that i did on Facebook since i joined it in August 2007 was there on the timeline. I mean, why would a website collect all that information just from one user, and save it for so many years? And with 80million users, it should be more than 1024Terabytes(yes, it can be. Wall posts of throwing sheep and throwing dog are also saved, and so is the youtube link you shared in 2009). Isn't the right to that much data an insecurity? What if there's some loophole in Timeline, and someone can view every damn activity inspite of being in the blocked list?

Even the internet is abuzz with words criticising Timeline. I found dozens oflinks like http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/12/everything-youll-hate-about-new-facebook-timeline/46237/ openly criticising Facebook. Also fellow bloggers like Randy Adams openly alleging Facebook has been a copier, and habitual intellectual property thief and law violator. Well, he's not false in saying so,considering that none of the high-profile cases against Facebook were completed in court, and Facebook did an out of court settlement with all of them. Randy did find out a great way to protest facebook's move to 'force' timeline on us. Just hide the ad, and state "protest timeline" in the reason to hide it.

My point is, Facebook should keep things transparent and clear, just like the mighty Google(the supreme god of Internet) does. Google, inspite being an ecosystem in itself, thousand times larget than Facebook has a better transparency, and does things flawlessly. We should remember, that all the Ajax that Facebook uses exists on the planet thanks to Google Labs.

My personal view - Google should buy out Facebook. I've been with Google for the last 8 years, and have to admit. Google is the only thing on the planet that can challenge Microsoft. Apple's a down'er with again copied concepts and unfair policies.

A resource for the mysql needful

2012-01-23T16:01:00.001+05:30

Hey everyone.

I recently had a task given by a ivy league company for its recruitment assessment. The program was to be done on c++, and needed the use of MySql C API. It took me a lot of time to understand how it worked. I tried a lot of googling, but it did not help out much. It was only by chance wen one of my friends suggested a page which eventually leads me to the API description page. Things went smooth from there.

I've decided to share te program with everyone, for education purposes only. Do not send this program to the recruiter. Read it, observe it, understand it, and use your logic. Also, should i mention, the program has been compiled and checked for any errors(no errors found), but hasn't been tried on a database. Mysql doesn't install properly on my Ubuntu 10.10(wonder whats the problem).

Write a program in C to read a single line mysql query from a text file, and execute it.

#include
#include
#include
main() {
MYSQL *conn; /*pointer to connect handler */
MYSQL_RES *res ;/*shows result of the query */
MYSQL_ROW row; /*one row of data*/
char *server = "localhost";
char *user = "root";
char *password = "1"; /* set me first */
char *database = "mysql";
conn = mysql_init(NULL);
char ch[100]; /*string to get sql command from file*/
int colno;

/* Connect to database */
if (!mysql_real_connect(conn, server,
user, password, database, 0, NULL, 0)) {
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", mysql_error(conn));
exit(1);
}

/* to get sql command from file */
FILE *fin;
if(fin==NULL)
{
printf("no command file");
}
fin=fopen("sqlcomm.txt","r");
fgets(ch,100,fin);

/* send SQL query */
if (mysql_query(conn, ch)) {
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", mysql_error(conn));
exit(1);
}
res = mysql_use_result(conn);//read the result of the query, one word at a time

colno=mysql_field_count(conn);

/* output table name */
printf("The Output for your query is:\n");
int c=0;

while ((row = mysql_fetch_row(res)) != NULL)
{ for(c=0;c<=colno;c++)
printf("%s \n", row[c]);}

/* close connection */
mysql_free_result(res);
mysql_close(conn);
/* close the file */
fclose(fin);
}

I've added comments too to make understanding easier. Special thanks to my old pal Shashank Mehra for his inputs, and for clearing out silly mistakes.

Permanent Resident Certificate - a present need for Delhi

2012-01-23T15:58:00.002+05:30

On Sunday, the New Delhi CM Sheila Dixit again mentioned that the immigrants from neighbouring states were causing the arrangements made by the Delhi government inadequate. The immigrants, that come into the city in thousands everyday, cause the resources to be inadequate.

I fully agree to her. Being a fourth generation in Delhi, my family has been staying in the city since its inception(courtesy of my Grandfather, who was in excise services then). And ever since then, the city has been taking in more and more people. Infact, even i've seen people from far away states come to Delhi, and reside here.

One of the major problems in Delhi is that everyone's calls himself a Delhi'ite - even if he's just come to Delhi half an hour back. There a lot of students from multiple states who coe here just for six months, do not attend their classes, and pass their course, and call themselves a 'Delhi'ite'. Such are the people i get disgusted at. they get all the rights which are meant for us Delhi'ites.

I do not mean to discriminate people. Its just that everyone eats into our share. For better elaboration, i'd give my personal example. When i had passed highschool, we had to give enterance exams for higher edication. Now in Delhi, there were hardly 12000 seats(including 49% quota for SC/ST/OBC/Defence Personnel/Kashmir Immigrant), and the number of applicants were 76000+(YES, JUST IN DELHI, this figure doesnt include Noida,Gurgaon,Ghaziabad, Greater Noida).

And so, because of excessive competition, i wasn't able to secure an admission in Delhi. Born in Delhi, brought up in Delhi, lived in Delhi, but still no admission. Though a specific batchmate, who just had shifted from another town in Western India to Delhi, got a seat. My point is, in other states, there is a provision of domiscile. Haryana has planned ahead, and has provided a "Permanent Residence Certificate", which grants admission to people who have been residing in Haryana for the past 15years, even though they are not currently here. The state has protected the interest of its public. Other union territories like Andaman and Nicobar islands also have such provisions(Residents of the Island in Andaman & Nicobar).

Delhi should learn from Haryana. The original Delhi'ites are being bullied by people who just came to the city yesterday. Infact, i am saying this with a sad heart, most of the people who're migrating to Delhi are mostly less mannered people who lack decency like the old Delhi'ites and spread wrong word about the original Delhi'ites and their city. They are more like parasites, who keep on cursing the city which has provided them with employment/education. Once a person wo used to study in my institution, and lived on rent in my locality, was from a eastern state(some village too far away) kept calling Delhi names for being too populated, and dirty and himself used to spit continuously on the road. When i said that guys like him were making the city dirty, inhygenic by not caring about public hygiene, he started cursing Delhi'ites calling us arrogant. Which city would like to have such parasites. Mumbai has multiple Marathi forces which keeps a check such people. Its Delhi who 'tolerates' such people.

Delhi used to be as good looking as Chandigarh back in early 2000's. In the past 5-7 years, it has become into a city which is nowhere near the old city. Even the BBC archives of this city seem to be of a city in other nation. Its hard to believe that this city has changed so much, and that too in the negative sense.

So, its high time that Delhi should bring in a 'Permanent residence Certificate' preference when it comes to any admissions, government jobs or property allotment. Unless we filter the crowd in the city, traffic, cleanliness, health, pollution will remain a problem.

Hope someone in the Government of NCT of Delhi would be reading this.

A funny story, do read

2012-01-22T18:01:00.001+05:30

Recently, i came across a very funny post. It was of a guy who goes, falls for and hits a girl in a local club. Only to realise he has screwed it up really badly. A hilarious post.

Originally, the post was open for all, but on getting too may visitors commenting on his tragedy, he decided to lock the blog to invitees only. Anyhow, i found a link to his blog. Better check out asap. The article is definitely worth a look.

Read the post at http://tinyurl.com/shortfunnylink

And if you like it, feel free to express. Comments are welcomed

HCL kids bigtime !

2012-01-21T13:58:00.005+05:30

I recently got an interview call from HCL Technologies - one of the majors in software and IT services. Better known for one of the biggest IT employers in India, and for its US$7Billion turnover(which we see mentioned very frequently in HCL ads). Along with the interview call mail, i got the following introductory manual.

Better known in India as one of the least employee friendly IT company, and considered way behind Indian IT giants like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys , pays less than most of its counterparts in India. Infact, for some software development positions, it pays engineers less than what it pays to the Technical support staff(for example, the staff which sorts out networking issues in AT&T's US network). Have a look at the brochure promoting their fresher recruitment program as "Step Up".

Download the Brochure from here and see it for yourself
http://www.cocubes.com/download/attachment.aspx?id=2821

"Promoting and searching best talent", "IBM becoming nervous about HCL" - such dialogues seemed hilarious. Everyone knows that HCL is the 'vendor' in IT companies.

HCL sure knows how to kid around :)

Which one to choose - Payback or Loyalty ?

2012-01-21T13:57:00.000+05:30

I recently visited the Pantaloons outlet at Noida. Now, to my surprise, they were not accepting the Payback card that i had signed up for recently. The card, being promoted by the Future Group, which is the group owning Pantaloons, and the Pantaloons logo being clearly visible on the card, still the employees did not accept the card. Instead, they only used the Pantaloons green card that has been there for some years now.

It is actually surprising to see that a major like Future group has such mismanagement about flagship programs. What should a consumer do in such situations - go for the Pantaloons card, or the Payback loyalty card?

Samsung Kies Mainstage - a Failure

2012-01-21T13:55:00.001+05:30

Samsung Kies has been one of the worst designed piece of software i've seen in a long time. Not only it has issues in connecting to the devices, it also gives a lot of trouble in starting up. Also, at a number of occasions, it gets hanged. It also affects the other processes that un on the OS. Here's a view of the screen during one of my PC's freeze on running Kies.

The white screen that you see is the Kies Mainstage screen. This is not something morphed. Just as i used to run the Kies application, the Kies Mainstage froze the system. Because of this, most of the applications that run on the system became unstable, and started freezing(maybe because of Thrashing).

This is not a new problem for Samsung. Samsung SDS, which is responsibe for making softwares for Samsung hardware, has been shamelessly promoting this application for the new geneation Samsung phones, phones like Ch@t 332, Ch@t335, even with the Android smartphones, such as Galaxy Ace. Everyone that has been using this application has been constantly grumbling about the unstability, hanging, slowing and inefficiency of the application and its side-effects on the system. And if you download the new version of Samsung Kies, its nothing more than a media suite for managing audio-visual media, which can be done even with a memory card reader. Utter nonsense

Hoping Samsung will be reading this ... Please stop distributing this nonsense and introduce something sensible.

Product Review - Keypass Password Safe

2012-01-10T13:26:00.002+05:30

Accessing various public shared computers and typing my password on them had been a concern for me. And this concern was increasing day after day, as many of the computers that i used to access my accounts were under remote access, which the admins used to unlock the computer and make it available for access. Because of this, the on-screen keyboard was extremely unsafe. To add to this were the constant risks of viruses, trojans, spywares and desktop-monitoring softwares that might give out my passwords.

So i decided to go around the net and find some password vault software that would make it really convinient for me to store and fill passwords without typing on the keyboard, or the on-screen keyboard. While surfing, i downloaded KeyPass Password Safe. I don't remember from which site i downloaded it, but i would be really thankful to it. The installer was a few MB's in size, and small. For those of you who would like to see a screenshot of the running program, here's it.

The program has a brilliant UI, and a easy to understand system. Just choose a master password, right click, add an entry, enter the username and password, and the URL for the site where you'd like to fill in the password. The rest should be considered as done. Whenever you need to write the whole userid and password, just open the database, right click on the value you'd like to fill the userid password columns with, and click "Perform Auto-Type", and the password will be automatically filled in that page. Though the program does not fill in passwords for embedded or pop-in sub windows, or scripts, but words for the regular textbox based authentication columns (like Blogger's).

Anyhow, after using this software for some weeks now, i can say that i can leave all my password related worries to this software. Easy software, great UI, it has been the program that i should have had in my pen drive years back.

I'd rate this program 4.8 out of 5.

What would you say - do you think the same, or have a different opinion, try the program and feel free to share your comments.

Windows 7 taking over iOS ?

2012-01-10T13:10:00.002+05:30

Is Windows 7 mobile taking over iPhone

For sometime now, i have been hearing rave reviews about devices running on Windows 7 mobile. Its since the launch of iPhone 4S, the number of reviews in favour of Windows Phone 7 have been increasing day after day. Just recently, i read an article describing the same.

In a column by Nick Wingfield in the HT, the writer states that the software from the digital giant has already started shaking Apple's domination. He furthur continues to write that a professor at University of Washington Axel Roesler finds Windows phone OS packed with Nokia's hardware as 'striking different' and sets one apart.

Thouth the article by Nick Wingfield was not a good piece of reading material, but it still makes one think over. Nokia's Lumia 900 which runs on Windows 7 mobile is sold in the US on AT&T network - the same network on which the iphone is sold. Just add good looking hardware to the Windows Phone 7 OS, and here's a device comparable to the iPhone. This example only shows that even AT&T finds Windows Mobile 7 packed phone poses a stiff competition to the Apple iPhone. Another thing that affects is that Apple has been more or less repeating products over the same central idea - flawless touch experience and hasn't done much changes to the UI design. Microsoft, on the other hand, after being rejected completely on Windows mobile 6.5 and Windows Vista , reworked its whole UI on both desktop and mobile platforms, and has been trying to establish Windows 7 as a big label , just like Windows XP was.

And apart from all the factors is the pricing. Windows 7 devices are way cheaper than iPhone 4S (i can buy five basic BlackBerry's, or two-three Windows 7 handsets at the price of one iPhone 7). And everyone knows that Siri maybe the first assistant in mobile devices, but it was Microsoft who first introduced speech translator for Word and the subsequent speech recognition softwares(some Lauren-Housie program as far as i remember, was bundled with office XP).

More Reliance Nonsense

2012-01-10T13:08:00.001+05:30

After my friend's experience some days back, i decided to see if i go through the same experience that he had gone through. So i got myself a recharge of Rs50, and got Rs42 as balance, alongwith 10 night minutes of reliance to reliance.

On the same day, i got some work late at night and needed to call a friend for some cross-reference, and by chance the friend i called was on the reliance network. So, i called him up thinking that my free minutes will be used. I was able to talk only for 1min 47 seconds, because the network was so bad at my end that any conversation was practically impossible. So the other person disconnected the phone and called me up.

After that, i realised that Reliance had deducted 5 mins our of the 10 minutes given to me. And this is when the call didn't last for more than 107seconds. Pretty astonishing that Reliance bills 5minutes for calls less than 2 minutes. Thats a loot of 150percent.

Anyways, what else can be expected of Reliance. Bad network, worse billing. The network is really 'cheap', no wonder they need two-three actors to promote their network.

is Elitmus better or AMCAT

2012-01-08T20:18:00.000+05:30

In the past six months, i have appeared in both of the consultancy exams that open the for multiple companies - AMCAT and eLitmus. The AMCAT exam comes from the Aspiring Minds Limited, and eLitmus comes from eLitmus evaluations limited. Both of these companies give candidates the opportunity to sit for companies like Ericsson and so. Both the exams have a good track record. AMCAT gives a better detailed result, whereas eLitmus gives a more transparent process. Once, i had a confusion on which one to appear in. eLitmus was expensive, but more reputed, whereas AMCAT was quite reasonable but didn't give the opportunity to apply by oneself(one can only pray that the company will invite the candidate).

So i appeared for the both. Both were very different exams. AMCAT tested your speed, efficiency , skills with easy questions that needed to be answered rapidly. eLitmus, on the other hand, needed one to be more precisely correct, and have better IQ abilities.

I got a decent face-saving score in both. Though i like elitmus personally, i'd rather suggest that someone who is on the threshold of making a decision to appear in either one of them should analyse himself/herself well. If you're good at roteing stuff, go for AMCAT. If you're bad at roteing, and use your logic go for eLitmus. I've seen that girls perform better in AMCAT,maybe because they're consistent in efforts and that shows in AMCAT. Both the companies open opportunities for good companies. I've appeared for companies through both these tests, and let me tell you, these tests give you a hell of opportunities, but only to realise that you've only cut the crap, and the competition is still enormous. In one company, i managed to reach till the personal interveiew, but couldn't make it to the HR interview round. The reason was that the company needed to recruit 3 programmers, and there were 60 candidates who had appeared for the PI round.

Hope this has been helpful who are on the verge of this dilemma. It took me three months and 1000bucks to realise this.

Tablet sales worry RIM, calls for desperate measures

2012-01-03T19:26:00.003+05:30

RIM had announced that in India, they were offering their Blackberry playbook for a whopping 50% discount. This was done on the occasion of the festive season starting from christmas. The Blackberry Playbook 16Gb , priced originally around INR27000 is being sold at around INR16000(don't know the exact digit of the prices).

It is quite a surprising move that RIM has taken. Inspite of a great OS, the Playbook hadn't been a great success. Its competition comes from Apple's iPad, and the pleothra of various Android powered tablets which come in all shapes, size and price bands.

My Wishlist

2012-01-03T19:23:00.001+05:30

I've been in a technology deprived state for quite sometime. My life's lately been more involved in academics rather than technology. So i decided a list of all the technology that i'd want in the new year. Here it goes

a new laptop(preferably a i7)
Blackberry Bold 2
Apple iPad/Samsung Galaxy Tab

And this would do it for me at the moment. With the hectic life, there's nothing more i'd like to purchase

The year comes to an end...

2011-12-31T16:38:00.002+05:30

So the year of the headache finally comes to an end. Shouting parlimentarians, dud new launches of over-hyped products, and returning slowdown speculations. The year, that witnessed Charlie 'Harper' Sheen getting kicked out of the 'decade old' running series two and a half men, and dozens of more stuff.

Lets hope that the new year brings in some good news for the 'geeks' , waiting for some groundbreaking products

a very happy new year to you all

Reliance Thugs Again

2011-12-31T16:21:00.003+05:30

Among the pleothra of allegation, Reliance has been one network that doesn't give much statments in its defence. After being involved in 2G spectrum allocation scandal, and bad customer services, its now found of cheating its customers. I personally saw Reliance not confirming to what has been stated.

Whenever one uses Facebook mobile site, the site clearly states that using Facebook App from their phones would not charge any data on the Reliance network. On reading this, one of my good friends who is on the Reliance network, asked me to install the Facebook app on his Samsung phone. He had the first version of the Facebook app, and when i tried it out, the app was charging it. So i decided to download and clean install the latest version. But still it was charging for data. When i had started, his phone's balance was Rs42.60 , and by the time i was finished trying the new Facebook app, his balance was Rs13. 29bucks were lost, and that was just because Reliance was cheating by charging people for what should have been a free service.

We called up the complaint desk at 198. It took us half an hour to connect to that number, and when it connected, the voice was cracking due to bad quality of service(QoS) inspite of the fact that Reliance spends a fortune on getting movie stars root for its 'flawless' network(had they spend it on strengthening their infrastructure, they would have got more subscribers). At the first call attempt, the complaint desk doesn't believe that it has been constituted for handling complains, it states that it has been constituted for activation/deactivation of services. On the second attempt, the guy told us that the charges were valid as this service was not free. He then started contact the Reliance GSM nodal and appelete officers, whose numbers "were not reachable". Imagine grieverence redressal officers "not reachable" on a weekday. Lame professionalism.

But then, my friend tells me that Reliance has been a notorious network. Earlier, he was charged Rs30 couple of months back for a caller ring back tone which he never requested. Then it took him 3 days to get the caller tune deactivated. And he had to waste over Rs48 to shut down the service(reliance charges Rs6/min to call the IVR from where the service is deactivated).

Then i think to myself, earlier this year, Reliance ADA shares were penalised and blocked for trading by Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI) for carrying out insider trading that had inflated the group's share prices. What can one expect from such a network.

Well, i have to admit. Vodafone Essar has given me great service, and greater complaint support. No wonder i'm happy with it.

VLC brings in Santa

2011-12-31T16:19:00.000+05:30

VLC Player has been known well in the software industry for being so stand alone and external codec free. Also its UI works brilliantly in Window 7. But here is something that i just noticed.

Its been quite sometime since i've updated my VLC player. I've been using my 3 year old VLC player, but this is the first time i've seen this thing. A christmas hat. VLC has really picked up the right things from Google. When i first saw this icon, i was quite surprised. Then i realised that it was the 20th, and the countdown to Christmas had begun. Its good to see companies like VLC take a step ahead to give its users a goodwill gesture for the holiday season.

Posts on hold

2011-12-11T16:56:00.000+05:30

Hey guys

I would be busy for a couple of weeks now, so wouldn't be posting. But i have some new stuff waiting to be published.

signing off

PH

Sharad Pawar Slap Episode - a wakeup call

2011-12-11T16:55:00.005+05:30

The recent episode of the slap that Sharad Pawar had to face as an effect of the public ire due to 'price rise' happens to be one of the most serious things that has hit the political class lately. It does come like a shock call to most of the political class. It does represent how much the public has resentment against UPA's policy of forcing its injust decisions on the nation. The silent yet supporting and non-aggressive behavior that guards at the function was attending clearly shows that even the people associated with securing these 'thieves' support the attackers. UPA has been forcing its decisions for its own benefit ever since it first came in power.

Just to give out some examples, earlier, the UPA had been trying to avoid the Joint Parliamentary Committee for an enquiry against then telecom minister A. Raja(who'se chargesheeted as of now). Same is the situation for the highly mass-supported India against Corruption led Janlokpal bill, and the retaliation of the masses against lifting any sort of investment restrictions on FDI. In times of recession, opening up FDI would just put more oil to the fuming prices of essential commodities. Within UPA's rule, prices for essential goods have jumped up 300-400 times, and in some goods upto 1600times. petrol was given the excuse, but everybody understands that 200% hke in petrol cannot cause a hike of 400% in foodgrain prices. Evidently people in the government are involved in artificially inflating prices.

And the way that the prime minister has been supporting all this is pretty pretty shameful. Mr Mohan Singh happens to be one of the biggest failures of the 21st century for India. From administrating, to economics - he's failed at everything.

And then, when a commoner hits out at a corrupt politician, all the political parties unitedly condemn this incident. And they forget this condemning when the students were lathicharged by police while protesting against 49% reservation in education and government jobs , or farmers protest injustice by the system to them in front of Rahul and other 'dum,toothless yet highly supported by dorks' leaders.

Its high time while policical parties should realise that they should stop this 'Loot-tantra' else they would have the same fate as of Saddam Hussain, Hosni Mubarak, Col. Gaddafi or the Russian Czar. Now what they do is in their hands. Getting assaulted by the mob, or developing the nation with public-accepted strategies is completely in their hands.

Another loyalty rogram - Payback

2011-12-11T16:53:00.003+05:30

Future group introduced another loyalty program for its customers called "Payback". This new program allows customers at future group's trademark 'bazaar' stores(such as big bazaar, food bazaar, future bazaar) and other future group stores, such as pantaloons, hometown, along with a few other chains(such as fernsnpetals, icici bank credit cards, hpcl, univercell, LetsBuy) to avail points on purchase, and redeem them. And here's the business model. The signup form clearly states that the information would be used for telemarketing. Most of the people dont care about that, but i do, being privacy conscious. The companies have to do this in order t recover the cost of the cards, and make a subsequent profit out of it. I filled in incorrect information. Nobody loses anything and everybody gains something.

One thing, that occured to me was that chains such as Pantaloons have their own loyalty program. Till now, they have been giving discounts to the ir existing customers on their own loyalty card. With this new card, it might be possible that Pantaloons would be giving some benefits only to the Pantaloons 'green card' loyalty program members. Then how come one customer use two or three loyalty cards for the same purchase, it is something i'm still not able to understand.

LetsBuy - great deals, great value for money, not so great delivery speed

2011-11-29T16:31:00.004+05:30

I recently got a pen drive ordered from Letsbuy.com (courtesy one of my friend). He had ordered a 6Gb pen drive from LetsBuy considering that it gave a great deal. Letsbuy gives this 6Gb Zipmem pen drive(yes, to my amaze too, a 6Gb pen drive exists) for Rs 270 including shipping which is actually a brilliant deal(or in one of my classmates's words - a loot). This order was done on the 7th of November.

But i didn't receive the product for 10days. Getting irritated, i called up the LetsBuy helpline at +91-124-4901234. For two days, the Letsbuy automated call attending system kept on disconnecting calls after making me wait for 3 minutes in the false hope of talking to a customer care executive. I had also mailed them, but till yet i have not yet received a response or an acknowledgement. After two days i.e on 18th November, when i was finally able to talk to them, on hearing the issue, they registered a complaint. Later i received a call on 21st from +91-124-6737562 regarding the same. The executive told me that the product will be shipped immediately. Later on the 23rd, i received a mail confirming that they had shipped the product from Blue Dart shipping, enclosing the shipping docket which could be checked on Blue Dart's site. And funny thing, at the footer of the mail, they had written the following

"We believe in offering genuine products with manufacturer's warranty at the best price and FASTEST DELIVERY"

Seems like a Joke. I may be wrong, but that's what i found. The product was prepaid,so processing shouldn't have taken much time. Anyways, i received the product on the 24th. They charged me immediately, and took 15days just to ship the product(in spite of the 4-7 day delivery claim on the website). And they were shipping from Delhi only, so shipping shouldn't have been an issue. And it took just two days for Bluedart to deliver the product. Had there been any delay beyond LetsBuy's control, they should have intimated me. Had i not called up and complained, i might have still been waiting for the product.

I had already been sceptica about purchasing things online, and this just strengthened my belief that the consumer has the lower hand in e-commerce, and cheating is quite possible(along with the regular phishing and confidential detail privacy issues). I had never heard of anyone's experience,but the news of internet forgery over the years has made me a bit overcautious. Fortunately(for me), i wasn't paying, as my friend had gifted me this drive(what a great pal, thanks dude). Otherwise, i would have surely gone haywire, considering i'm quite sceptic about my money. Would i think of buying anything from the internet in future - not likely with that kind of experience. But the deals at sites like Letsbuy are over the internet are just over the top, just like this one(4Gig HP v220 @ wholesale market costs INR290 + traveling, and here's 6Gig Zipmem @INR270). LetsBuy's deals would surely be hard to ignore.

What will i do, i cannot say. Something's are better left upon time.

What do you think, to buy, or not to buy from the internet? Feel free to pour in your comments

Rediffmail NG on MTNL 3G

2011-11-29T16:26:00.002+05:30

Rediff had a pavilion this year at the India International Trade Fair 2011. A funny thing was that, they had set up a stall just next to the exit. Finding Rediff there, i just went and checked out what was going on. And here's the funny thing they were promoting - rediffmail NG for MTNL .

MTNL - already known for bad quality of service(QoS), has been a partner with rediffmail for providing pushmail services. Rediffmail, which i find one of the slowest mail providers, tied up with one of the worst quality networks out there. If rediff had provided this service on all other operators, it would have been a hit. But on MTNL, it seems like a distant dream.

Product Review - Tzinga Tropical Fruit

2011-11-21T11:27:00.003+05:30

I recently came across this new flavour of Tzinga - Tropical Trip. In my previous review of the Lemon mint flavour, i had mixed reviews. When i saw this new flavour out there in the freezer, i decided to give it a try.

Tropical Trip, as the name hints, contains a mixed Tropical Fruit flavour consisting of Pear, Pineapple, Mandarin, Apple, Passionfruit and lemon. Here i must mention, all the flavours are well mixed, and so it takes time to identify the different components. Plus we have the regular caffeine, taurine, and sugar.

I bought it chilled, and the flavour was pleasant. It is nothing like the regular Red Bull'ish flavoured drinks, but it tastes good. A little on the fruity flavoured side, the drink seems pleasant to drink, and i would recommend it to the ones who're trying an energy drink for the first time, or to those who hate the typical strong flavour of Red Bull.

As for the packaging thing, personally speaking, i do dislike the plastic packaging. A tetrapack would have been better, but then, companies do things which are sometime confusing. Maybe its because Tetrapack increases costs, or the brand owners wanted to give their product a completely different identity for a product that comes in competition with the very dominating Red Bull.

Anyways, the drink did have mild effect on me. I was quite sleepy at the time when i had the drink. For the next two hours, i didn't feel sleepy, and neither too energetic(which Red Bull makes). I probably find Tzinga better than Red Bull. Reason being that it doesn't give an extreme kick.

And another notable thing. Its written very clearly that "not recomended for people who want to go early to bed" - a warning Red Bull should have written. When i first had Red Bull, it took me three days to get my regular sleeping routine back.

My review for Tzinga Tropical Fruit - 4 out of 5. Not an extreme kick, great flavour, great price just makes me find it the prefered choice.

What do you think? Do you share the same opinion, or think differently, feel free to pour in.

What times

2011-11-13T13:38:00.000+05:30

Hey everyone
Sorry for not posting in ages. Have been terribly occupied with work lately. Job interviews, projects to name a few. I has a few drafts for for the blog, but got lost when my pen drive stopped working.

I shall be back to posting more tech stuff.

Signing off till then

Adobe stops Flash production

2011-11-13T13:31:00.000+05:30

Adobe systems, in a recent chain of events, has decided to put an end to the hugely used Flash player. Adobe will not be developing its flash player for web browsers furthermore. This decision was taken at a recent meeting of the company. This move is taken as a long term well thought strategic move from Adobe systems Flash player was developed by Macromedia Inc which took it to its peak. But later Macromedia Inc was sold off to Adobe. Flash player has been well recieved by developers and web users for enriching the web experience, and adding a sense of creativity and ease to it.

This is being taken by the industry analysts as a move by Adobe to wipe out all the traces of Macromedia in its operations, and strengthen its brand identity. Some are even sceptical over the fact that this might reduce the business for Adobe, hence destabilising in the long run.

Google shuts down support for Gmail on Blackberry

2011-11-13T13:24:00.002+05:30

In the recent turn of events, the search engine giant Microsoft turned off its support for users accessing their Gmail service from their Blackberry handsets. After this, Blackberry users will be able to check their Gmail only using the web interface, or the Gmail app downloadable from the gmail mobile website. This is considered as a move which Google has taken to aggressively market its enormously popular Gmail against Google's mobile OS Android competitior RIM which has given noteworthy competition to Google's Android with its new Blackberry 7 OS.

My personal view - love the move as a hardcore Google fan, dislike it for the Blackberry users, since multiple apps means no more single view multiple mailbox.

XP to 7 - a giant leap

2011-10-09T17:22:00.003+05:30

Thats windows 7

Thats windows XP

Finally, i upgraded my old Windows XP to Windows 7. Yes, being a tech savvy person, i should have done that ages back. Its Windows 8 that's making waves lately, and now i'm using Windows 7. Sounds funny,though true. My old mates would never believe this.

Well,coming back, 7 is completely a glossy seeming Windows. The feel that 7 gives is very close to XP's. The gadgets are good. Though i'm still adjusting to 7, it feels good to use. And by the way, HD looks best in 7, probably because DVD was the 'hi-tech' thing at the time of development of XP.

All these years, the only reason for me rooting for XP is that XP is easy to insta`ll, and is a complete no-nonsense OS. Old compilers such as Turbo C run smoothly on it. 7 on the other hand, works efficiently and smooth. Its not that its more efficient than XP, but relatively faster.

XP is an operating system which can be used with 1Gb hard disk space, but 7 on the other hand needs atleast 7Gigfor the same. All the additional space required is for the upgraded features. It would not be wrong to say that 7's kernel is a copy of XP's pathbreakign kernel, which still is fun to explore. Very recently, i had a virus infection in which a file called "regsvr.exe" used to load at startup. I deleted the file, and all its associate files, and made a zero command program in C, and renamed it to the earlier's. Now XP runs flawlessly.

Also, XP has a very robust crash protection mechanism. Once i had a file in my Documents and Settings profile corrupted. I copied a file from another system, and replaced the old file with it. Post then, i was able to save my data. The profile was still usable, it would only take time to load the profile, and that becamne the reason i reinstalled XP.

And the best part. XP needs hardly 30 minutes to get installed and running on any multi-core system, whereas 7 needs atleast an hour to copy files, and another hour to get installed. Comparatively speaking, XP has way more advantages over 7.

XP has been one of the finest of the Windows Microsoft has ever released in the last decade(or even in history), and will still remain unless the software giant comes up with something big. Back in 2001. when XP got launched, it had outbeaten all OS's available then in the market, and flagged Microsoft as the undisputed king of softwares. Its XP that hindered Red Hat Linux's development. GNU had to rebrand RHL to Fedora to make it usable. Even OS X developers had to work too hard to save their existing customer bases, and Apple had to launch BootCamp to prevent Mac users to dump their Mac's and shift to regular PC's. And that is one big reason why most of the computers out there still work on XP and nothing else.

And for the fact, i installed 7 on a partition other than of XP's. So i have the freedom of using my 'old pal' XP sideways with this relatively new kid 7

What do you think about this? Do you agree that XP is way superior, or 7 outsmarts it. Feel free to pour in. Comments are welcomed

Jobs goes, iPhone 4S woes

2011-10-09T17:20:00.003+05:30

In the recent chain of events, Apple unveiled its new iPhone 4S. The phone was labelled as dud, considering that it only had a mere few enhancements. Thats a different thing that people don't realise that 4G is not yet standardised, so Apple cannot come up with a product claiming its 4G ready(ignorant people). But one thing was sure - the Steve Jobs magic was not there.

And the very next day, Steve Jobs dies from cancer at the age of 56. This came as a big blow for Apple, as for them, its was Jobs who was weaving magic all around. Whether it was iPod, iPhone or iPad, all the products were released by Steve himself. The only product that was released in is absence - the iPhone 4S, was immediately termed dud by the journalists. Not only Steve Jovs was the face of Apple and Pixar, but was also associated with the innovation, quality,and product dellivery that Apple was reputed for.

But one thing is for sure. The death of Steve Jobs for a second must surely have shaken Bill Gates,whom Jobs was the closest competitor to. Suddenly the demise of the founder, and the subsequently media criticism of products must have made Gates worried, who was already on fire ever since Windows Vista was released.

Seems like tough times are coming. Already new innovations seem dim, and the old innovators leaving the planet, dark days are knocking the door. One thing is for sure - we will miss the innovation Jobs was famous for.

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs, you shall be eternally missed

Movie Review - Batman Begins

2011-10-09T17:15:00.003+05:30

In my ongoing movie marathon,i watched the 2005 DC thriller Batman Begins. Directed by my favorite Christopher Nolan, i couldn't resist watching this movie. So after watching the movie, here's the review. Being a Christopher Nolan movie, the duration is long(just like in most of the Nolan movies), but the length is well justified considering how much in depth Nolan explains the character and his ways.

The Plot:

The movie starts with a dream. Young Bruce Wayne(played by Christian Bale) is in a greenhouse with Rachael Dawne(katie Holmes). While hiding from her, he falls into a well which was closed. Rachael goes to home and calls for help. Inside the well, because of the noise Bruce made while falling, enormous number of bats start flying outside, and he gets scared. And here ends the dream.

Bruce wakes up to find that he's in a jail. Just before his breakfast, he gets into a fight with a bunch of hustlers, and is locked in a cell. There, he meets Ducard(played by Liam Neelson) who proposes him to come visit him in the mountains if he wishes to pursue his desire to fight the evil. He represents a group called the League of Shadows. Bruce does so. He faces extreme difficulties in reaching the top, and when he does, he is greeted by Ducard. He starts his training immediately. The story goes back into the flashback as Bruce tells Ducard his story.

Bruce's young again. Post the falling into the well incident, Bruce and his parents go to an Opera. Bruce feels uncomfortable, and asks his parents to leave. While leaving, they come across a street gangster who kills both his parents. This affects young Bruce a lot. He considers himself responsible for his parent's death.

Bruce comes back to his home. He attends the trial of his parents's killers, but just when he thinks the killer's about to fall prey to him, he is killed. When he tries to reason the killers of his parent's killers, he is beaten up and thrown out of the building. He is told that being at the top of a multi-million enterprise, he will never know how the dark world operates. He takes this statement to his ego, and goes to an exotic land where he lives like a commoner, and observes the world of illegal doings.

While meeting an underworld trader, he gets caught in a police raid and lands up in a jail. And thats where the story had started.

The story comes back to the present where Bruce is in the mountains.Back again in the mountains, Bruce starts rigourous training. This training continues for sometime. He is taught by Ducard, under the supervision of a martial arts guru Ra's Al Ghul. After the completion of his training, the league of shadows asks him to kill a man who committed crime. They also disclose that their next target is Gotham city which they will wipe out compeletely. Bruce doesn't do so, and escapes. And in the process, kills everyone, but saves Ducard.

Bruce then returns to Gotham city, and joins his company Wayne Enterpises. He comes in contact with the old people he had left. He joins the R&D division of his company where he meets Lucius Fox(played by my fav. Morgan Freeman), who once was a director at the time when Bruce's father used to run the company. He introduces Bruce to various defence products that the company had developed, but not put on production. Sending Bruce to the R&D division was just a way for the board to keep Bruce away from the company's proceedings.

Then starts Bruce's pursuit of creating a new identity. He starts working on his Batsuit. And uses it to counter the criminals.

But meanwhile, a microwave vapouriser used to convert water to vapour for industrial purposes gets stolen. Later it turns out that Dr Jonathan Crane, a doctor who has been getting criminals transfered to sanitorium has been supporting Ra's Al Ghul in his evil plan to wipe out the city, by mixing his poisonous mixture in the water supply of the city, and vapourising it. Bruce later finds out that Ducard is actually Ra's Al Ghul. Ra's Al Ghul comes to Bruce's birthday party, and exposes his intentions, and burns down his house. Ra's Al intends to blow up the central water pumping station with the microwave vapouriser using a train to reach there,which would cause hallucination among the citizens, and hence cause people to kill each other out of fear(hence the city will destroy itself). Bruce manages to escape with the help of his loyal butler of his family Alfred(played by Michael Caine).

Batman then goes out to save the city. He gives Sargent Jim Gordon(played by Gary Oldman),the very officer who handled his parent's murder case when he was a child, the access to his car, and asks him to blast away some metro pillars, so that the train that carries crashes. Gordon does his work, and manages to rip off the track. Meanwhile , Batman goes into the train,holds up a fight with Ra's and when he finds that Gordon had completed his work, leaves. The train crashes, and Ra's dies.

Meanwhile, Rachael finds out about the real identity of Batman. Bruce decides that he would rebuild the burnt Wayne mansion brick by brick. In the last scene, Gordon calls Batman, and briefs him about a new criminal called "The Joker". The end

Final Take:
Christopher Nolan is one nightmare for all directors trying to compete with him. His direction has been marvellous to watch, whether it is Inception, and Batman Begins shows such a brilliant director he is. His screenplay is great.

Christian Bale, and the rest of the cast also has done a brilliant job in the movie. Michael Caine, in the role of Alfred has done some outstanding role.

My rating 4.6 out of 5

Movie Review - Delhi Belly

2011-10-09T17:10:00.002+05:30

In my ongoing movie marathon, i caught up with the controversial Aamir Khan production Imran Khan starrer Delhi Belly. Heard of it a lot, i decided to watch the movie.

The Plot:
Tashi(played by Imran Khan) is a journalist who lives in a stinky apartment with his two friends Arup(played by Vir Das) and Nitin(played by Kunal Roy Kapoor). Nitin works as a photographer with Tashi, and Arup works as an animation artist in a company. Tashi has a girlfriend cum fiance Soniya(played by Shehnaz Treasury) whom he intends to marry.

Vladimir - A diamond smuggler Vladimir, comes to India. His associate in illegally exporting diamonds who happens to be an airhostess is busy somewhere,and asks her friend Soniya to take a packet from Vladimir and deliver it to the mentioned address. Soniya being a airhostess herself, doesn'tgo through extensive baggage check.

Menaka(played by Pooja Jagannathan), a special correspondant is a collegue of Tashi, who likes him. They meet during a star's interview. She keeps on hitting him every time she meets him.

On the other hand, Tashi is gifted a car by Soniya's parents.

Soniya gives Vladimir's packet to Tashi for delivering, but Tashi asks Nitin to do so. Nitin gets sick(hence Delhi Belly). Because of this, he is unable to do so, and asks Arun to do so, along with giving a sample for medical examination at the pathological laboratory. Arun mixes up between the two packets, and delivers the sample to the address, and the smuggled packet to the path lab.

Meanwhile, Menaka calls Tashi to a party where he gets into a fight with her husband Rajeev who is extremely drunk. They escape the party, but Rajeev follows them. He damages Rajeev's car a lot. Menaka and Tashi reach a hotel where they are able to escape Rajeev. Tashi drops Menaka to her place, and goes straight to Soniya's place.

The next morning, everyone goes their regular ways. But Cowboy(played by Vijay Raaz) reaches Vladimir's hotel asking for the package. The package contains diamonds worth millions. There they find out the blunder in packet delivery. Cowboy goes to Tashi's house with his men, and hold them. Nitin by chance brings the package from the lab, and when he returns to his place, finds all of them waiting. They find out that the package contains diamonds. Cowboy decides to kill them, but the ceiling for the flat collapes. Cowboy and his men go unconscious, and Tashi and his friends escape.

They sell the diamonds to a trader. But later, Cowboy calls them and they find out that he has Soniya, and he'll kill her if they don't bring the diamonds back. So they go back to the trader who asks them double the price the gave them for the jewels. He throws them out of the place. Tashi includes Menaka in the group and forcefully exchanges the diamonds with him, and escape. Nearby police pursues them. While escaping, Menaka and Tashi go cosy.

Tashi and the group reaches Cowboy's stated place, and are ready to make the exchange. But Cowboy starts pointing the gun at them. Just in the nick of time, the trailing police comes and starts firing, and Cowboy and his men counterfire. Tashi, his friends, Soniya, and Vladimir(who was also in the room) duck , and save their lives. Everyone else in the room is either killed, or left unconscious. They escape. The package containing diamonds falls from the window of the room, and onto Tashi's landlord.

Soniya finds out about Tashi and Menaka go cosying. She goes mad over him for so. Tashi calls off his marriage. Menaka returns to bid final goodbye, but when she's about to leave, Tashi realises his affection for her, and kisses her. The end

Final Take:
The movie funny and stupid. The story isn'tpowerful,but yet manages to make one laugh. Mature people will not like the movie, and so will the female audience, as the movie extremely vulgar. Vulgar abuses are used in the movie in every scene.

Ram Sampath's music is a bit catchy at first look, but slowly one tends to get irritated of them. The old songs used in the movie are good.

The direction is good, one cannot find any contradicting facts in the movie. Usually in such mindless comedies, direction is usually poor. Aamer Khan makes sure the movie has a good end product.

Frankly speaking, Delhi Belly seems like an Indianised version of The Hangover, infact quite is. Its just the Hangover story modified to Indian situations.

My rating for the movie 3 out of 5. Too much abuse, no strong story, and just mayhem in the movie doesn't make me want to give anything more than 1.5, but the humor is just mindblowing.

Movie Revew - Mr Bean's Holiday

2011-10-09T17:07:00.003+05:30

Another one of the movies that i caught up recently was the 2007 release Rowan Atkinson starrer Mr Bean's Holiday. Being under Mr Bean's label, the movie had my expectations up high.

The Plot:
Mr Bean who resides in London, goes to a Raffle in the month of June. Its raining profusely. He's late, and on reaching there, finds out that he's won a holiday to the south of France along with a handycam. And in the next scene, he's on the train to Paris, playing with his new camera. He's destined to Cannes. In Paris, he has a mixup of cabs, and reaches Vous Etes Ici instead of the railway station at Gare De Lyon. He starts walking and reahces there,but misses the first train to Paris, so has lunch at a local restaurant. After having his lunch, he goes to the platform , and starts doing some shooting with his camera. There, he asks a gentleman bound for the same train as him to record for him. In the process, the guy recording for him misses the train, and his son is left alone inside the train. The boy gets upset on finding this. Bean tries hard to cheer him up, but the boy remains angry. At a local station, the boy takes revenge by making Bean miss the train.

On the next train, the boy's father comes, but the train doesn't stop. The man had displayed his phone number, but the last two digits go missing. Bean tries to call the number, but doesn't help. He boards the next train, but he realises that he's left his passport and wallet on the station's telephone booth. He's kicked out of the train the next station.

There starts a long struggle for Bean to reach Cannes, and loses the boy. He reaches a road in the countryside, where he's given a lift by a girl, who also has to go Cannes. They stop at a restaurant where he meets the boy again. They again continue for Cannes. The girl stops at a place on the outskirts of Cannes to get her car refuelled where she comes to know about Bean and the boy. It turns out that the boy's father is a jury of the Cannes Film Festival. And by chance, he is judging the same movie the girl had acted in.

They reach Cannes,and crash at the venue of premiere. The film is a complete bore. The girl finds out that her scene has been cut, and is heartbroken. Looking at this, Bean plays the video he had recorded of her in the journey, and by chance it makes perfect sense with the narration. The jury member recognises Bean, and when he comes to get him, meets is son who was itting on the back side of the projection screen. Bean reaches the beach. The girl becomes a star. The director of the bore film becomes a master director. At the End, the movie becomes a musical.

Final take:
Te movie is okay, but not as good as it could be. Personally, i found Johnny English a dozen times more funny than Mr Bean's Holiday. As i had indicated earlier, the movie didn't quite live up to the expectation of the extremely popular Mr Bean .

Rowan Atkinson has done really good acting. So did everyone else in whatever little part they had. There wasn't much acting involved, as there was not much story.

I'd give the movie 2.5 out of 5

Movie Review - Johnny English

2011-10-09T17:05:00.001+05:30

Another one of the movies which i had a peek at recently was the 2003 Rowan Atkinson starrer Johnny English. Mr Atkinson, being a funny man, is hard to resist. The movie is a spoof on the Bond series.

The Plot:
Johnny English(played by Rowan Atkinson) is a British secret agent of the MI7. He works at the office, and is nothing more than a paper pusher. Once, during the funeral of the topmost agent, where the incharge for security was Johnny English, an explosion occurs, and all the agent die.

But meanwhile, the security of the queen's jewels becomes an issue. The secret service suspects a multi-millionare jail operator Pascal Sauvage - a frenchman , to be behind this. Johnny is posted at the place of exhibit to protect the jewels, but the thieves somehow manage to steal the jewels and escape.

While investigating for the theft, English and his associate reach Pascal's hideout where his men have the Queen jewels. Because of a blunder, the thieves escape with the jewels in a hearse. English and his asscociate Bough chase him, but lose him in the way and track the wrong hearse. When they realise their blunder, they somehow manage to get out of the situation.

Later it comes out that the MI7 was correct, and Pascal is the mastermind behind the theft. He intends to control Britain.

Meanwhile, the MI7 chief discontinues English from the case when English suggests that he suspects Pascal to be the mastermind of the theft. English decides to inspect the office of Sauvage. When they do, they find out about Sauvage's plans to crown himself as the King of England. They meet Special agent Lorna Campbell(played by Natalie Imburglia) of the Interpol who also is tracking Sauvage's activities, but unfortunately they get caught. The MI7 chief discontinues him from the case. This breaks English's confidence.

Pascal's men break into the Buckingham palace, forcefully make the Queen sign a will to crown Sauvage the king, and hide her. Meanwhile, the case gets reassigned to Lorna, and she seeks English's assistance in catching Sauvage. They reach the outskirts of Pascal's secret hideout palace and break in the night before Pascal would be sworn in as the King. There they find out that pascal intends to convert the whole of England into one large jail, but in the process, get caught.

They manage to escape when Bough comes behind tracking them. They escape, and break into the ceremony. There, in a string of events, English tries to expose him, but Sauvage orders him to be thrown away.. Sauvage gets irritated of all the drama, and utters ill things to the British. English escapes the guards, and just before the crown gets placed on sauvage's head, English pushes him and to everyone's surprise, English gets crowned. English immediately understanding the changed situations, orders to arrest Sauvage. People roar in praise of English's order.

The Queen gets restored of her powers. She awards English with a knighthood. English goes on a vacation with Loren, where he makes a blunder which leaves Loren in a pool. The End

Final Take:
The movie is very funny. Rowan Atkinson plays his part wonderfully. Natalie Imburglia suits the role well. Others play their part well.

I watch the movie twice, because it was so funny. Because it mocks the British monarchy and the church,it has been rated much lower than what it deserves. This movie is more funny than most of the Mr Bean movies, which are low on dialogues.

My rating for Johnny English : 4 out of 5.

Movie Review - The King's Speech

2011-10-09T17:00:00.002+05:30

I had the opportunity to watch a movie - the oscar nominated The Kings speech.. Having heard a lot about it, i decide to watch it. Now, here' sthe review

The Plot:
The story sets in 1925. King George Vth's younger son - Albert Fredrick, the Duke of York(played by Colin Firth) has a stammering issue. He stammers too much every time he needs to talk. This stammering problem becomes a cause for embarrasment for him at the closing ceremony of the Empire Exhibition at the Wembley stadium - an exhibition staged by the various British colonies from all over the world. He excessive stammering makes the speech a headache for all the listeners out there.That is when he decides to take medical treatment for the illness.

He tries many medicinal procedures to reduce the stammering problem including some really silly ones, like cigerette smoking. But none of them show any results. He eventually gives up hope.

His wife Elizabeth(played by Helena Carter), on suggestion of the president of society for speech therapies, secretly visits Lionel Logue(played by Geoffrey Rush) who resides in Harley Street and discusses the issue.. The doctor agrees to treat his problem, but with the condition that the duke would have to follow his rules. But initially the king finds the techniques of Lionel offensive.

Later one evening, while being extremely tensed over a christmas speech that his father had asked him to deliver, he decided to hear a recording from the last session at Lionel. And he found that Lionel's experiement was extremely successful. He decides to continue the treatment, and finds himself in a better state.

After the first world war, King George Vth demises. After his death, Albert's older brother David becomes the King. Albert does everything to make David the king, as he is scared of the public speaking responsibilities that a king has. As a ruler, David does not discharge his duties as a king, and wastes his time in the service of his love interest Wallis Simpson. She is a twice divorced woman who knows how to control men. David decides to marry her. But that would be deemed illegal, as the King is the head of the church.

It is decided that Albert would be the king, and would be called King George VIth. On 12th of December 1936, Albert is sworn in as the King, but his first briefing as a king to his men is a disaster for him. His stammering makes it too embarrasing for him.This stammering breaks his soul. He consults Lionel again.

Before getting officially sworn in at the Westminster Abbey, Albert discovers that Lionel did not have any formal credentials, and gets hurt. But Lionel in time, controls the situation, and makes him assured. They practice the speech's in the Abbey. And Albery becomes King George VIth without any embarrasment.

Later, World War II between England and Germany. The king had to deliver a speech on behalf of the nation. And this speech would be a historic one. Just as George gets his speech, he calls in for Lionel. Lionel comes and assists him. His futuristic vision helps George to be at ease while giving the speech. The speech was a success. After the speech, everyone applauds the king for the well delivery. George acknowledges him as a friend, and thanks hi for all the suppor he had contributed to the monarch.

Later in 1944, Lionel was awarded with the commander in chief rank for his services to the monarch. The movie ends.

Final Take:

The movie is good. It shows how the most powerful person on the planet is so terrorised by a small fear, and his struggle to overcome it.

Colin Firth has done a splendid job. He played the role of a stammering royalty with brilliance. Geoffrey Rush and Helena Carter have also done a splendid job.

Ther direction has been outstanding, the director Tom Hooper has done a magnificent job,and rightly gets the credit for it.

My rating for the movie - 4 out of 5

Buy Blog Reviews - Does it Work

2011-09-25T18:23:00.002+05:30

I recently came across a site called Buy Blog Reviews. Well, here's another one of the sites that allow affiliates to earn using sponsored posts. Does it work, i don't know.

Well, if any of you have an idea of whether this works, do comment here.

My New Casio G1W MTP 1300D 1AVDF

2011-09-23T19:47:00.010+05:30

I just bought a new watch. On browsing through a huge collection of watches from various brands like Titan, Timex, Fast Track, Swatch and the likes, i finally purchased one from Casio. With the trust on the brand Casio, it seemed to be the best deal at the store.

Here are the features of the watch

Case / bezel material: Stainless steel
Stainless Steel Band
One-touch 3-fold Buckle
50-meter water resistance
Mineral Glass
Regular timekeeping
Analog: 3 hands (hour, minute, second),
3 dials (day, day of the week, 24-hour)

Accuracy: 20 seconds per month

Approx. battery life: 2 years on SR621SW
Size of case/total weight: 45 X 41.9 X 8.7 mm/114 g

Finishing of the watch is good. The feeling that aluminium gives is one of its kind. The watch is quite light compared to other models.

The watch has three sub dials - one showing day, one showing date, and the third showing the time in hrs.

The numbers scribed on the dial, as on the side of the rim are very clear and easily readable. Only in case of low lights, the watch is not

The watch also comes in variant in which the background is white instead of black, but i'd not recommend it for young guys out there.

I bought it at Rs2995 from Arun Watch Shop, Yusuf Sarai, New Delhi (which happens to be one of the biggest watch dealers in Delhi). I did find it on watchkart.com, but then again i'm not so sure of less heard online companies trading.

My rating for the watch - 4.8/5 . Have money - go buy it !

Adsense (Sigh)

2011-09-23T10:39:00.003+05:30

I had recently applied for the Google's Adsense program. Considering it to be a good one,i applied for it.Today, i got this mail. Unfortunately, Google thinks i haven't got sufficient content.

Issues:

- Insufficient content

---------------------

Further detail:

Insufficient content: To be considered for AdSense, your site must contain
enough text content for our specialists to review and for our crawlers to
identify relevant ads to show on your pages. We recommend including more
complete sentences and paragraphs on your site. We require websites to be
fully launched and functioning, allowing users to navigate throughout your
site with a menu, sitemap, or appropriate links. Once the majority of your
site is complete and functional, we'll be happy to reconsider your
application.

Google. If four years of blogging on the world doesn't give you enough content for your crawlers which run through my page everyday, nothing will !!

Quick Review -First Impression - Sansung Galaxy S2

2011-09-18T09:09:00.003+05:30

Recently, i went to a Tata Croma store in Noida, where i came across the Samsung Galaxy S2. Being disconnected lately with the technology news (primarily because i was growing short on time because of the hectic schedule). Coming back to S2, the phone was a bigger version of the Samsung Galaxy S, with an improved display, and a better camera, not mentioning the improved battery life.

The phone was quite slim compared to its width. A real light phone, it was very quick in launching apps. Must say, i found it similar to the Galaxy S, but this one's a better.

Will post a full review for Sansung Galaxy S2 in the coming days

Viral Fever - What a way to start a new Year

2011-09-01T09:17:00.000+05:30

Its 1st September today. People might know it as Padma Lakshmi's birthday, Life Insurance Corporation of India's foundation day, or IndianOil Day,
. But for me, its called "Birthday".

This year, the birthday, like every year was full of unpredictable surprises. One of the unpleasant ones this year was Viral fever. For a couple of days, i had been feeling weak, and had difficulty in sleeping. Infact , wasn't sleeping 6 hours a day.yesterday, i just tried using a thermometer, and it gave a shock- Viral Fever. And that too on the eve to my new year.

So i finally entered the new year with fever, paracetamol pills, hot water gargles , and a call from my ex. While the latter was soothing, the former ones were something i never expected to do.

Happy Birthday to me !!

Blogger's Rights - a must read for every blogger

2011-08-30T17:11:00.003+05:30

Many a times we come across the news for people getting jailed for their bitter yet true remarks. Passing of resolution against Om Puri's speech at the RamLila Maidan is one of such events.

And on the internet, we do tend to use our freedom of speech , and we do sometimes go over the edge in expressing ourselves.

I found a link which mentions all the rights that we bloggers have, our freedom of speech, to things that go in for our defence in difficult situations.

https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers

The link has references to all your requirements, and points that you should know. Run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, i found the link to be highly useful.

Hope you guys find it as useful as i did. Suggestions are welcomed

Product Review - Tzinga

2011-08-30T10:48:00.006+05:30

I recently tried a new energy drink which i had heard of. The drink's named Tzinga, an is promoted by a Gurgaon based firm.

I purchased a pack of Tzinga. It was a 200ml pouch, hence cutting the traditional can cost. But the price was too shockingly low - INR 20. I can buy 4 of these, and still have a polo. This is probably the cheapest drink out there in the Indian market.

The pouch is more like those cheap one drink pouches available in the market.

The drink comes in Lemon Mint flavour, and claims to have ginseng and guarana added along with Taurine. And all this for 20 bucks. I decided to buy it.

I opened the pack(which is sealed like a juice tetrapack), and tasted it. First thought - Mint dominates every other flavour. Slowly lemon comes into the picture when the tongue becomes used to it. But first reaction is.... too wierd for someone whose just migrated from Red Bull or the similar class. The taste of caffeine is missing, and the flavour of mint is spoiling the drink.

I somehow managed to gulp the whole drink. Will i put my money on buying this product - maybe not. Reason : Out of the league flavour, which is totally imbalanced. Mint might make alcoholics go in for it, but as a regular stand-alone energy drink, the mint's just too much.

If the flavour have had less of mint and more of lemon, the flavour would have been better. Maybe because i'm drinking an energy drink after ages, i'm feeling the exhuberant variation in the flavour.

My rating - 3.5/5

Another visit at the Easy Day - more surprises await

2011-08-30T09:14:00.004+05:30

Yesterday, i did visit the easy day store at the Botanical Garden Metro Station again. I was on my way to the Great India Place(walkable distance from there), and it was pretty humid and hot. So decided to pick up some juice or drink.

I bought a Minute Maid pulpy orange drink. The product costs 20 bucks normally, but surprisingly the staff charged me INR 16.50 . On furthur enquiring, i came to know that Easy Day does offer discounts at every product.

I literally was surprised to see that most of the stock had been sold, and fresh stock had been ordered. The store manager told me that the demand for the products had been more than what anyone had expected.

Good to see competition ruling the Indian chains

The Shame minister of India - Mohan Singh

2011-08-26T11:06:00.005+05:30

Mohan Singh happens to be the most dull prime minister in the history of India. I wonder what was INC thinking before selecting such a man for the post.

Yesterday, when Rahul Gandhi read his speech from a piece of paper in the parliament, the whole union cabinet came in praise of Rahul for uttering his speech like a child's nursery poem in the annual playschool function in front of his sister Priyanka who was the chief guest.

It really surprises me. The government is acting like an incubator for Rahul Gandhi's political career, and not as the administrator of the nation.

And the shameless smile of the PM in the Lok Sabha, who under the cloud of the tag of an "administrative failure" still thinks praising Rahul will boost his career. His appointed ministers - Raja,Kalmadi, Soren all in jail,with the appointed impeached CJI being his choice- all adding to his failures. Anna Ji was fasting for 12 days for a strong Lokpal bill while all he can think is boost Rahul's career at that time?

Sounds bad for the nation, really disheartening state of affairs .

App Review - Adobe Muze(Code Name)

2011-08-23T18:26:00.007+05:30

I just came across Adobe Muse while surfing around the web. Abobe Muze is a new software for creating beautiful web pages without having any knowledge of the web programming. It includes support for scripts. The software is in its initial development stages. Initially released for Mac's, the product is now available for the Windows platform.

Installing it wasn't difficult, as it installs directly from the Adobe site. You need Adobe Air to make it work.

Here are two screenshots from the development phase

I made a very simple site, and in 5 minutes. Yes, it did take me around ten minutes to understand what the software environment was, but then got comfortable with it. The environment is slightly different than of Microsoft Frontpage or Yahoo Sitebuilder, but still user friendly. Being Adobe, the software gives a feeling of a flash player in motion. Nevertheless, it makes quite gud pages. Novice and professional web designers will love this program. And this is after the fact that Muse is just a codename, and the product is still in its initial stages.

The demo site i developed is online. Check the photo gallery tab for the software's beauty. You can check it by clicking Here . You can go directly at the photogallery at http://prattzz.freewebspace.com/the-photo-gallery.html

As you could have seen in the site, scripting is embedded in the program. So in case of building a customised site, the program gives quite a lot of options. Also, the gallery does support facebook'ish photo browsing, something that appealed me a lot.

My personal rating for Adobe Muse : 4.5 out of 5

Adobe Muse is available at http://muse.adobe.com/

India gets a new cheap super-charged SUV with Force One

2011-08-22T16:55:00.004+05:30

Yesterday, Force motors launched their new SUV - Force One. The new SUV is already making waves , as it is offered at a surprisingly low price of INR 10,65,000 , which seems to be quite cheap. And to add to it, the SUV comes with a Mercedes-Benz validation of the whole car, adding to it reliability and perfomance.

To add more, Amitabh Bachchan was made the brand ambassador for the SUV.

Source

Difference between the Govt "Jokepal" Lokepal and Anna's Lokepal

2011-08-22T16:17:00.004+05:30

Today, on the Delhi Metro while on my way back to home , an India Against Corruption volunteer was distributed pamphlets clearly specifying the difference between the government formed Lokepal better known as Jokepal, and Anna Hazare led IAC's Lokepal. The pamphlet stated all the crucial points in Lehmann's language, so easy that anyone can read and understand. All of you should have a look at it. The pamphlet being in Hindi, was read by all in the train, and triggered discussion about the movement.

This pamphlet can also be read in English at http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/docs/english_pamphlet.pdf and http://www.box.net/shared/l5okarpc3l3btzk6ore8

And after that, if the government doesn't decide to formulate Anna ji's Lokepal, then its a shame that we have selected such pathetic people to run the nation.

TOI comes in support Anna

2011-08-22T14:47:00.011+05:30

Recently i was going through the Times of India, and found the TOI supporting Anna's IAC too.

The Times of India, a prominent national running since 1838 ,a part of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd , which runs companies like Indiatimes.com (check Here for details), supporting Anna openly is a big big setback for the government. This movement has turned to be way bigger than anyone in the government ever imagined.

Seems like there's more insult left in the government's account

Bharti Walmart - Now in India

2011-08-21T11:36:00.005+05:30

Recently, i purchased a few things from a new store in Noida metro station. I've been to that store a few times, but never purchased anything(probably because carrying around stuff is heavy, plus the metro inspection is rigourous).

Recently,. i bought a couple of items from there. And then came a shock

"Easy Day - a Bharti Walmart Store"

It was pretty surprising to see that a Walmart store in India has so less popularity. Even the company isn't promoting the chain much. Also i tried the site for easy day - seemed like a badly maintained blog, and not the site of a JV of two major consumer chains.

The chain had reportedly spread mostly in the towns and not in metropolitans, though it has started to open some of its stores in Delhi, and is planning to open a few more including one in Greater Noida.

Lets hope good news will start pouring soon

The curious case of uber-dum UPA

2011-08-17T18:34:00.002+05:30

Lately,the government as been scared of everything that has been coming on their way. Whether if there's a film like Aarakshan which openly criticises the increasing commercialism in education, or Anna ji's 'satyagrah' against the corruption embedded in the system and in favour of a strong Lokepal bill(unlike the government's version popularly called jokepal) ,the congress party has been on a defence.

Congress has been avoiding responsibility. Lalu Yadav's three brother in laws - the most scammed and notorious politician in the history of Bihar state are also a part of congress. So is Mr Shashi Tharur, who invested in Kochi Team while alloting it the franchise for IPL. The whole Congress party has been a camp for corrupt politicians.

Congress has been really scarerd of things lately. And even a kid knows that only the guilty fear from justiice, the honest are bold enough to challenge justice to trial them. And the way Congress has been scared, it clearly shows that they have been directly or indirectly involved in scams.Lets not forget that their current chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her late husband Rajiv Gandhi have been accused in the Bofors scandal and helping criminals accused in Bofors anti-aircraft launcher and the painful Bhopal gas tragedy . Congress has been acting so shamelessly and greedy. It is surprising to see that they aren't even scared of the fate of the Nazi's, and dictators like Saddam Hussain and Hosni Mubarak

Seems like INC will en-christ itself somewhere in Europe , and the new name would be Indian Nuthead Chickens !

Product Review - Canon A3200IS

2011-08-17T17:56:00.004+05:30

I reccently purchased a digital camera for my dad, as a gift. This being the first digital camera at home, i decided to personally seldct the camera that would be the best investment for a long term.

I checked out a lot of camera's at the Croma store in East of Kailash. Some friends had suggested sony, and some had suggested Canon, so i decided to stay within the two. My alloted budget was Rs7500.And my demand - a camera with 10+megapixels,around 4-5x optical zoom, HD(preferavly full 1080p) and an easy UI..

The best in the range was this Canon A3200IS. I took a whole 3 hours at Croma to finalise on this camera. Tested the camera's quite in detail. The following was the result.

In the range of around Rs7500-8000, there were two camera's with the desired config - an Olympus and a Canon. Canon A3200IS was priced at Rs7564, whereas Olympus was priced at Rs7800(roughly, don't remember the exact figure, but was Rs78xx). The Olympus one was a full HD, and had a better lighting detection, whereas the Olympus one was a 720p, but what i've learned from experience is that features matter less unless they're implemented flawlessly. So, decided to use all these camera's on full resolution, with full optical zoom.

Here, the Canon one scored better. Pictures were crystal clear. The flash firing was a bit irritating, especially when it fired in medium lightning where even no flash could have done. But then, in the live mode, you can set flash off, and everything would be done. On zooming the pictures, Olympus gave a bit blurry whereas Canon was perfect. In Video mode, both Canon and Olympus did good, but in A3200IS the images got blurred on recording in HD and zooming more than 3x. Olympus was better here.

But the more important thing was zooming, flash and pixel rate. Olympus forces us to go in for full HD and full 14Mp, even when we do not want that. This can be very irritating. For example, if i need a picture for my facebook display, why the hell would i need a 14MP resolution picture, it would firstly take sometime to upload the picture, secondly i'll be wastring time and money over broadband charges, and thirdly, resizing in facebook would eat my brains. And so is for other photo sharing sites.

Also, Canon has a better after-sales network than Olympus in Delhi and NCR, this is something i cannot ignore. I cannot roam around the NCR just for some service centre. Already going to the Nehru place service centre of Samsung seems irritating.

I'm uploading two photos for a better first hand experience. I tried uploading video's, but uploading 26Mb didn't seem possible for the internet conenction to handle.

In one of the pictures, you can see my whole computer setup. The computer, that hadn't been cleaned for sometime(as i was out on a vacaion and recently came back) seemed more dusty than it actually is. Infact, dirt from many places hidden from the eye seemed visible(all thanx to the neon flash). So no problems in night shooting. In the picture, just select original size, have a look at the computer CPU cabinet .There's a sticker from the airport luggage division. Just have a look at it. You'll understand how the performance of the camera is.

In the other picture, i've pictured my monitor at night without the flash, or any artificial lightning. My computer's home screen background being black, was perfectly visible and readable. Infact, nearby panel buttons and their labels were easily readable too in the photo. The camera seemed good.

Another good point with Canon was that it had a two year warranty on its product, whereas Olympus had only a 1 year warranty. Liquid damage is not covered in the warranties of both. But anyways, 2 is better than 1. That cuts the need of additional warranties. I was asked by the Croma executive to purchase another two year warranty for Rs350, which i declined. Certainly two years are enough for the camera warranty. Canon does good work there.

Being under independence sale, Croma sold me Canon A3200IS for Rs7564. The prices were a hundred more, but managed to bargain hundred more bucks :) .

My personal review - 4 out of 5. Could have been better, but still gets the value for money tag. Though i would mention that some would be tempted to give it 4.5 out of 5 . These many features, plus under Rs7600, plus HD, plus Canon seems to be a great combination at this price point.

UPA acts shameless

2011-08-13T17:40:00.001+05:30

The Manmohan Singh led UPA government has shown the worst form of politics in the history of mankind. Not only UPA has become undemocratic, anarchic and cheat, it has been commiting atrocities on people rising agasinst injustice.

Recently,on the Mumbai-Pune expressway, four farmers were shot dead by the police, and public property worth lakhs was sabotaged by the police when the people protested the 'illegal' land acuisition by the government. And when asked this question, the maharashtra government shamelessly calls the farmers 'liars'. This is when the media has the footage of the shot victims being dragged by the police before being killed.

This government is the most corrupt government after the PV narsimha Rao led Congress government. PV Narsimha Rao was the most tainted person who ever took the position of the Prime Minister. After PV Narsimha Rao, Manmohan Singh is the most failed prime minister. Infact, i consider this UPA government equal to the 'British East India Company' who used to forcefeed striking masses after commiting barbarious and inhumane atrocities on freedom fighters. The warning by P Chidambram(who has been at cold war with Pranab Mukherjee since 1991) to the hon. Anna ji for forcefeeding seemed to be a British command, and not an Indian one. Is this what we have to suffer for getting a corruption free India. If that is so, we are ready to do this.

Infact, these times are worst than those of the atrocious British, who at the moment, are facing losses due to rioting(law of karma i'd say....ain't that true charlie) . Even during the British rule, people were allowed to stage 'anshan', but this UPA government doesn't even allow people to protest in favour of a strong Lokepal bill. Arresting 200 students who were staging a silent march in favour shows how low the UPA has stooped. I do fear that UPA will go to the extent of fake voting and causing discrepencies to get back in power once again.

And as for Manmohan Singh, the ex-chairman of IMF has shown the most shameful behaviour as a prime minister. His failure at sharman al shaikh shows that he's not worth putting into administration, being the prime minister should completely be ruled out. No matter what congress and UPA say, he is the worst PM till date that India has ever had. Infact, he's the first Indian prime minister to be ridiculed, inspite of ridiculing the PM being a punishable offence here. Still noone even cares to take action against anyone who ridicules him. This shows that even the law enforcement agencies, the UPA itself doesn't care about the PM's insult.

Well, thats the UPA. They made Manmohan Singh the prime minister even when his public in Assam defeated him so badly that his security was confisticated. This shows that UPA doesn't care about the mandate of the masses, and wishes to do whatever the want to.The rest is exhibited by the PM coming in defence of Suresh Kalmadi, who scandalised the Commonwealth Games. This was done inspite the fact that the media had consequently been showing enidences of a scandal in everything even before the inagruation of the games. It is only Suresh's close links with Sonia Gandhi, whose husband late Rajiv Gandhi was his collegue pilot which saved Kalmadi for more than a year. Eventually, he had to be jailed after the law enforcement agencies were forced by the media to take into account the evidences that prove him guilty.

And same is for A Raja and Kanimoze(or whatever the name is of this daughter of Karunanidhi.). Both were found accused of scandals worth INR 2000000000000. That big an amount can make countries like Nepal sustain centuries. And Manmohan again came in defence of them. What a shame it is.

Is staging a protest a crime? Then why did they attack and arrest Swami Ramdev and his supporters? This is because they got scared that Ramdev had brought over 2,00,000people at the legendary Ramlila Ground on the very first day, and that too from various nations, if not various states. And this is the figure for the people registered with him, the masses who didn't register(like me) are seperate and unaccounted.

It is indeed a time for a change. As Anna ji's rightly said, 'it is the time for the second freedom revolution'. I seriously worry that if situations do not improve soon, then maybe we shall have to see a scene like the ones we saw at Cairo where the people attacked the defence forces for freedom from corruption. Even till date, people express their desire to personally kill Hosni Mubarak as a punishment to the atrocities he's committed to them.

Lets bring this corruption rule to an end. I shall be supporting Anna ji on the 16th, and request all of you to be there too. Jai Hind

Cisco Packet Tracer - a great software

2011-08-13T17:37:00.005+05:30

Recently, i had been practising some networking as a part of my training at NTPC limited. Many a systems at NTPC were process critical and online, so i could not understand on how to configure them.

I did some research, and found out that there's a software called Cisco Packet Tracer , which is a network simulator for networking students. I decided to try it myself.

The software is easy to use and install. You just have to click on an icon, select the type of device, and click to deploy it. Double click on the device to configure its settings. Click and select a specific type if wire(coaxial, optical or telephone) and a couple of click to deploy it. If you don't want to waste time in selecting the appropriate wire, just click on autoselecvt and the appropriate wire would be selected automatically. You can support WAN's, multiple networks, etc without any hassle.

The software is quite advanced, as it supports clouds, tv's, ip phones, voip phones, printers, pda's, laptops, tablets, MPS, and a lot more. You can test any end by either sending a test data packet, or using its visual interface., that is by means of the regular command prompt operations like tracert, ping, etc, or by using the browser emulation.

Cisco Packet Tracer does allow you to see what happens in the OSI model during one specific point of time in transmission. This is extremely useful to see how things work. IP header, OSI model layer usage, all such data for one point of time is given.

And te best part - Cisco Packet Tracer is an absolutely free download from the Cisco site. There are also many mirrors out there for it. That adds to the surprise.

Download cisco packet tracer from http://www.ccna4u.org/2010/05/packet-tracer-version-53-software.html

Overall, i can say that it is one of the best LAN trainers out there. People doing networking courses such as CCNA should use it to learn.

I'd give it 4.5 out of 5.

Blogadda doing wierd antics

2011-08-13T17:24:00.002+05:30

Blogadda had recently mailed me that they would soon be mailing me a book called Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi , as i was one of the 50 lucky winnners under their book review program. In this program, they used to mail books to bloggers for free, on the condition that they would post a review of it.

I confirmed their mail, and waited for a week for the book to reach me. When i didn't get the book, i started communicating with them. On furthur communication, they informed me that they had mixed up the name , and had sent me the mail by mistake, and sent it to someone else with the same name. DO you believe their excuse, well i surely don't.

Yet once again i see how companies and sites attract people on their siteby fake promises. Makes me wonder, when will people ever learn to be honest...

Fotopic Down...

2011-08-07T20:11:00.004+05:30

Hey
Fotopic.net was one website which i had been using for years as my image backup. All my cherished moments were uploaded in the fotopic.net gallery.

For sometime now,i had been too involved with some petty things, because of which, i wasn't able to keep track of the site. Now, when i have lost things in the hard drive crash(some months ago), i decided to post the new pictures of my vacation to fotopic, not knowing a surprise awaited.

Finding that more than eight years of memories being lost, with the dim 'match in the field' seems like a dream. Lets see if i can find out aa way to retrieve them..

Signing off

Two and a half men even in the skies

2011-08-02T09:24:00.004+05:30

On board mt recent flight Jet Airways 9W 830 Chennai to New Delhi, i finally got some time to catch the in-flight entertainment. Usually, hog on to some movie available, but that day the flight was delayed due to some ministers arriving. So i finally browsed through the Jet's media collection. And it was good.

The Big Bang theory, Two and a half men, How i met your mother were a few of the shows available. The movie collection consisted of some movie "Hall Pass" (and another one,whose name i don't remember).

The music section was good. New hits from all genre's were there. Infact, Indian classical - a rarity was there in abundance. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Manna Dey's full albums were there. These days you don't get to hear that kind of music even when you have to pay a premium.

And the flight landed at IGI Terminal 3. Looking at its grandeur, no wonder GMR infrastructure was excited launching it. T3 beats any mall anytime. Now chennai airport's copying it.

My experience with Jet has been damn good. T3, and the in-flight experience has been good. Hope to be back on daily track soon

MTNL on a roll

2011-07-01T12:23:00.002+05:30

Over time, i've noticed one thing about MTNL's DND. They are very much willing to register complaints against the DND defaulters. Its been a surprise to me how MTNL call centre employees do this.

Whenever i call up MTNL's DND helpline @ 1909, i always ask to register a complaint which MTNL employees do without asking questions - they just check the number, and day of the telemarketing call/sms, and they register the complaint. Next heard, i do not hear anything from those telemarketers, and neither from MTNL. Thus MTNL works quietly in the background.

Also, surprisingly, MTNL has been installing internet services FREE as a part of a scheme. Trial pack includes one month of unlimited internet surfing at Rs50/month+taxes, and surf as much as you want at 320kbps. Sounds very interesting.

Seems like Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited - an ex-Navratna has been on a roll !

Link Picks

2011-06-28T13:30:00.002+05:30

Hey everyone
Its been a long long time since i've posted some good sites in the best of the web section. Well, here they are.

groupon.com
The site offers an application which helps connect people forming a pooled transport, and those who wish to avail such pool's services. The aim is to connect the people, and help pools get their required member numbers. And the final aim - reducing pollution

lafango.com
This is a talent hunt website,aimed at providing the right platform for all kinds of artists. The site lets musicians, comedians, singers, dancers, photographers, models and other artists to connect to the masses.

eraser.heidi.de
Download the free permanent file deleter from this site. Eraser removes any traces of any files that you deleted,hence offering complete anonimity. It uses many millitary techniques to erase all file tracks. Download Eraser from this link for free

http://www.cypherix.com/cryptainerle/
Frustrated of people who keep on sticking their USB drives/dongles on your computer without your permission? Troubled by people passing out viruses to your computer by their pen drives? Then Cryptainer is your solution. It blocks your USB ports with a password. Its a highly useful tool for shared systems. Download it from here for Free

cafindia.org
Desire to serve your society. CAF India is an organisation that lets you support NGO's in India with the donation that you send. You can select NGO's by their purpose, tax-relaxation schemes, location, etc. The authenticity of the mentioned NGO's is checked by CAF India before being listed. A site with a very noble cause, do visit this site whenever you'd like to make a donation.

beemp3.com
Do you have problems finding your downloadable song on google amidst millions of web-playable tracks? Wasting too much time on finding the track you want to download? Then this is the site. It searches through the deep web and arranges the site links to millions of tracks. India, English, any language tracks are available here. I got hold of some pretty rare tracks on this site, some tracks which were even not released on the disk. Although i must mention, many of the downloads might be illegal, though the site claims that it allows to download the songs for promotion sampling only. A personal favourite

faceboo.com/pehredaar
A great facebook page of a brilliant consumer rights awareness show. The show titled 'Pehredaar' has been on air for the last eight years, solving consumer problems that the companies had refused to solve. In case you have a problem, just logon to this site to request Pehredaar to take note of your problem,or contact other consumers. Who knows maybe the same problem might be there with many other consumers there.

Hope you guys like it. Comments/suggestions are welcomed

First Peek at the NTPC Badarpur Thermal Power Station

2011-06-28T13:26:00.003+05:30

On monday, i went to the NTPC Badarpur Thermal Power Station. Being one of the oldest in the Delhi-ncr, this power station is the main power source to Delhi, Noida, and Rajasthan's Alwar.

BTPS(as we fondly call it) is also connected to my blood. Way back in 1985, my father was an officer in NTPC. He had attended a training seminar on Powerplant familiarization. back then, he was positioned in NTPC's Korba plant. So i'm the second generation of the family being associated with BTPS.

Being my first visit to any thermal plant, i took some pictures of BTPS.

The images show various angles of the main transmission/distribution building of the BTPS, along with the MCB of the plant(which is a building in itself).

How to use the computer safely

2011-06-28T13:24:00.002+05:30

Hey
I came across a guide on how to use computers well. The guide includes the body posture styles and precautions that one must observe for safe computing.

This booklet was enlightening for me, as i found out a few flaws in the posture i use for computer.

Download the book from this link. Snapshots are attached

https://rapidshare.com/files/3840549560/Safety___Comfort_Guide.pdf

Hope you guys like it. Suggestions/comments are welcomed

No rift between Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambram a lie !

2011-06-28T13:21:00.002+05:30

Very recently, home minister P Chidambram in an interview had said that he had no issues with the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee - the seniormost minister after the prime minister. Pranab Mukherjee was the seniormost minister after the prime minister too in 1972, when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister, and current prime minister Manmohan Singh was the governor for Reserve Bank of India, and used to report to Pranab.

The claim that P Chidambram is stating is a FALSE,a LIE. My father's been in the ministry of finance for the last twenty four years, this has been a known fact that P Chidambram hates everything started by Pranab Mukherjee.Infact, P Chidambram closed down a government owned FII called Industrial Investment Bank of India (aka IIBI Ltd, popular with the employees for great work environment and employee/job satisfaction) only for the sake that Pranab was the brain behind this bank's creation. Instead, P Chidambram opened a special purpose organisation called India Infrastructure Finance Corporation Limited (IIFCL - the very one which brought tax-free infrastructure bonds recently) wh ich does the same functions, and has the SAME OFFICE premises from which IIBI operated from(10th floor, 25 KG Marg). Infact, majority of the staff was taken from IIBI only. Infact, some of the IIBI officers, which had been under fire for allegedly asking for bribes, were taken in IIFCL.

P Chidambram is a shrewed politician. Doesn't matter how good does he work, but his political vision sucks pretty much.

Hyundai Motor Plaza, New Delhi - a Cheat,Sham

2011-06-28T13:16:00.002+05:30

Earlier this month, i had visited the Hyundai Motor Plaza - the Hyundai owned and operated authorised service centre in New Delhi. And let me tell you what. THEY'RE ARE THIEVES. They charged me for a lot of services, which i found out that weren't performed. The problem i asked to check wasn't checked at all. I was misguided and asked to get an expensive Rs20000+ operation done. But on going to a local mechanic, this problem was sorted for Rs5330. And Hyundai Motor Plaza charged me with Rs5424 and did damage to the suspension, fuel injection and seats.

I have decided to file a case in the consumer court against Hyundai Motors India. But before that, i wrote a mail to the HMI management, as per the suggestions of national consumer helpline

"I had written earlier about my PATHETIC experience with Hyundai Motor India's services at the Hyundai Motor Plaza,New Delhi service centre, but now i've come to know that you are CHEATS. You charged us for things that you don't even do. HMI seems to be inspired from all the malpractices in the industry. I wasn't able to attend your calls which HMI made within half an hour and as on calling back,the call redirected to the customer care IVR , and HMI doesn't even show the courtesy to mail, or call back on the next day. I am angered at this behaviour of HMI.

When i recently bought a Hyundai car on the recomendation of high qualilty product, i did not know how DISGUSTING HMI's service network is. If you do not believe me, go google "Hyundai Motor Plaza complaints" and see for yourself the names customers have been crowning HMI with. For the record, i own a February 2006 Santro Xing XL purchased from Himgiri Motors(engine no. starting with MALAA51HR6M). The car comes with CNG fitting.

On 14/6/11, this dreaded day i had visited your Hyundai Motor Plaza service outlet in New Delhi for complete service, plus engine pickup issue. HMP being a company owned and operated service centre, i expected top notch service. Neither the engine pick up problem was solved, nor HMP cared about. Instead, the situation had worsened, and the car was not even fit for driving. Earlier,the car was fine,just the pickup was causing problem. Your employees are getting free meals off our pockets irrespective we get satisfaction or not. I had written about this on 16th June, but seems like that discovery of mine was just the tip of the iceberg. HMP executives told me that damaged crank was the reason the car was not picking up. I should suggest you to shut down HMP. YOUR EMPLOYEES DON'T KNOW THAT CRANK HAS NO RELATION WITH SPEED PICKUP OF THE CAR. And the crank is a very expensive part in the engine. I was told that replacing the crank problem would cost Rs 16000(for the crank)+labour charges+engine oil replacement charges+taxes. CLEARLY UNPROFESSIONAL INTENTIONS ARE EVIDENT.

To start first, noone picks up any of the phone numbers that the website or customer care 1800-11-4645 mentions. I was new to the Mohan co-operative area, and it took me half an hour to find a way to reach the location. I was approaching from Apollo hospital side, had to return all the way from Badarpur Border to find HMP. On reaching there,i see the receptionist gladly chatting with other staff members and ignoring the ringing phones. HOW COURTEOUS HMP IS, REALLY.

I was charged Rs100 for Full Throttle cleanup , and Rs 1200 for engine decarbonisation, along with the verbal claim that fuel injection was cleaned. Now, as my pickup problem was not solved, i asked another Hyundai owner who suggested me to visit Kar Scan centre at Savitri Cinema complex, Greater Kailash. I visited there on 19/6/11 and got my car scanned. THERE I COME TO KNOW THAT NEITHER OF THE ABOVE STATED ACTIVITIES WERE DONE and i was still charged. In simple, i was charged for things not done. CHEATING is the term what the Kar Scanning executive used for HMI on knowing the whole situation. Mr Ali at the Kar Scanning Centre is my witness/alibi. And as per the Consumer Protection Act,its the responsibility of Hyundai Motors India to prove that it had done these stated activities, which HMI cannot prove as none of it has been done in the first place.

My driver's seat was torn from behind at three places which was not earlier,though i didn't mention considering it a small ignorable defect. My CNG cylinder had been dislodged, and it started making too much noise on getting jerks while driving, this i also ignored. The right tyre have started to make unbearable whistling noise. A 'knocking' sound started coming from the engine on driving. The engineers at the Kar Scan centre told me that this would cause irreversible damage to the car's engine. Before this,nothing used to happen, and now all this trouble i have to bear just because that HMI engineers were to shameless,unprofessional and careless.

I have decided to SUE HYUNDAI MOTORS INDIA. I want a full Refund of Rs5424 spent, along with the charges of the Kar Scanning Centre pvt limited Rs717+Rs408, furthur charges of Rs 5330 which i had incured to repair the car inspite of handing the car to HMI for repair for a whole day, plus Rs5000 for harassment and fuel/oil charges i had to bear because HMP engineers were shameless and unprofessional. This is when i'm not accounting the time and effort that i would have to spend in the future to get the car fixed. My father had taken a day off without pay from the work only to get the car serviced well(consider this as a financial loss suffered for HMI's UNPROFESSIONAL service). Plus, any person would consider changing a week old lubricant oil wastage of money and sheer stupidity. I have firm reason to believe that HMI has done all this deliberately. Everyday the car travels 30 kilometres one way to Rajendra place and back, and even after spending Rs7000, there was ZERO outcome. Instead, things had become worse. What guarantee does the company give that the car will not cause any problem,difficulty,accident in the middle of the road and any consequent damages would not occur, and in case of so, HMI will completely cover the expenses for any such incident. And being a CNG car, what guarantuee does HMI give that the problems appearing post the HMP service would not cause any incident which might be fatal for anyone around/inside the car?

On 24/6/11, i went to Himachal Motors, Mohan Singh Market, INA , a trusted car workshop which has been flawlessly servicing all the petty vehicle issues i have had with our previous Maruti,and government vehicles in the past ten years, and he charged a net sum of Rs5330,including all the parts and labour. He told that there was a serious issue with the ignition system which was damaging the spark plugs severely. Also, he informed that the gear timer relay in the car was full of oil, and it had to be repaired with great efforts. He also pointed that THE CRANK WAS FIT ENOUGH FOR WORKING AND NO REPLACEMENT WAS NEEDED. It took them two days,and four dedicated technicians for fixing up the problems. Even they changed damaged critical parts such as belts worth Rs1700 which HMI never cared to. The pickingup problem was due to faulty gear relay timer, and nothing else. I PAYED YOU Rs 5400 AND YOU SABOTAGED MY CAR. HIMACHAL MOTORS CHARGED RS 5300 AND THEY RESOLVED ALL MY ISSUES. I ask you Hyundai Motors India? Even after i report you, you do not care to ask the customer the next day what was his grieverence. If Hyundai Motors India has the guts to reply, then kindly reply to me IN WRITING WITH THE COMPANY LETTERHEAD along with the details of action taken against the people involved in my harrasment! I do not believe that YOUR COMPANY TRAINED EXECUTIVES ARE LESS SKILLED THAN SELF-TRAINED GARAGE MECHANICS. I clearly find that the company has INTENTIONALLY not well attended the complain. Seems like Hyundai Motors India considers all the customers who entrust HMI as Idiots on whose time,money,effort and lives HMI can play and earn their money !

Also, i must again mention of your engineer Mr Faizur (Cellphone No: 9990120941) at HMP, who misbehaved with us when the car was serviced. First he disconnects the CNG kit, then he doesn't test the car until we force him to, and then he refuses to reconnect the CNG kit ARROGANTLY stating "its not his job" and shamelessly asking us to get it reconnected form outside. And two seniors of his weren't able to sort out the matter. The third in line senior(senior of senior of senior of mr Faizur) had to be requested in order to get that fixed. Two in-line seniors not completing the task shows the company is not at all bound to serving the customer, and is totally committed to grabbing the hard earned money of the consumer. The company was instant at billing, but my personally noted down problems mentioned in the jobsheet were IGNORED until i started looking into the matter and INSISTING to consider them first before paying. If i'm not suing him seperately, that is because i don't have the time, and he was acting on behalf of the company. Plus the company does owe the responsibility to the way their employees behave with the customers under the Consumer Protection Act . With his behaviour, i suggest HMI should employ roadside mechanics, even they know how to behave with customers well.

And surprisingly, HMI charges Rs 405 + taxes for replacing two nuts. These nuts do not cost anymore Rs10 in India, and along with labour, not more than Rs50 be charged. My mechanics - Himachal Motors stated that atmost Rs80 be charged for them,anything else would be a LOOT considering no permission is taken from the customer for changing them at such high prices inspite he company has the contact information of the customer. Its a SHAME that HMI has been implementing such malpractices.

Its upto your company's hands whether to built its image, or damage it more. Bad image caused the downfall of huge MNC's in India like Daewood Motors. Does HMI wants more grieving consumers taking legal action against it or not, its completely upto HMI's hands.

I'm giving you three days to think over it. If Hyundai Motors India decides to pay up full Rs16879.40 in cash/DD and NOT KIND, i shall be suing HYUNDAI MOTORS INDIA in the court of law for criminal negligence, in the consumer court for intentional cheating and sabotage of the vehicle, and take the matter with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, along with the media and consumer interest groups. I SHALL NOT HYUNDAI MOTORS INDIA LOOT ME. Its now upto the management of Hyundai Motors India to decide.

a DISSATISFIED hyundai India customer

Copy To:

Ministry of Consumer Affairs,Government of India : For their kind knowledge of HMI's poor services

Auto Industry Specialists : For their trade's knowledge

Media Houses : To consider this case before reviewing any Hyundai product

Maruti Suzuki Limited : For their good after sales service and robust products

Media/Consumer Right Specialists : For their knowledge

Hyundai Motors America : For kindly forwarding this to Hyundai Motors International's head office as a complain by a Hyundai India customer, They should be aware of Hyundai Motors India's malpractices bringing disrespect to the brand Hyundai."

Lets see what happens. Its the Customer vs Hyundai thieves

First Hands on Nexus One

2011-06-23T20:08:00.000+05:30

I recently got my hands on the HTC Nexus One - the first Android 2.3 handset from Google. Though we do not get this handset in India, but he was able to manage it, being selected by Google to join their Bangalore operations. And must say, damn the phone is good.

The hardware is good. The touch is brilliant. Plus the way hardware and software work together is seamless. Its one hell of an iPhone killer. Android handsets,which are usually said to lag behind as the hardware and software integration isn't as good as the iPhone's integrated system(primarily because both the hardware and software are come from the same company in iPhone which isn't the case for Android handsets).

Anyhow, the phone worked well. Extremely fast and sturdy, the screen was brilliant. The only thing that Google needs to improve is the after-sales support. And if it manages to do it good, its just going to beat all the likes of Nokia, Samsung and Apple.

Movie Review - What Happens in Vegas

2011-06-23T20:06:00.003+05:30

Another one of the movies that i had recently caught was the Ashton Kutcher Cameron Diaz starrer What Happens in Vegas.

The Plot:

The movie is about the story of two individuals - Jack Fuller, and Joy McNally. These two individuals are completely different from each other.
Jack Fuller, played by Ashton Kutcher is a lazy brat, who works at his father's furniture factory. He is fired from the factory as he caused other workers enough disruption to stall all work. He tries betting his opportunity at job, but fails. The fault that his father points out is that he cannot stand high pressure situation.

Joy McNally, played by Cameron Diaz, is an employee at the share market. She is committed to her boyfriend Mason, who dumps her on his birthday unintentionally in front of her closest friends. This leaves her broken.

Suffering with their personal tragedies, both of them decide to have a vacation in Vegas, and start afresh. There, Joy and jack meet each other because of a room allocation mistake. Jack during a conversation, challenges Joy for a drinking challenge. They get excessively drunk, and get married while being so.

The next morning when they wake up and realise that it was a mistake. But while discussing about undoing it, they get into an argument. She leaves her quarter while going away from the conversation,which Jack tries on a jackpot machine,and wins 3 million dollars. When jack tries to drive Joy away, she takes him to the court for her share, being his legal wife.

In the court, the court orders them to six months of marriage counselling, and the money would be frozen till then. They both get stuck with each other. Joy moves into Jack's place. There, both Jack and Joy try to make each other's lives miserable. They come to know that by proving the other partner not being fully committed in making the relationship work.

Both Joy and jack try to make things worst possible for their partner. They try to set each other up, to somehow make the other miss the counselling, which is considered the contempt of court and make things bad for them. Joy even tries to get Jack's parents involved, and give them a good impression of her so that they would become character witnesses for her. Jack tries to set her up with Mason-her exfiance. Meanwhile, Jack's parents invite both of them for their family get-together.

At office, Joy's boss asks her the reason for her inconsistence lately. She excuses about Jack. The boss asks her to bring him to the office picnic. Eventually left with no choice but to save her job, Joy brings him. At the picnic, Jack hits it off well with everyone, especially with the CFO and the board of directors. In the evening party, Jack is chosen as the most entertaining and team-spirited person in the picnic. That evening, they get to have their first dance together. Hence they slowly start bonding with each other.

Jack and Joy start to complement each other. Jack brings out the lively and fun part in Joy, and she fills the 'brumbling under the pressure' problem by motivating it. This shows its effects too. Joy becomes more confident and fun, whereas Jack becomes more motivated and focused. Eventually, they become comfortable in each other's company. Time passes.

But a day before the court hearing, Mason(her ex fiance) comes up to Joy, and asks her to be back with her. Looking at her engagement ring that Mason had given her previously, she understands that Jack must have set up this. She gets hurt.

At the court hearing, she gives up her claim for the money, and asks for a divorce. Then she shifts out of his place. Finding this, Jack becomes sad. Even after he gets all the money, he's still not happy. Joy on the other hand, becomes disappointed. She even leaves her job promotion out of her disappointment. They get divorced. Joy quit her job, goes missing and switches off her phone.

On the other hand, Jack's father convinces him to go and get her back. Jack looks for her and finds out whats been going on. He later guesses where she loves to remain alone to sooth and recuperate. He finds her there, and asks her to marry again, to which she agrees. The End. The last scene then shows how they got married in Vegas.

Final Take:

The movie is another one of those romantic comedies. Cameron and Ashton have done justice to their roles.
The soundwork in the movie has been well executed. The presence of popular tracks has made the movie more connecting with the audience.

To sum it all, its a nice movie , worth a watch or two. I'd give it 3 out of 5

How to Hack Wi-Fi

2011-06-23T20:02:00.001+05:30

Hey guys.

While surfing through the web, i came across this brilliant video about Wi-Fi hacking. In case you're one of those who needs some free bandwidth, or need to test your security, here's the tutorial you've been waiting for.Here's teh link for the video

http://lifehacker.com/5459822/crack-a-wi+fi-networks-wep-password-with-backtrack-the-fancy-video-version

The author for the video Gina has been one of the oldest and the most reliable geeks out there on the net. This video is quite a good tutorial to learn how to hack Wi-Fi.

Hope you guys find it useful. Feel free to comment

Movie Review - The Island

2011-06-23T19:53:00.002+05:30

Another one of the movies that i saw recently was the 2005 sience-fiction movie - the Island. This Warner brothers production was something that was suggested to me by a friend. And i must say, the movie wasn't disappointing.

The Plot:

The story starts in the year 2019. Lincoln Six Echo, played by Evan McGregor is one of the few people who live in an artificial human colony. He lives along with thousands of other humans. Everyday, he has the same routine. He wakes up in the morning, gets ready, has his breakfast, goes to work, has lunch, gym and other sessions. He usually gets nightmares about a boat and some other things and then drowning. He is bored about his predictable life, and has multiple questions about various things inside the colnony.

Jordan Two Delta, played by Scarlett Johanson is his best friend. She's the one who helps him all the food he desires, but cannot procure due to restrictions. He's quite close to Jordan.

The human colony was made after an enormous disease outbreak had occured,and after that this artificial colony was built. Everyone in the colony gets an opportuity to go to the island - a permanent vacation experience out of the colony in the natural environment. Because of contamination,only one island is left on the earth useful for safe habitat for human beings. Residents in this colony act slightly like children,whereas the staff acts normally.

Lincoln is of a curious investigative nature. He keeps on finding tricks to explore various aspects of the colony. He becomes friends with an employee McCord who works with the electronics and electrical department at level 6 of the ecosystem.

One day, Lincoln finds a bug in one of the contaminated zones of the campus. He tells about this to Jordan. Jordan later wins the lottery trip to the island. On getting to know this, Lincoln does some exploration before Jordan goes out to the island. He eventually finds that there is life on Earth,their manmade enviromnent is below the Earth's surface, and the residents of the colony are being told bag full of lies by their chief doctor Merrick. They are the clones of people actually existing on the Earth. People who've been told that they've won the lottery trip to the island are actually killed for their organs or body parts for those who need a transplant,or even for babies for the infertile.

He comes back to his underground world, and escapes to the surface with Jordan. He takes shelter in a ruin for sometime. When he wakes up, that he's on a national highway route. On following that route, he looks for a motel whose wherebouts he had read at a box in McCord's office. He reaches the motel ,and there he finds McCord. McCord takes them to his place, and explains them the whole story. He then gives them the addresses to their sponsors - the poeple who paid money to get them constructed. These are the people who utilise the organs and body parts. These sponsors do not know how these organs are built, or about the killing of clones for the organ. McCord boards them on the train to California, but gets killed by Merrick's newly hired security personnel. Lincoln and Jordan are attacked too, but somehow manage to escape.

Tom Lincoln and Sarah Jordan are the sponsors of Lincoln and Jordan respectively. They must go to these sponsors and tell the reality. First they try to find Sarah, only to find out that she's out of the state, and in the hospital at the moment. Lincoln gets arrested there on charges of arrest of Merrick, where he checks out the address of Tom Lincoln. But somehow escapes when the police car, in which he's boarded gets ripped in an accident. He escapes along with Jordan to Tom Lincoln's place. There they tell him the whole story.

There, Lincoln comes to know that Tom Lincoln is a sex addict, and he would need a liver transplant. Lincoln initially is a very kind person to them, but secretly he's against them. Tom calls up Merrick's men, and tries to get the clone Lincoln killed by deceit. Jordan,who already didn't trust Tom,had warned clone Lincoln, and being vigilant on her advice, clone Lincoln escapes unharmed, but in the act, the real Lincoln gets killed by Merrick's men after they confused the clone Lincoln with the real Lincoln. Lincoln returns to Tom's house, where he had left Jordan. There, they spend time together and become close.

Merrick finds that there was a flaw in four out of six generations of clones, and decides to kill all of them. Meanwhile, Lincoln and Jordan decide to save the rest of their mates. They go back to the ecosystem. Lincoln goes there acting like the real Lincoln, whereas Jordan intentionally gets herself caught. On reaching back to the ecosystem, they get themselves free, and try to sabotage the system, so that the other clones could get freed. Lincoln gets caught up with Merrick, and in the resulting struggle, kills Merrick. When Jordan reaches, Merrick's men were about to kill the rest of the clones of Lincoln's generation. She saves them and then sabotages the system with the help of the new security guy Merrick had appointed. Looking at the mass killing Merrick was commiting, this guy got changed and started supported the clones. As the main outlet fan for the system got destroyed, a void got created. Through this void, the clones escape and see the real world. The End.

Final Take:
The movie is good considering that the science fiction used is not too imaginary, and yet feasible. Director Michael Bay has depicted great direction skills of his. The movie is new, yet predictable. But you cannot watch it more than twice. Watching the ovie thrice would be too much.

Scarlett Johanson and Evan McGreggor have done justice to their roles. The music work is functional enough.

Considering all the aspects, i'd give this movie 3.5 out of 5.

Product Review - Altec Lansing BXR 1221

2011-06-21T18:45:00.009+05:30

I recently purchased my newspeakers - the Altec Lansing BXR 1221. These speakers are the ones i finally zeroed on after a long hunt of three hours at the Asia's largest computer market - Nehru Place.

Priced at Rs1000, that is roughly US $45. Pretty cheap for a new branded pair of high performance speakers. The feature that i loved the most about them is their design. Small, kinda canon'ish, ready to blow out power but yet highly melodious. The small size makes them easy to place, and the long wires doesn't make it difficult to install anywhere slightly distant from the computer.

And i am right. Here are a couple of videos that i've recorded of them. One of the videos plays jay Z's 99 Problems. The other video plays D.O.A(Death of Autotune), and shows how the subwoofer blows .

Their performance is good. They give the in-house and in-hall experience well. Infact, i found them to be much better than Creative's S235, which some of the storekeepers had suggested. Personally, i didn't like the design of the Creative speakers, though i've heard good performance reviews for them. If one thing Altec Lansing does good , it is the product designing. The company seems to have spent a lot on designing its products well.

I had first seen these Altec Lansing babies at the Croma, Ansal PLaza store. They were at display and ready to be tested. I plugged them into my 5130XpressMuzic handset, and they gave really good sound output. Every sound was to its finest detail. And since that day, i became their fan.

It would be real fun for anyone to listen to rock and hip-hop/rap/RnB on them. Bass and Treble are perfectly balanced on them. I tried listening to Jay Sean's 'Stolen', and it sounds better than ever before. Stolen was released in the time when nothing called High Definition existed, and DVD was the highest possible audio-visual media standard.

My rating for Altec Lansing BXR1221 - 8 out of 10. Great design, great form factor(size) and a great value for money.

Movie Review - The time traveller's wife

2011-06-21T18:39:00.001+05:30

Another one of the movie that i saw recently was 'The Time Travellers Wife'. Produced by the oldschool giants Newline Cinema, who had been accredited by many a good shows and movies, had produced this movie. This is one of the most unique movies i've seen, and infact i liked it more than 'The curious case of benjamin button'. the movie, directed by Robert Shwentke, has got some really rave reviews.

The Plot:

The story revolves aroubd a guy called Henry, played by Eric Bana. He is born to a singer mother, and a violinist father. He has this unusual disease of time travelling. He suddenly vanishes, and appears in the past or future for sometime, and then comes back. Unfortunately, his clothes don't travel with him in time. Because of this, he has to face many awkward situations. He never had a good normal childhood because of the constant time travelling. One evening, his mother died in a car accident, but he survived as he time-travelled. Ever since his mother died, his father became an alcoholic, and left his profession as a violinist.

As time passes, he gets accustomed to this unexpected travelling. As he travels, he meets a small girl named Clara Abshire (played by Rachel McAdams) in the past. Later he meets her in person at a library when she's a grownup. Henry meets her at a local cafe, where she tells about his disease, his doctor, and some other things.

As time passes, they get together. Henry gets married to Clara. Clara has a difficult time adjusting with the appearing and vanishing act of Henry. Even during the marriage ceremony, Henry had disappeared, and the Henry of the future had married Clara. But there are upsides to it too. Henry finds out the winning ticket, and

When Clara becomes pregnant, they start to look for the solution of this disease. They consult a geneticist doctor Kendrick and find out that he gets fits which makes him dislocated in time. The energy blast in fits is the trigger that dislocates him. The doctor advices him to stop alcohol.

The problem of dislocation also spreads to the offspring in the womb. Clara suffers multiple miscarriages, as the child in the womb disappears and reappears. They visit Dr Kendrick, who gets involved with their case,and terms the disease. Henry tricks Clara to abortion, only to find that Clara had again become pregnant by the Henry of the past.

Once when Henry time-travelled into the future, he meets his daughter. He comes to know that he died when she was 5.
Ever since then, he tries his best to make the lives of his beloved as happy as possible. They get a healthy baby girl which they name Abby. Initially, she doesn't have the time travelling problem, but eventually the problem starts getting displayed.

When Abby turns 5, one day, Henry time travels, and when he comes back, he becomes paralysed because one of his leg was crippled in the past. After some days, he again time-travels, where he finds himself on some hills. He gets shot there because a couple of guys were out hunting, and the bullet shot found him instead of the target - a deer. Henry comes back, and dies in Clara's arms, with his father and Abby by his side.

In the last scene, Henry reappears some years after his death. He meets Abby and Clara. When Clara asks him why hadn't he told her about this visit, he says that he didn't want her to keep on waiting for him. He then vanishes. Clara and Abby return to home. The End

Final Take:

The movie is a heart touching story of a man, who is highly unlucky. He couldn't get the love of his mother and his daughter, and his wife's complains for things that are beyond his control. Highly unpredictable life leaves him lonely and hollow. He has to face countless number of awkward and shameful moments, but cannot do anything about it. Even though he can access the past and the future, he cannot modify it, and he feels this helplessness throughout his life.

Clara, his wife - the only person who loves him after his father has constantly issues with his presence. Her life remains complication-filled till the day his husband lives. The love of her life, who has been there since her childhood becomes the become hinderance between her and a normal life. And even after he's gone, her daughter faces the same problems as him.

The movie is brilliant, though the title doesn't reveal it. A highly appreciable movie, it does change the way one thinks about life and the beloved ones. Director Robert Shwentke and producers Newline Cinema have done a splendid job, and should congratulate themselves for the job well done.

The music in the movie is apt and good. The 'love will tear us apart' track by 'broken social scene' is wonderful, brings depth and emotion in the scene of the first dance of Henry and Clara. Usage of only three tracks throughout the movie makes the movie serious.

To sum it all, i would like to call "The Time Traveller's Wife" a collectible - a movie which is beyond the commercial aspects,it is a classic. A must collectible. Anyone and everyone who enjoyed 'the curious case of benjamin button' would love it even more.

Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams have brilliantly portrayed their respective characters. The audience is able to feel the helplessness and pain of these two characters. The acting is powerful and driven.

My rating for "The time traveller's wife" - 4 out of 5.

Movie review - Life as We Know It

2011-06-21T18:36:00.003+05:30

I had an opportunity to catch the 2010 release Josh Duhamel KAtherine Heigl starrer 'Life as we know it' at a friend's place. Since i hadn't seen it, i thought catching it would be a good post for the blog.

The Plot:

The movie starts in 2007. Eric Messer, played by Josh Duhamel(the Danny McCoy of Las Vegas) and Holly Berenson, played by Katherine Heigl, have been set up on a date by their friends Peter and Alison Novak. the date is a disaster, and it ends even before it takes off.

Eric's a technical director at a sports channel broadcasting company, and Holly's a professional baker who owns a bakery store. Peter and Alison's attempt to bring them together fails. Eric and Holly are two very different people who are very different, and very satisfied in their own ways.

Eric and Holly next meet at Sophie's first birthday in 2009. Being the closest to the Novak's, their presence was important at the birthday celebrations.

One night, Eric and Holly get a call from the police. Peter and Alison were killed in a car accident. Since they were the closest of the Novak's, they were given the temporary custody of the child. Later they come to know that the Novak's had given both of them a joint custody of Sophie in their will. Both Eric and Holly are devastated on coming to know this fact. Peter and Alison had never discussed with any about the custody of Sophie in case something happens to them, and hence seemed unbelievable. They tried to put up a petition to the court for transfer of custody to some other relative of Sophie, but the court decides to maintain the will of the Novak's.

Handling a baby becomes a big problem with them. Juggling work and baby becomes troublesome for both Eric and Holly. Eric once gets an opportunity to substitute his boss's place, but messes up because Sophie was crying in the second half which caused hearing problems to the employees.

Eric and Holly are visited by Janine. She's a counsellor from the social services who looks over their case. She always lands up at their place at the worst possible timing. Because of this, she gets to face awkward situations.

As for Holly, she had a really big trouble handling her bakery store and the baby. The bakery store was getting modified into a restaurant, and she had to overlook it. The expenses were increasing over the expansion than expected, and she was having a hard time paying her share of Sophie's expenses, the house taxes, the bills and the expenditure on expansion.

Sophie's doctor, Dr Sam Nelson know Holly for sometime as he used to drop over at her bakery. Before the death of the Novak couple, Holly had a crush on him. Because of some circumstances, he wasn't able to get in touch with the doctor. When she took Sophie to the doctor's visit, she met him again. They start dating each other. Doctor Nelson happened to be divorced from one previous wife.

As the story progresses, the various problems Eric and Holly face together brings them close. They start gelling along too well. Infact, people start considering them as a couple as their adjustment between them was no less than of a couple's.

But one day, Eric gets the opportunity to become the director for a production studio at Phoenix. He intends to take it, and even gets ready for it, but doesn't tell Holly. One day, Holly comes to know when one of his workplace colleague discusses about it with him in front of her. On coming to know this, Holly becomes infuriated and hurt. Eventually Eric goes to Pjoenix and does his new job. But even there he misses Sophie.

At the end of the season, he comes back for thanksgiving. He meets Holly and Holly invites him home for thanksgiving. On thanksgiving, they have a quarrel over selling of the house. Eric was mad at Holly for not telling him about the sale, whereas Holly was justifying her decision. In the sequence of arguments, Eric confesses his love for Holly. Holly gets shocked, and suggests him to continue his work at Phoenix. Eric goes. All the guests including Dr Sam hear about this. Sam later in the evening tells that she still had unresolved feelings for him.

Next day, the counsellor from social service. While conversing with her, Holly realises her mistake and rushes to the airport to stop Eric. But she gets too late as by the time she reaches there, the flight had took off.
At the airport, Eric realises that Holly and Sophie were his real family, and the reason Peter and Alison had given them the joint custody was because they were the closest to Sophie. Holly acknowledges her love for Eric. Later, on Sophie's second birthday, Holly bakes a special cake to mark her one year with Eric. They go and celebrate the birthday. The end

Final Decision:

The story seems a old, with some changes made to accomodate an element of freshness. The airport scene is probably the most predictable as we've been watching such stuff ever since we started watching movies.

Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl have done some decent acting. The others too have done a nice job.

The music of the film is nice. Its been used apt, and isn't loud - something thats been missing in many movies these days.

Overall, the movie is good enough for watching a couple of times. Watching the baby do things is entertaining.

Finally, to rate, i'd like to give the movie 3.5 out of 5.

What do you feel? Do you agree with me, or have a different opinion? Feel free to pour in

Movie Review - Up In The air

2011-06-21T18:29:00.002+05:30

I recently had the opportunity to catch a movie. Its the 2009 hit Up In The Air starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Produced by Paramount Pictures, i was told that it was a nice movie.

The story revolves around an executive Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney. he belongs from Milwaukee and works for a firm in Omaha. His job is to roam around the United States firing people off their jobs on behalf of the employers. He's a materialistic person, and believes in accomplishments such as special preferences cards and so. His priority in every action he does is to achieve as much efficiency as possible. He considers the flight as his home, and doesn't own a single property. He believes that owning assets hold one down to being inefficient. He lives a single life - no attachment from the family of friends. He contented with his moving life and doesnt want a settled life. His policy of life - keep the bagpack as light as possible, throw away the replaceables. The central idea behind this fact is that everyone dies alone, noone cares for others when they're on their deathbed. His personal aim in his life is to

He meets a newbie at his workplace - Natalie Keener, played by Anna Kendrick. She's a newly psychology graduate from Cornell, who has joined the job for the sake of being together with her boyfriend. She devices new techniques to fire people over the web using teleconferencing. Now, as the recession's going on, the company starts observing these new techniques.

Learning this development, Ryan doesn't like this. he tries to pull Natalie down. The company management decides to send Natalie with him to learn about the details and aspects of the 'firing' industry. They go places together firing people. natalie observes the odd things, the cursing people do on getting to know that they're fired. Natalie initially gets shook, but slowly gets used to it. The exzperience is one of a kind. There are people getting angry, some

Earlier, Ryan had met Alex Goran, played by Vera Farmiga. She's also an executive who frequently flies to places asa part of her job. Ryan and Alex hit off instantly. They meet sometimes at common destinations in their work travel. They have a fun time whenever they're together. He becomes used to Alex's presence in his life.

Ryan had the wedding of his sister Julie coming. Alex decides to visit the wedding. His other sister Kara requests him to take a photo of a cardboard cutout of julie and her fiance Jim. Julie and Jim are doing it as because of recession, they don't have enough finances and budget to bravel. He takes Alex there. Alex accompanies him everywhere he goes. Slowly, he becomes too fond of her.

Slowly as progress occurs, Ryan starts to change. Just before Julie and Jim's marriage, Jim get scold feet about marriage. Ryan talks him out of the situation, and convinces him to go ahead with the marriage. Julie and Jim get married happily. Ryan returns from their wedding alone for the first time after so many days.

While giving a seminar at GoalQuest in Las Vegas, he realises that he's in love with Alex. He immediately rushes to Alex's house in Chicago. But on reaching there, he realises that Alex's already married, has kids and a husband. She's been going around with him for fun.

Learning this, Ryan's heartbroken. He again seeks relief in solitude - the old way he used to follow. On going back to his office in Omaha, he learns that one of the employees Natalie fired. had blackmailed them with suicide, actually committed so, and on learning this, Natalie quit her job and applies for a job in San Francisco.

Ryan's back to his old ways. He again on the flight. But this time, he lonely and not just alone. The chain of events had actually changed him. His attachment with Natalie and Alex had an irreversible effect. Thats when he realises how much he has lost in all these years.

The movie shows how man is a social animal, and how it gets involved with other human beings no matter how much it tries to detach itself from them, or go into worldly things.

The acting by the stars is good, especially George Clooney. This is one movie which makes one think. Personally, it made me introspect too,as being a solitude seeker, it made me thing on the aspects of it too. Earlier i felt peace in solitude, but looking at this, it does make me ponder over balancing it.

The soundwork is good, appropriate to the movie's requirements. The movie needed minimalistic music so the message passed to the audience doesn't get spoilt.

Paramount studios has done a good job with Up In The Air.

My final Rating : 4/5 for good content, connected directly to the social nature of the human

What do you think? Do you feel the same, or think differently? Drop in a comment

Dexter In India - a felicitation

2011-06-16T14:44:00.002+05:30

Surprisingly, Dexter has been a very favourite among the Indian english soap viewers. Dexter , as in terms of 'the Hindustan Times', happens to e a big leap for Indian television.

And i do agree with it. Michael C. Hall's strong acting, along with Jennifer Carpenter's skills, the show's been a delight to watch. Infact, i loved the season 5 of the show, the franchise is getting better and better as time passes.

The season 4 was my favourite was my favourite. Yesterday,i was just changing channels when i saw the guy who played the Trinity killer in Dexter in a How i met your mother's new season. He was playing Jerry the estranged father of Barney Stimpson. But i'd rather remember him for Arthur Mitchell aka the Trinity Killer(funny but even after a long time since i've seen the show, i still remember the character's name). The character Trinity killer's immortalised, seems like Dexter's power is beyond what was expected.

Wikipedia's facts on how people got affected by Dexter is an eyeopener. It really surprises me how much a show can affect the subconscious of individuals. Dexter sure has made a lot of impact in India.

Showtime Networks ,thank You !

iCloud success a doubt

2011-06-09T13:42:00.002+05:30

Pretty seen enough, apple would be launching its iCloud services for its iTunes users. This way, apple tinks that it can compete with Google and Microsoft's cloud service. This sounds a bit difficult finding that Google's cloud is way more big than even Apple's data ecosystem is.Just look at Google's cloud. Gmail,GAE, Youtube, Orkut plus the Android ecosystem. There's no way Apple can match the Google's powerful and free ecosystem.

Apple's iCloud would be too expensive for all those who've been using the Google's cloud. Google's cloud is first free, plus syncable to the Gmail. With features like those, people who will use iCloud will use it only for the sake of their iPad or iPod.

And with such pricing, i wonder if anyone outside the Us will use it. With varying quality of product, it seems highly unlike;lythat the iCloud will have much takers.

What do you think? Do you think the same, or have a different opinion. Feel free to pour in your comments

iPhone 4 Launches in India - finally

2011-06-09T13:31:00.003+05:30

So finally, iPhone 4 launches in India. And hence the long break finally came to an end.

Widely criticised iPhone 4 has been launched in India. it is this iPhone4 that had been a reason for wait for many mobile users. But sadly, iPhone4 is currently only on Airtel and Aircel. Aircel, with their 'poor' services, don't seem that maybe they would be good. Airtel, the oldest and the biggest private player in the Indian wireless market is good.
This was just for your information, for those who don't know. As for me, i'm quite happy with my Samsung GT-S3353 aka Sansung Ch@t

How to be Confidence

2011-06-09T13:08:00.002+05:30

While going through the Hindustan Times, i came through a few good points which differentiate confidence and overconfidence.

Now there's quite some difference between confidence and overconfidence which we usually overlook.

Here are the characteristics in simple points which shopuld make you understand the slim line which makes the difference between them, and treat the issues you find in yourself

Overconfidence

Overconfident people are usually noisy and loud

they speak loudly and forcefully to impose their point

they seek validation from outside

after recieving approval, they feel emptiness inside them

they aren't satisfied with life and are usually unhappy

they do not feel good about themselves

they display courage to compensate their inferiority feelings

they like making fun of others

they cannot take a joke about themselves

the self doubt that they have can be easily detected by otehrs

Confidence

They do not try to prove anything

they are not attention-seekers

they exude a natural charisma which makes them attractive

they are usually happy,joyful

they are often very quiet and understated

they express themselves well when the situation demands

they aren't afraid to speak the truth

they are always authentic in their expression

people love interacting with confident people because he/she makes them feel confident too

how to be confident

dont judge and betray yourself if you display overconfidence

self confidence comes from inside

be honest about your feelings

if you feel negetive about yourself, introspect your self-concepts and beliefs

forgive yourself

don't try to fix whats wrong inside you, reveal it confidently

be kind and compassionate about yourself

start believing in yourself

congratulate yourself for doing your best

remember, you have the option to change,grow, evolve, transform, blossom, and bloom

Hope you guys liked the share. Comments/suggestions are welcomed

More Telemarketer Nonsense

2011-05-03T12:29:00.002+05:30

Lately i've been bombarded with telemarketers calling me and texting me for their damn services. But this week, something really surprising happened.

On the 27th, at 4:31pm, a guy from Matrix corporation(the company which sells matrix sim cards) called me up while i was sleeping, and started blabbering about his companies products and services. Now, the surprising thing is that he knew my name, my address, everything. It really surprises me how major companies like Matrix(which sponsors the Kolkata Knight Riders IPL team) and Idea Cellular(which sponsors the Delhi Daredevils IPL team) openly allow their employees to use illegal means to increase their sales.

I've registered a DND complaint against him. I do hope that like in most of the complaint cases, their telephone line would be DISCONNECTED.

TRAI, you listening? We need the new do not disturb policy to be there right away

Business Model - Vodafone

2011-05-03T12:26:00.001+05:30

Business Model - Vodafone's gain, Airtel's loss

Vodafone India has been quite on a rise for sometime. Ever since hutch rebranded to Vodafone, it has shifted a lot. Infact, currently, in terms of growth, Vodafone is the most growing network(in terms of number of customers, not in the percentage aspect). And this has been quite some story.

Hutchison Essar was taken over by Vodafone in 2007 when Huchison decided to sell its share in the venture to the UK based Vodafone. And when the management changed, the whole policy framing changed. Vodafone started to play aggressively, unlike Essar and Hutch, which had been playing defensively, trying to hold on to its customer base from migrating to Airtel. Bharti Airtel, ion those days, was a strong player in the market. Infact,the current day Vodafone is nothing when compared to what Airtel used to be.

The new Vodafone management has changed things in quite some ways. It decided to get seamless connectivity for its consumer base, and get billings straight(earlier, hutch had a bad reputation for improper billing, my personal experience). Vodafone decided to play by its strengths, and somehow manage to hide its weaknesses. They're playing on their strengths but weaknesses are something that cannot be hidden for a long time. Poor resolution is their issue. For the last three and a half years, i've been on vodafone, and the resolution hasn't been consistent. Although they've somehgow managed to keep quality people in their manforce, but still the technicalities hasn't let them work to their full strength. For example, whenever a customer goes to the Vodafone store, he has to wait for long. Reason : The staff is busy clearing up records, and taking down official notes after the customer has left.

Vodafone seems to have learnt from Bharti Airtel on how to work efficienty. Airtel had been a hit with companies, as their corporate connections were dead cheap. So is Vodafone nowadays. My cousin, whose bought a Vodafone corporate postpaid connection is getting local call rates @ 10p/min. Thats dead cheap. Anywhere else in this cut throat competition, no operator will offer anything below 30p/min. Well, thatslooking at the fact that Vodafone has prioritised corporate postpaid connections, and understands well that only a postpaid connection can assure them of fixed returns per month,which can help them to get their working capital there. And when there are corporates involved, it means bulk connections and timely payments. A double benefit for the company. There's no reason for not promoting so. Plus, Airtel on the other hand, hasn't expanded its postpaid drive after its initial success. It changed its focus from Indian telecom to DTH,IPTV and African telecom. Once Airtel used to come up with really innovative services like Hellto Tunes(Caller Ring Back Tones),Sms 2.0(more customiseable sms services), and recently web pc(a supercheap pc which works from clouds as it has no local storage drives). Also, decreasing quality of service, and bad complaint redressal has made it worse. One of my uncles had to actually mail to the Airtel management for getting his landline disconnected as he was trying for months to get the connection terminated since the last six months, and the Airtel guys weren't disconnecting, infact billing him more and more. And look at the Airtel customer care quality these days, its pathetic. Ill trained guys. Maybe Airtel should stop outsourcing.

Coming back to Vodafone,its recently launched 3G internet services are being aggressively promoted. Infact, just to get people using mobile internet, they have recently started a whole new campaign called Super weeks, where the give some internet based service for free for a week(for example, all social networking sites were free to browse between 16 and 22nd April). Such promotional schemes to promote value added services,which are already being promoted at attractive tariff plans is a good idea. It like supporting a service support process. Interesting concept at first sight.

What do you think? Do you agree with me, or think differently. Feel free to pour in your comments

Support to Anna

2011-04-20T12:54:00.001+05:30

Ever since Anna Hazare's publicly come out to bully all the corrupt in the government, the UPA government's been terrorised as if it is under some serious threat. Everytime Anna speaks against corruption, Congress, DMK, and NCP speak against his policies and ideologies. Congress, who itself promotes Gandhian policies, has been acting surprisingly against Hazare, who has been the biggest supporter of Gandhian policies in the past 20 years.

DMK's A. Raja,Karunanidhi and family, NCP's Sharad Pawar, have been on the hitlist of Hazaare, for their alledged involvement in almost every scandal that's been unearthed in the past decade. Whether its the multi billion dollar 2G scandal, Commonwealth scandal, Cricket World Cup trophy duties issue, or food scam,Pawar's been there in all. Even in 1992, Sharad Pawar(who was in power back then) was tainted with multiple allegations, and only Anna Hazare's fast the had forced him to resign.

The Congress led government has been against this bill, and is trying to either mould it in its favour,or somehow avoid it. Kapil Sibbal's been trying to somehow avoid the bill. It really surprises me. Why are they resisting this bill if they've done nothing wrong!

Asdays pass, congress and the UPA government's showing really shrewed antics which show that the government is INFESTED with corrupt guys. Its high time that the government should be removed.

Aircel taking the AT&T Way

2011-04-20T12:53:00.002+05:30

For some three months now, i've seen Aircel taking a new approach towards the Indian market. It has been an old player, but the policies that it is following in the recent past seems new to the Indian industry.

AT&T, one of the world's oldest players in telecom, has been following the policy of increasing customer base by offering subsidised and locked handsets with a contract. Ever since the launch of Apple's iPhone, followed by iPhone 3G, 3GS and the iPad, its presence has increased. A pal of mine, who lives in Granada Hills, LA, has been using Verizon, and tells me that he used to have an AN&T connection, but quit due to bad service. Poor network, and frequent drops have been a feature of AN&T, but still it exists in the market , all because of some locked handsets and services.

Aircel has been following AT&T's policy lately. It recently launched Huawei Ideos - a good Android smartphone for around US$200(all inclusive of duties and taxes),and is providing special data plans for it. Aircel also has plans for releasing iPhone 4G in India soon(and that too when 3G has just been implemented well). 4G being out of sight for sometime now, Aircel's tactic of luring customers with a cheap good handset is quite evident.

I completely disagree with this policy. A network operator should emphasise on providing good mobile connectivity and service, and notselling some handsets. It would be just like if Shell would be selling cars for using with its petroleum products. Its a completely wrong approach. Its always the hen which lays the egg, not the egg which lays the hen !

Aircel has been providing really bad service in the Delhi, NCR.I had an Aircel number which i used to browse the internet on. Forget about the internet, just to make a recharge, it would take me hours to reach the IVR. And calling the cuswtomer care in situations of difficulties - a nightmare. It would take me atleast half anhour to get to talk to the customer care executive, and that too when the network won't drop the call, and the call would get connected to the customer care IVR(which itself would take atleast 50 attempts to get through). In order to bypass this nuisance, i had also visited the Aircel stores in Kalkaji ,South Extention and Noida. And what do i find - the executives there keep on chatting to each other, and not care at all about the customer whose been standing there for hours.

Companies like Aircel should learn from Vodafone and Reliance. Vodafone and Reliance GSM offer very attractive data and voice plans for specific handsets which you would buy from the open market. For example, Vodafone's offering 2Gb month free internet for six months to Nokia E7 users, Reliance GSM is offering the same for Samsung Galaxy series phone and tablet users. Vodafone's network is one of the most seamless network wherever it is present. Now that is a good deal. Two 3G provider companies offering really good tariff options. No wonder why Airtel's fearing that these two organisations might surpass its enormous wireless services customer base soon.

And for companies like Aircel, they need to look into their organisations. Being named in the INR 1,76,000,000,00,00 scandal, and facing a legal notice for cancellation of its GSM operation lisence in 4 circles, it seriously need to work out on some real good strategies for the long run, rather than the "lure and capture" policy.

What do you think? Do you agree with me, or have a different opinion? Feel free to pour in your comments

Be generous, Help someone

2011-04-20T12:51:00.001+05:30

The life is one of the most valuable gifts one has. Being there on this planet, with your loved ones is a gift we all cherish. No matter how many troubles we have, we have our loved ones who help us in times of need, and thats what helps us the most.

There are times when people try to help others out to save someone's life, but are unsuccessful because of reasons. People do their bit to save lives. The defence forces serves to those in need at times of famine, and calamity. There are NGO's too which help.

Relief India supports people who are unable to support their loved ones in times of need because of financial reasons or so. As an example, they've been working to help people with life threatning cardiac defects(As of the case of a boy, who needs an operation in AIIMS).

I would like to request all of you to assist as much as you can - in any form possible. Being involved with this noble deed would be really helpful.

Here are the contact detals for Relief India

Relief India
A369, Sector 19,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Pin Code : 201301
Contact person : Mr Tapan
Ph. No: (+91)0120-4309547
web: www.reliefindia.org

First ride in the DTC AC Bus

2011-04-14T13:43:00.003+05:30

First trip in the DTC AC bus

Yesterday, for the first time i got the opportunity to use the AC bus service by Delhi Transport Corporation. For a long time, i had been trying to get an AC bus to travel, but never got the opportunity to do so. So finally yesterday, when i had to travel to IIT Delhi, i finally got on it.

The bus was plying on route number 764, and was plying from Nehru Place Terminal to Dwarka sector7.

I got in, bought the ticket, and then started to observe the bus. The bus was just another TATA Marcopolo BRTS bus with some additional fittings for airconditioning. The bus must have been in service for sometime now,as it looked quite wore out. Along with the AC's, there are also fan's installed. That there is a smart move, knowing how terribly hot Delhi becomes in summer.

I stepped on board the bus at 2 in the morning, and the bus did help a lot. I didn't feel the heat outside. Initially, i did feel some heat, but after a couple of minutes, it all got settled.

Tata has designed a really good bus. It can compete with the like of the Volvo's.

The only thing which bothered me was the bar. There's been a vertical bar installed for some reason. It really irritates when you sit in the non-window seat. This bar's installed only on the second last seat of the bus. So, try not sit on the second last seat which isn't next to the window.

ticket prices are nice. Usually, IIT to Nehru Place costs Rs10, and in this ac bus, it costed me Rs15, so hardly any difference, but much more confort. No crowd, vacant seats, no wonder its a good bus to travel on. Its just that DTC needs some more maintenance on them.

Do you think the same,or have a different opinion. Feel free to write in your comments

Magazine Review - Span

2011-04-14T13:36:00.002+05:30

The American Embassey in India publishes a quarterly magazine in Hindi, and i have been lucky enough to have a complimentry subscription of it. And this magazine has been a wonderful read.

I'm more of a magazine person rather than a book person, as books are sometimes not able to connect to the various geographical,political and historical situations currntly prevalent. Magazines there work good good. They are usually edited with the current day scenario.

Span,a publication of the American counselate in India, is published in two languages - Hindi and English(The official national languages of India and US). It has been under publication for some decades now. The magazine talks about the various sociological and political system in the two nations. Also, many factors which connected the two nations, are mentioned.

Edited by the American ambassador of US to India, the magazine is a great read. The paper quality of every edition is good. For example,the emphasis done on Jazz in this quarter's edition is quite good. Usually in India,it takes sometime to learn that much about Jazz.

One of the posts i liked the most in the last quarterly issue is the study in Us article, which talked about the scholarships that the US government and institutes give to the Indian students. An organisation called USEFI , set up by the American government , is especially dedicated for this purpose. Back in the school days, USEFI had organised a small seminar in my school , and i had forgotten completely about it. The magazine's a good read.

The magazine is the best for those who have to apply for American citizenship. The magazine's highly informative about the american lifestyle and history.

For more information on Span, click here for Wikipedia Listing

So the next time you visit any nearby American centre, get your hands on Span.

Album Review - Hindustani Gangster

2011-04-05T12:33:00.002+05:30

Recently i came across a site whose name seemed interesting to me. So i decided to check the site out. Little did i know, it was the official website for an album.

Hindustani Gangster is an Indian adaptation of the american flick American Gangster's soundtrack by Jay Z. The original tracks have been mixed by a group of Non-Residential Indians putting up the the US who work under the name 'Music Without Borders'.

The album consists of fifteen full length tracks. I listened to the tracks one by one, and they seemed quite nice.

"Intro" is an introductory track, which consists of Hindi punchlines. My favirote "kisi ki zindagi ko samajhne se pehle, zaruri hai unki zindagi jeena". Typical hindi mafia don dialogue.

"Pray" is a good track. It has really great beats mixed with Jay's lyrics. The music mix is good,so is the sound engineering. Can be played at any lounge. Typical RnB track which has a sound of gangster rap. You simply cannoty miss this track on this album.

"American Dreamin' " seems like a Chinatown mix. Another RnB mix. This one's good too. Those who like T.I's sound will surely like this track. The sound at occasions reminds of 99 Problems.

"Hello Brooklyn" features Lil Wayne along with jay Z. Its a laid back rap. Just DJ mixing, no Indian element's added to it.

"No Hook" starts with lines from soem hindi movie. The beats for the track are good, kinda 70's movies. Another good RnB track, can be played at any coffee shop. At occasions,the track seems funny because of some clumsy lines.

"Roc Boys" starts with the typical noise one can expect at the Indian highways, but edited musically. Then the real track starts. The track has beats like those of Black Eyed Peas's Don't Phunk with My Heart(which was adapted from a hindi track), with tunes similar to Kanye West's Stronger. A nice listen.

"Sweet" has some good guitar work mixed. Its also a nice track.

"I know" samples a clippet from some hindi track, and then mixes beat to evolve something new. The track is something Timbaland can take inspiration from.

"Party Life" samples a clip from "laila o laila" from the 1978 hindi classic "Don". The song coyld have been better, the tempo seems a bit unusual for the track. It is one of those International fusion types.

"Ignorant Shit" starts with the sitar recital, which later turns to a typical jay-Z'ish track. Another Blue rap, nice experiment.

"Say Hello" seemed like a typical RnB track. It sounds like Lil Wayne's "On Fire". A track you'll have no issues keeping in your ipod playlist.

"Success" uses tabla beats to sample along with the sitar. Tre track is just functional.

"Falling" is where the track starts sounding like Tupacish Gangsta Rap. Its a typical oldskool rap track. Nothing very big about it. The mix could have been better.

"Blue Magic" seems to be inspired from 'Raghav'. The sound seems to be inspired from "Angel Eyes" and "Naino Waali". The lyrics are good. This one's a smoothie jazz.

The last track is "American Gangster". Its good. One of fav's on the album. You simply cannot miss this track when you're going through the album. The song ends with the line which started the album - "kisi ki zindagi ko samajhne se pehle, zaruri hai unki zindagi jeena". Good work

Jay Z is usual good as he is. "Music Without Borders" has done a good job. As they say in their release, Inspired by Indian cinema of the 70's and Jay-Z's critically acclaimed concept album, "American Gangster," "Hindustani Gangster" tells the passionate tale of a Mumbai hustler's sordid lifestyle.

Through the culmination of Jay's great story. The tracks are nice, good RnB for the food joints and sports lounge cum bars out there.

A good cross-cultural album. This is where Hollywood meets Bollywood. Indians and Americans of Indian origin would be able to easily connect to it. A good concept album.

My rating for Hindustaani Gangster - 3.5/5 for innovation, maintaining the originality and using the Indian tunes well

To download Hindustani gangster, click here, or log on to http://www.hindustanigangster.com/

A presentation on Cloud Computing

2011-03-25T11:47:00.003+05:30

Hello everyone
Here's a presentation i had made sometime back for a presentation competition at my college. The subject of the presentation is "Cloud Computing".

I can say that this is one of the most comprehensive no-nonsense presentation on the topic. It took me a lot of time to create this presentation,and add more relevant content to it.

The presentation uses only minimal language,so it could be easily understood even by a common man.

Hope you guys like this presentation. In case you're downloading it,just leave a message/comment here. It'll be helpful in analysing and understanding the response to it.

Here's The Link

172506_633746925739945000_prattzzstechblog.ppsx - 806.4 KB @ http://uploading.com/files/2eb4bmaa/172506_633746925739945000_prattzzstechblog.ppsx/

Comments/Suggestions/Messages are welcomed

A Presentation on 4G

2011-03-25T11:39:00.001+05:30

Hey
I'd been preparing for my college seminar. The topic which was allocated to me was 4G-LTE.

I searched the net, but wasn't of much use. Only random information was present. I had to make a presentation out of scratch.

I can say that this is one of the most conmprehensive presentations out there, as most of the presentation and docmentations online have incorrect or partial information.

The presentation includes both LTE and the 4G(which currently roots out of LTE only). So being in a seqence, this presenantion had some effort. The presentation gives the introduction and basic working of the 4G and LTE.

For a specialised prsentation on 4G working, try searching for the 4G presentation by Mauricio Arango of Sun Microsystem laboratories.

Here's The Link

http://uploading.com/files/a146be17/4G%2B%2B-%2BLTE_prattzzstechblog.ppsx/

Hope you guys out there like it. Suggestions/Comments are welcomed

Prattzz

Product Review - Knorr Soupy Noodles

2011-03-25T11:36:00.002+05:30

Last night,while i was up late, started feeling hungry. There was nothing left,except a single pack of Knorr's Soupy Noodles. I had seen its advertisement on the tv, but tried it for the first time.

And my review - terrible ! No long descriptions for this product. These soupy noodles are a bad mix of corn soup and noodles. I'm a complete vegetarian, and have been exposed to a lot of natural and artificial tastes. But this has so far been the worst of all. It tastes really terrible. A corn flavoured noodle.

Knorr must have got this product out without any understanding of the Indian tastes. Senseless investment indeed.

My rating for Knorr Soupy Noodles - 0.5/5

More on the Nokia E7

2011-03-22T11:20:00.003+05:30

I just revieved the brochure for the Nokia E7 with the technical specifications for the device. Here they are in short

4" AMOLED Display
Open Office Premium Editor
Adobe PDF reader
ZIP manager
16Gb Mass Memory and supports upto 350Gb user Memory
8MP Full Focus (EDOF) vamera, Dual LED Flash, Front VGA camera
HD Video Recording @ 720p 25fps
HDMI port
Dolby Digital Plus Surround sound
Bluetooth 3.0
WLAN IEEE802.16 b/n
USB 2.0
USB to Micro USB connector, for direct connection of the phone with pen drives and the likes
Upto 470hrs standby time(on 3G networks)
Built in BL-4D 1200mAh battery

Now this brings in some serious questions. In Built battery. Haven't we seen Apple customers complain with the in-built battery. Nokia, with their erratic service, gives an in built battery, so in case the user faces any problem, he'll be left with no option opther than wasting his time with the "brainless" Nokia Care executives. As i've mentioned in the past too, the Nokia Care executives still don't have enough brains to find out the real problem ,and suggest Firmware upgrade as a solution. And once again, price at Rs30,000.

Internal battery, steep price, low resolution front camera, and bad after sales service centres are a big issue for Nokia. If Nokia wants to anyhow manage to compete against the likes of Android, it will have to answer these questions.

PrattzzHackzz

Quick Review #2 - Nokia E7

2011-03-18T14:26:00.004+05:30

On Wednesday, i laid my hands on the newly released Nokia E-7. The phone's brilliant. No wonder why Nokia had been counting a lot on this phone. The phone is built around the new Symbian 3 operating system.

Hardware Check:

The touch screen response was exceptionally good, seemed like as if its made out of the same thing the trackpads are made.

The device has been made up of really good quality plastic. The screen, as the company claims is scratch resistant. Now only time can tell how much the company's claims are true.

First look, the phone seems a copy of the disasterous N8. The touch screen resembles exactly with the N8. This can turn people off, but just to clear, Nokia has written E7 on top of it.

It supports multitouch, comes pre-loaded with the F-Secure antivirus, and a host of other applications. The handset which i got to use had a PDF reader pre-loaded.

The full QWERTY is good, typing was very easy and smooth on it. Infact, i've never seen keys so big on any phone. Infact, their width is as of any keyboard you use with a comuter. Unless you're a newbie, or very bad at typing, there's no way you can miss a key.

Software Check:

The new redefined Symbian 3 touch screen interface is good. The wide options are quite well built, and are feather touch good for usage. I must say, i'm impressed with this user interface. The home screen doesn't make you miss Android's home screen. Its as good as Android when it comes to the home screen, infact better on occasions. Multiple tweakable destops signify how much Nokia has improved its
Symbian platform.

The phone's built on the time tested Symbian. Sony and motorola might have abandoned Symbian, but Nokia hasn't, and i must say its a good thing which gives it uniqueness. Infact better than Meego. Its just that the Symbian does need a whole lot of improvement when it comes to presentation.

Useful softwares such as office, Adobe reader have been bundled. The Quick office version bundled has support for functions too, something not available in the earlier editions.

Nokia again hasn't given an option to configure the WLAN settings, in case you need to configure to work with a proxy secured WLAN network on infrastructure mode. It really surprises me. A business segment targeted phone without such customisation capability.

Also i'd like to mention, this phone has a chance ONLY if Nokia improves its software. Nokia already is struggling with firmware related issues in its low end phones. Infact,the firmware was the reason why i had quit using Nokia and switched to Samsung. Any Firmware or Operating System issues would literally shatter the chances of the phone being a success.

Price : The Big Question

Now comes the big question. Priced at Rs 30,000 , the phone seemed a bit high to me. Around Rs25,000 , the phone would have been an irresistable buy.

So what do you think? Do you agree with me, or think differently. Feel free to comment

Hands on Review - Nokia E7

2011-03-17T12:11:00.001+05:30

I recently got my hands on the newly released Nokia E-7. This phone seemed perfect to me. The 4" AMOLED display seems brilliant,and works perfectly.

I"ll soon be posting its picures......

Phone Review - Micromax Andro

2011-02-23T13:22:00.002+05:30

Yesterday,i had the opportunity to get my hands on Andro - the new phone from Micromax. With the price tag if INR 6800, it is the cheapest 3G Touchscreen Android available in the market.

At first look,Andro looks a big bulky phone,with a good big touch screen. Its quite bulky for sure. Its the form factor that gives it a minus point. The screen is quite responsive,much more responsive than Dell's XCD28. The menu keys are good,responsive and neatly seperated.

The menu displays crisply on the touch screen. The phone does not need any kind of stylus for regular usage. Stylus is provided only for phones where touch sensitivity is low. Browsing through men otions was like a walk in the park.

Andro runs on the outdated Android 2.1 upgrade 1, and can be upgraded to 2.8(as a local cellphone dealer claimed). Anyways,it'd be ugradable to 2.2, and even 2.2 seems fairly okay. But i'd rather say that such an old Android might have some support drawbacks.

Andro seems to be a decent hone. All seems good with Andro, that is till when you do not take a look at the other Android phones available.

Considering everything, i'm giving Andro 3 out of 5 for being the cheapest usable Android available.

Do you think the same, or have a different opinion? Feel free to pour in your comments

Phone Review - My New Phone S3350

2011-02-23T13:20:00.002+05:30

On Saturday, i finally bought a new cellphone- The Samsung Chat 335, also known as GT3350, or S3350.
I had enquired on the web for the phone's review , so i decided to buy this new phone for myself.

When i unpacked the phone box,i found the shining black handset which looked quite like the blackberry.I removed the backpanel, inserted my vodafone sim,and switched it on. I was greeted by the Samsung logo, followed by a "How are you today" message.

I tried the media player,and the perfomance was quite good. Infact, it was as good as my old Nokia Xpressmusic handset.

The user interface is good. Customisation to it can be done to a very large extent.

The Full qwerty keypad is brilliant, infact better than some of the Blackberry's out there. After using it, using a friend's Blackberry curve seemed a bit difficult.

The Wi-Fi has loads of customisation options. It gives users the ability to use proxies and ports like corporate networking features a walk in the park. This is a feature that many of the expensive handsets out there. Handsets, such as Nokia's X6, or Sony Ericsson's Xperia X8 don't have.

The phone's good. The accessories which came bundled are just ordinary. Samsung's PC Suite Kies seemed troublesome when i installed it. Although i haven't been able to figure out how to get it working, i do hope Samsung improves it, by building Kies on the Java platform instead of the dot net framework.

For around INR5500-6000, its a nice option to buy. I'd give it 4.5 out of 5.

Hope you found it the same as i did. Comments/Suggestions are welcomed

No Decent postpaid plans for Vodafone in the NCR

2011-02-18T14:41:00.002+05:30

Since months,i've been screwing my mind over carrying two phones. Carrying two phones has given me quite some trouble with billing, and the trouble carrying it. Using Vodafone for its good service,and Reliance GSM for its cheap tariff(even though the service is terrible) has become requirement to me,not an option.

I decided to visit the nearest Vodafone store. And i was greeted with a wait of two hours to get my info. I finally had to call up the MNP service department to find out that infomation. And whats the information i get - the call rates are terrible in prepaid. When i enquired about the various plans in postpaid,i was amazed to find that even my existing plan was taken off, and no other new plan was available. And all the other plans had freebies only for local cellphone numbers, none for landline or STD numbers.

You guys at Vodafone India, bring in some new sensible plan. Either reduce prepaid call rates,or addin/extend freebies for local landline and long distance STD numbers.

A good show after ages - Mukti Bandhan

2011-02-18T14:39:00.003+05:30

Today, i couldn't stop myself from writing about a show which i feel has shown me the real entertaining power of media. There's this new show on Colors which has changed the way i used to think of the daily soaps,and classified the other soaps as literally 'stupid'.

Mukti Bandhan, which went on air in January, has been based on a famous novel called "Mukti Bandhan" by an eminent author. The show has some resemblence to real life characters,but what overpowers everything else is the story,the screenplay, and most importantly the teachings we often tend to forget,or not care about.

Mukti Bandhan is a story of an eminent industrialist Ishwar M. Virani, who hails from a very small town in Gujrat. Born in the family of a government school teacher, he battles lack of funding and poverty in his childhood. But later,as he sets out to Mumbai to chase his ambitions, he becomes one of the most prominent businessman in the nation But in the pursuit of this success,he starts forgetting the value of relations,and considers success evrything.
The soap depicts the continuous tussle between relations,career,success,status,fame, and relations. A brilliant show to catch on to.

This show has restored my faith in television and media. Otherwise, i had taken hindi entertainment channels 'stupid' for granted with their nonsense soaps.

A good show after ages - Mukti Bandhan

2011-02-18T14:39:00.002+05:30

A good show after ages - Mukti Bandhan

2011-02-18T14:39:00.001+05:30

A good show after ages - Mukti Bandhan

2011-02-18T14:39:00.000+05:30

Phone Review - Dell XCD 28

2011-02-18T14:33:00.002+05:30

A friend of mine bought Dell's new entry the XCD28 cellphone. Operating on the Android platform,it is the cheapest phone available from Dell. Priced around INR7800 in the retail market, its closest competition is from Micromax Andro(INR 6800).

When i first came across the phone,the phone seemed to be quite nice looking one,with its matter back cover finishing. The display seemed nice and colourful,but not as sharp as of the Galaxy S(or even Micromax Andro in case).

The phone seemed small in size to me. You have to go back top the screen home very soon in order to flip through the menu items. Also,the resistive touch screen is less responsive than expected. Even Micromax Andro has a more responsive screen than XCD28.

The phone's standby time is okay,nothing very exciting. Had it been Samsung or Micromax,it would have been something better. The bundled headphones are nice,but their quality is less than what Nokia offers in its 5130, or other products in that price range.

In India,it comes with an outdated Android 2.1,which can be upgraded to 2.2 . Now considering that 2.3 is already out,and updates upto 2.8(or 3.0 for tablets) are out, its too outdated.

The video playback is good. HD videos play flawlessly crisp and clearly. The audio playback's good too,but its a little low pitched for situations when one needs slighty loud audio(especially when outdoors). So Personalising audio clips for ringtones might not work good.

I used the phone on Idea's network. I didn't find the audio quite clear. On using the camera,the picture quality of the image captured was good,but the preview of the camera application seems a bit blurred.

Dell India doesn't have any local service for its phones. This means that wheneever your phone stops working,Dell would replace it free of charge. But this means that you'd have to wait for your relacement phone to ship.
It's quite surprising to see that Dell who has such a customer base for laptops,doesn't have a service centre for hardware. Infact,their computer hardware service/warranty is provided by Wipro India.

In the end,to sum it all, i'd give it 2.5/5 .

Do you think similar on Dell XCD28, or have a different opinion? Feel free to pour in your comments

~!!~ Prattzz's Tech Blog ~!!~

Christopher Nolan - The Cinematic Engineer

Kanye West - The future of Music ?!

Facebook - a review

Comedy central in India

Facebook being a dictator by imposing Timeline ?

A resource for the mysql needful

Permanent Resident Certificate - a present need for Delhi

A funny story, do read

HCL kids bigtime !

Which one to choose - Payback or Loyalty ?

Samsung Kies Mainstage - a Failure

Product Review - Keypass Password Safe

Windows 7 taking over iOS ?

More Reliance Nonsense

is Elitmus better or AMCAT

Tablet sales worry RIM, calls for desperate measures

My Wishlist

The year comes to an end...

Reliance Thugs Again

VLC brings in Santa

Posts on hold

Sharad Pawar Slap Episode - a wakeup call

Another loyalty rogram - Payback

LetsBuy - great deals, great value for money, not so great delivery speed

Rediffmail NG on MTNL 3G

Product Review - Tzinga Tropical Fruit

What times

Adobe stops Flash production

Google shuts down support for Gmail on Blackberry

XP to 7 - a giant leap

Jobs goes, iPhone 4S woes

Movie Review - Batman Begins

Movie Review - Delhi Belly

Movie Revew - Mr Bean's Holiday

Movie Review - Johnny English

Movie Review - The King's Speech

Buy Blog Reviews - Does it Work

My New Casio G1W MTP 1300D 1AVDF

Adsense (Sigh)

Quick Review -First Impression - Sansung Galaxy S2

Viral Fever - What a way to start a new Year

Blogger's Rights - a must read for every blogger

Product Review - Tzinga

Another visit at the Easy Day - more surprises await

The Shame minister of India - Mohan Singh

App Review - Adobe Muze(Code Name)

India gets a new cheap super-charged SUV with Force One

Difference between the Govt "Jokepal" Lokepal and Anna's Lokepal

TOI comes in support Anna

Bharti Walmart - Now in India

The curious case of uber-dum UPA

Product Review - Canon A3200IS

UPA acts shameless

Cisco Packet Tracer - a great software

More posts coming soon

More Vodafone Billing Problems

Blogadda doing wierd antics

Fotopic Down...

Two and a half men even in the skies

More posts coming

MTNL on a roll

Link Picks

First Peek at the NTPC Badarpur Thermal Power Station

How to use the computer safely

No rift between Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambram a lie !

Hyundai Motor Plaza, New Delhi - a Cheat,Sham

First Hands on Nexus One

Movie Review - What Happens in Vegas

How to Hack Wi-Fi

Movie Review - The Island

Product Review - Altec Lansing BXR 1221

Movie Review - The time traveller's wife

Movie review - Life as We Know It

Movie Review - Up In The air

Dexter In India - a felicitation

iCloud success a doubt

iPhone 4 Launches in India - finally

How to be Confidence

More Telemarketer Nonsense