VC's Gadgets,Gizmos & Fun

Shifting Blog ....

2007-12-09T18:07:00.000+05:30

Hi Techies !! I am gradually shifting my blog to Wordpress ..you can see it here the same TECHIE COCKTAIL

As always your comments are welcome...keep visiting my new blog..and enjoy the various flavors of a techie cocktail......

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

2006-12-31T21:41:00.000+05:30

A piece of info to start this new year :

Do u know speciality of this new year. It starts with monday and ends also on monday. No public holidays on sundays. This year has got highest number of sundays and saturdays. So enjoy the least working year in your life! 2007- a year with a difference!

Have a Happy & Prosperous New Year 2007 !!!

Net Clips - Mobile Etiquette

2007-10-22T10:32:00.000+05:30

Here are some of the news, articles and sites I found interesting on the web,

Mobilephone Etiquette : In this day of manic use of mobile phones, there is less awareness of mobile phone usage in public places. I tend to keep my phone in silent mode in public places like halls, meetings etc. and when need to attend my calls i excuse myself and step out of the room and talk in a much softer tone. Here is a article i came across CNet Asia giving you some more tips.
Google Docs mobile : For people using google docs, it seems google is making it mobile so that you can access your docs & spreadsheets on the go in any phone. Read On
Send Free SMS : Here is a site which allows you to send sms from your PC to mobile FREE. Try and Enjoy
Missed Call Info : Here is a site which allows user to find the area and operator of the mobile number you have received or missed in India.

Net Clips - IV (Money Management mantra)

2007-05-02T10:56:00.000+05:30

In this world, where most Techie & IT professionals earn a staggering amount , its still sad to find that many people in this circle are still not aware of good money management practices. If this "Modern World" is coming out with numerous ideas to help with your money management then, It seems a 3500 year old book has already found answers for all your money management woes.

Here are some excerpts from the article :

A book was cast in stone more than 3,500 years ago in Babylon and was found by a British professor late last century. What impressed him -- and helped him come out of a debt crisis -- were the inscriptions on how to manage one's finances.

Pay yourself first
Make your money work harder
Take calculated risks -- but do take them
Be persistent

For the Full Article read it here at Rediff

If you have any money management trick it share, please feel free to post your ideas here.

Net Clips - V (Be a Google XPert)

2007-06-11T11:47:00.000+05:30

If you are the one who Googles the way through the internet, here is a interesting article i found in the internet. Here are some excerpts from it followed by the actual link to the original article.

12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert
I f you're like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But, chances are, unless you are a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing a few words in, and changing your query until you find what you're looking for, then I'm here to tell you that there's a better way – and it's not hard to learn. On the other hand, if you are a technology geek, and can use Google like the best of them already, then I suggest you bookmark this article. You'll then have it on hand when you are ready to pull your hair out in frustration when watching a neophyte repeatedly type in basic queries in a desperate attempt to find something........

For example to exclude words : internet marketing -advertising

For specific document types : “internet marketing” filetype:ppt

Find the original article here.

Courtesy of : Smallbusinesshub.com

Animated Wallpapers - Just 4 U

2007-06-15T10:21:00.000+05:30

For people who are interested in getting their name (or any text for that matter) on cool animated wallpapers, the site Red Dodo offers them for free. Wallpaper size according to your phone can be selected and a text of length till 16 characters can be entered. Here is a sample of what I've done,

Just click on the banner to start making your own customized wallpapers.

Find your Zen

2006-12-21T11:35:00.000+05:30

Missing in my collection of gadgets & gizmos was a " Digital Audio Player" or according to some people "IPOD". My wishlist for a DAP was that it should be feature packed, should act as a Mass Transfer device to just copy and paste my music from my laptop and should have a nice informative screen for viewing my music info. Looking for such a gizmo for a budget of 100 $, I had my radar set on Ipod Shuffle (1 GB), Sony NW-E005, iAudio U3, Creative Zen V / V Plus. Looking around the web for various opinions & reviews I settled for the Creative Zen V Plus (1GB) for 100$. Thanks to my brother I got it as a gift. Now to some hands on details of the ZEN V PLUS - 1GB.

In the Box

Zen V Plus, USB cable, Line-in cable,Software CD, Pouch, Manual

Music Functionality

It can play MP3, WMA and supports sorting by Albums / Artists / Genre. Customizable playlists and equalizer makes it a pleasure to hear your music. The sound quality is very good and the bass & treble are very clear. The "Now Playing" screen shows all the info of MP3 files like Title,Album , Artist and even album art if you have one. The CD has a Creative media explorer software to transfer music and setup playlist or people with Windows Media player can sync with it. Or "no-hassles" version is to just copy & paste the songs into the removable drive. It also has a FM functionality. Another cool feature is that you can use the Line-in cable to transfer music from your casette / CD player even without a PC. It supports pay per download music too.

Photo / Videos Functionality

The difference between a Zen V and V Plus is that the latter has video playback and FM. The 1.5" OLED color screen is good for viewing photos and short video clips. At this price range the Zen has a screen to match any of its competitors. Photos can be viewed as slideshow when hearing music in the background. Videos for the Zen can be converted using the converter software given in the CD. The only drawback is that even a one minute video takes up large sizes.

Extras

The Zen has a voice recorder and you can listen to your podcast. And the CD has a podcast organizer too. It also can be synced with Outlook to view your address book, tasks and calendar schedules. It also has a alarm clock to wake you up. There are also themes and wallpapers to customize your zen. And one another cool feature is that the screen can orient itself according to the angle which we hold the player. Creative comes out with
firmware updates to correct bugs and minor improvements which we can download from the net and install it by ourselves.

Accessories

People who think IPOD has only accessories please look again, Zen has skin cover (various colors) even with a armband. And Creative has also come out with a docking station for the Zen. And for people who think it takes ages to charge with the USB cable can buy a AC Power charger.

The battery lasts for 14-15 hours and with some efficient battery management tips like - reduced screen brightness and not fiddling the player would make the player go for a bit more. Games and a TFT screen would have made it 101% perfect. But as such there is no such thing as PERFECT in this world. All in All a wothy buy for this holiday season.

So for people looking for a no - hassle DAP can go for the Zen which is available in two versions ( V & V Plus) at different capacities such as 1GB,2GB,4GB and in different colors.

X.T.E.N.D Ur Zen

2007-06-06T18:59:00.000+05:30

For people who havent yet read the review on my Creative Zen V Plus , please read it here. For people who have already have a zen and looking for tips, help, accessories, here are some sites which provides you with good info and deals,

Epizenter - An excellent forum for all Creative players
Silicone Case & Screen Protector - A good deal I came across in the net so far......
Zen V Plus Update - Official Zen firmware updates
Zen V Plus - Creative's Zen V Plus official homepage
MediaMonkey - A free media management software

For good deals, there's always Amazon and for syncing ur Zen to ur windows PC there is always Windows media player and I have found WMP 11 pretty good and easy.

Gear up for Play

2007-09-11T17:24:00.000+05:30

Today my cousin came with a Philips Go Gear 2GB MP3 player (SA2325), which he had got as a present. So here are some of my thoughts on it,

Its almost like a thumb drive with a USB port protected by the Cap on the top. Finished in a black glossy coating looks nice, but after a few minutes of playing with it my finger smudges were all over the player. Size wise its quite ok.
Switching it on i was greeted with a monochrome (black & white) screen with bright green backlight and the text and icons were clearly visible. Song info was displayed in the 2nd line whereas 1st line had battery status indicators and other indicators.
Transferring the songs (supports mp3, wma) was just plug & play using the USB (USB 2.0)adapter cable.Folder navigation was possible (no ID3 tagging) so putting albums in different folders will make navigation easier.Transferring 306 MB of songs took me 3:25 seconds
Then I tried playing the songs using the given earphones, sound quality was quite good and there were 4 preset equalizers too. As every other review site would say better get a good quality earphone to enjoy your beats :-)
FM radio was there ,but I wasn't able to try it because of poor FM reception in my town. Voice recording was also present.
The GoGear was powered by a single AAA battery which makes it very easy to replace when we run out of power.

People looking for a no non-sense mp3 player at a budget of 50$ can really consider this player.

Official link

Photo courtesy of Sony Ericsson K550

Encounter with a 'PEARL'

2007-06-21T12:00:00.000+05:30

A word of caution to my readers, I have had no previous knowledge on Blackberry phones or haven't used them before. By luck I got to play around with a Blackberry Pearl (Model No: 8100) provided by AirTel . So these are some of my own impressions formed from a " Blackberry Ignorant Brain "

I have never been a fan of flat wide bodied device with QWERTY keypad , even though it has its own advantages, the Sony Ericsson M600i was a exception. But the Pearl with its sleek looks really amazed me. For a smart phone its absolutely a svelte chic ;-)
The 240 x 320 display was nice and the grid based iconic interface was nice & easy to use
I think this is one of the first blackberry phones with a camera & media player functionality. The 1.3 megapixel camera is quite OK and the music quality was good. The demo video of avi format was quite exceptional in sharpness and smoothness of playback
The internet browser was average as it wasnt able to handle pages with Javascript
Whats a blackberry without "E-Mail" - The e-mail delivered is read well in the big display and all attachments like doc, xls, ppt, jpg, pdf files were easily opened and viewed. Images cam be zoomed in and out. But typing in the keypad what they call as SureType keypad was a struggle as I couldnt come to grips with keypad
The best thing to me about the Pearl is the Pearl (trackball) itself which sits under the display. It was a dream to navigate with it.

X.T.E.N.D ur Firefox - Part I

2007-02-03T11:15:00.000+05:30

One of the many great features of Mozilla Firefox is that you can install add-ons to further facilitate your browsing and activities on the net. Here are some of Firefox add-ons which I would like to recommend,

FlashGot by Giorgio Maone

Flash got helps you to download one link, selected links, or all the links of a page at once with a single click by sending the request from your browser to any of the download utilities installed in your PC.

Note: Free DownloadManager is a great download manager which you can use for resuming of interrupted downloads, scheduling & acceleration.
Video Downloader

This cool add-on allows you to download videos from sites like YouTube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm etc. And you can also download embedded objects on a webpage like mp3, flash, video, quicktime.
Answers by Asher Szmulewicz

1-Click Answers™ saves you time by instantly delivering the information you are looking for. Press Alt (or Option on a Mac) and click any word to get a quick, relevant definition or explanation, drawn from a collection of over 100 reference titles.
JAJAH - Web-Activated Telephony by Gilad Katz

JAJAH lets you make free or very low cost global telephone calls directly from Firefox using your regular mobile or landline phone.
Adblock Plus by Wladimir Palant

To block out the ever annoying intrusive advertisements. If you encounter an ad your subscription does not take care of, right-click it and select “Adblock”.
Download Statusbar by Devon Jensen

Manage your Internet downloads from a tidy toolbar, without the download window getting in the way of your Web browsing. Despite its compact size, Download Statusbar packs in more useful features than the standard download window.

In the next part I will be listing out more great add-ons for Firefox. If you are interested in other open source software you can read about my 3 blogs on Open Source softwares here.

X.T.E.N.D ur Firefox - Part II

2007-02-06T10:58:00.000+05:30

Continuing from the previous post on some great Firefox add-ons. Here are some more for you to consider,

Sage by The Sage Team

Sage helps you discover and read RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite websites. Watch your friends’ blogs, or stay on top of hundreds of online publications with notification of new content and easy-to-read newspaper-like rendering.
Performancing by Performancing

Performancing is a full-featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted content, including images, from the page you are browsing and take notes as well as post to your blog.
Jeteye by Jeteye Technologies, Inc.

Jeteye enables you to collect links, images, text, and videos into a Jetpak. Share Jetpaks with friends and family and make them public or private according to your preferences.
FoxyTunes by Alex Sirota

FoxyTunes places remote controls for the media player of your choice within Firefox so that you can control your music without leaving the browser.So enjoy your music while browsing in the same window with no hassles.
StumbleUpon by Geoff Smith

StumbleUpon allows you to discover and share great Web content matched to your personal preferences. Whether it's a website, video, picture, blog, StumbleUpon helps you find interesting pages recommended by like-minded people with a single click of the Stumble! button
del.icio.us Bookmarks by Yahoo! Inc.

This extension integrates your browser with del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/), the leading social bookmarking service on the Web.By using this with Firefox it makes it much easier to access your bookmarks wherever you are and keep them organized no matter how many you have.

If u have used and come across some useful add-ons please post it in the Comments section, I will come out with a Top-User Rated Add-Ons in the near future...so post your comments

NOKLA - A hands on report

2007-09-07T10:15:00.000+05:30

A lot of you might have heard or seen chinese made mobile phone clones. Personally, I have seen lots of them on the Net but this week I came across a phone very much similar to the much coveted Nokia N95. This phone however is called as NOKLA 95(model no. i am not so sure about). From a distance it resembles very closely to its much touted counterpart. Here are some of my observations on it,

Build quality is OK to put it mildly. It doesnt feel solid like its counterpart.
Screen quality is good. But I wasnt able to find the actual resolution of the screen. It should atleast be 240 x 320 pixels.
It has two SIM card slots. I was not able to test whether it can use 2 active sims at the same time, but still a cool feature if you ask me.
The audio was blaring out through the 4 speakers ( yes you heard me right, this gizmo has 4 speakers). But when I reduced the volume it was good.
I could test the video playback capabilities as the phone had no memory card (it has a slot for T-Flash memory card) and the in built phone memory was only around 1 MB.
The UI was one which resembled like a Nokia N95 in the main menu but other than that it was a proprietary UI. It was easy to find my way through but sometimes it was confusing and the navigation was tad slow too.
I was able to pair the device with my K550i through Bluetooth and it had GPRS too. Other connectivity options I wasn't able to checkout.
The camera was inscribed as 2 Megapixel at the back but according to my friend who took some snaps it was only a VGA camera.

Going at a retail price of Rs. 6,500/-(160 $) in my town Sivakasi (see the map) ,people who are adventurous and looking to experiment can go for this NOKLA 95.

Photos courtesy of my Sony Ericsson K550i

Iphone in India

2007-11-19T19:55:00.000+05:30

Even though Iphone is not officially available in India, almost many mobile stores sell it. My friend has one and I played with it for a few minutes.

Before i put forward my views, i have come across a lot of smartphones based on Symbian S60, UIQ and Windows Mobile so I am putting my views as compared to these smartphones (if you call Iphone a smartphone).

Its a typical Apple product I should say, with words like cool, svelte & sexy to describe the external appearance of it
This is the first time i am seeing a mobile phone with this screen resolution so video & pictures looked stunning
Music quality was ok, couldn't test with a earphone
Browser was very good , very near to a pc experience
Couldn't quite manage to type out a simple sms with the virtual keypad
And most of all the UI and other operational speed was quite amazing

You might all think I am drooling over this phone, but at the end of the day its strict integration with iTunes, no mp3 ringtone support and no bluetooth file transfers is a No-No to me for others you will enjoy this device but waiting for a official release is a safer bet for you.....

PC <-> MobilePhone => Softwarezzzz

2007-01-06T19:03:00.000+05:30

Almost all mobile phone users out there would like or will be using mobilephone management softwares to sync , download / upload files from your phone to your PC / Laptop. For those who want to know, here is a list of management software from the leading mobile phone vendors for their respective phones,

Nokia - Nokia PC Suite : A great all in one software for managing all the data in your Nokia phone. Visit www.nokia.com to download the latest version.

Motorola - MobilePhone Tools: Take a look at www.hellomotto.com for phone compatibility and features

Samsung - PC Link : Drop in at www.samsungmobile.com to get the latest software for your samsung phone

Sony Ericsson - PC Suite : Having lots of tools to manage your sony ericsson phone , visit www.sonyericsson.com for more details.

But I would like to introduce / refer to you two free mobilephone management software especially for Sony Ericsson phones. They are,

Float's Mobile Phone Agent: A great software from sourceforge, its a absolute dream for managing SE mobiles like syncing your phonebook, calendars, tasks and uploading / downloading of files. Even your phone calls can be answered through your PC or your sms can be sent from the PC. To get your copy visit http://fma.sourceforge.net

MyPhone Explorer : Another excellent software made for SE mobiles with excellent phone management capability. Now you store / backup your sms's, files, contacts so that even after a crash / accidental erasure all data can be restored to your phone in a jiffy. To download the latest version go to http://www.fjsoft.at/en/

OPEN SOURCE - FREE 4 ALL - PART II

2007-01-12T17:55:00.000+05:30

Now continuing from my previous post, after a Open source OS people will mostly need various softwares for their various computational tasks. Here are some of the best Open Source softwares available in their respective category,

OpenOffice : A full fledged office suite consisting of Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation maker, Database manager.
Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird : Firefox one of the best & secure browsers available today and Thunderbird a excellent E-Mail client with POP / SMTP / IMAP and junk controls.
GIMP : A Open source image editing & creating software suitable for newbies and professionals alike.
Audacity : A fast multi-track audio editor and recorder for Linux, BSD, Mac OS, and Windows. Supports WAV, AIFF, Ogg, and MP3 formats. Features include envelope editing, mixing, built-in effects and plug-ins, all with unlimited undo.
Inkscape : A vector based drawing tool for creating buttons, banners, cliparts.

To know the latest open source projects and softwares available today visit www.sourceforge.net . In the next episode look out for more open source softwares available for Animation,IM, FTP, Torrents etc.

OPEN SOURCE - FREE 4 ALL

2007-01-10T11:23:00.000+05:30

I would like to emphasize here the practicality and usability of open source softwares. Most people think opensource softwares are for techies and nerds, but this is a wrong notion. A strong revolution is underway in the open source community which is making people stand-up and look at the Open source community. For a detailed definition and history of Open Source Software I would like you to visit Wikipedia homepage on this topic.

And the most important software component for a PC / Laptop is the Operating System. I would like to suggest two flavors of Linux which will give you a idea about how a FREE OS can bring you all the benefits required for all the mundane activities and much more.

Ubuntu - Look at this flavor of linux which has strong technical support team to back you up. For people who cant download the software order your own copy of Ubuntu Linux for free.

Fedora - Initially started as a part of RedHat community this is also a excellent flavor of Linux which you can try.

In the next part i will bring to you some open source software alternatives which you can use for your office applications, image editing activities.

OPEN SOURCE - FREE 4 ALL - PART III

2007-01-17T17:28:00.000+05:30

In the ongoing posts on Open Source Softwares, this is the third and final part mentioning some more open source softwares which are useful for various tasks on the PC. Here are a few,

FileZilla : FileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client for Windows with a lot of features. FileZilla Server is a reliable FTP server.
GAIM : Gaim is a GTK+ instant messaging application. It supports multiple protocols, including AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, IRC, Napster, Gadu-Gadu, Zephyr, and SILC. It has many common features found in other clients, as well as many unique features.
Azureus : Azureus is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform bittorrent client.
QFlash : QFlash is a c++ open source IDE to create flash (swf) animation files. It uses ming and qt libraries.
Tetris Queen : Classic Tetris game to pass away your time with 50 levels and background music

Hope all found this Three Part edition useful ..will be out with more additions for the TECHIE COCKTAIL soon :-)

Spring Clean Ur PC

2007-03-06T10:13:00.000+05:30

This is that time of the year when many of you will clean your rooms / houses as a part of our lifetime routine called "Spring Cleaning". So have you ever thought of cleaning up your PC / Laptop ( Oops sorry no Macs !! ) and most importantly not with a broomstick / vaccum cleaner / cloth. Windows computers and the softwares we use on our daily usage generates lots of junk which clogs up our system and slows it down, so it is a worthwhile to clean your complete atleast once in a month.

I use a free software called CCleaner which I have found safe, easy and non-obtrusive to use. Some of its features I use and like are,

It can be used to delete all the browsing history(cookies, auto-complete,temporary files) stored in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera
It can clean out all the temporary installation files left out by installers of various softwares and junk files left out by many 3rd party softwares like OpenOffice, ZoneAlarm, Office,Acrobat Reader,Windows Media Player, winZip, Nero etc......
Safely removes junk and obsolete entries in Registry
Has a uninstaller and start-up list remover to see and delete any unwanted programs.

I've used it for the last 1 year and found it to be very useful in keeping my laptop fast and efficient. Its FREE and so hopefully you will start SPRING CLEANING your computers from today.....

Visitors who had used other similar software and will like to recommend to others ..please leave a comment here...THANKS !!!

Google Talk - Just for U

2007-05-15T10:51:00.000+05:30

In one of my previous post, I posted some of the web based IM's out there and the way Meebo has a gadget to integrate IM into your webpage or blog. Now Google has come up with Google Talk Gadget in addition to its Google Talk Client, whereby you can add the Gadget to your Google Homepage
allowing you to do some cool stuff like viewing youtube videos and picasa webalbums in addition to getting to chat with your Google pals. Or you could add Google Talk to your webpage by getting the code here.

The code is just 2 lines which can be added to your webpage or blog. So no techie jargons to worry about. And speaking about the Google homepage , now they have added cool stuff like Themes which changes according to the time of day in your city. If you have google id, preview it here.

Boost ur PC

2007-05-18T10:23:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered why your windows PC or laptop felt sluggish and slow, how you wished you could speed it up. I had mentioned in my previous post -> "Spring Clean ur PC" about using free software to clean up your PC. Now here is a simple trick with no additional softwares.

Right Click on your desktop
Goto "NEW" -> 'SHORTCUT'
And type the following - %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks
Click Next and Finish
Double click to stop all the idle tasks hooging your system memory.
You can change the Icon if you want to and I have tested it only in a Windows XP machine.

Hope all of you find this useful, If you have got any cool tricks for your PC please share your comments.

Trick courtesy of Gadget Guru Show on NDTV.

Watch Out !!!

2007-07-17T17:07:00.000+05:30

Look out folks, there is a new thief in your PC which wouldn't be detected by your antivirus / spyware etc. why ? ......here read this on

A new device has been introduced to the marketplace that is a huge danger to anyone who uses a PC that is not theirs. It is known as a key tracker and it sits between the keyboard and the PC. As can be seen in the pictures it is very discreet but is probably one of the most dangerous items of equipment to personal information that is readily available. These devices record every key that is pressed on the keyboard. Due to it's position (it sits between the keyboard and the PC) the information is logged by the tracker before the PC knows about it and as such is very difficult for the PC to detect. They are available in both USB and PS2 formats so pretty much any PC can be logged. The user puts the tracker in line, leaves it there for a set amount of time and then retrieves it. They can then download the data onto their own PC.

If you intend to use a PC that is not yours (ie hotel business centre, internet café, airport etc) I would advise looking at the back of the PC to see if one of these trackers has been placed in line (scrambling under a desk is the better alternative to losing your email details). If you cannot get to see the back of the PC, I would suggest you don't use it for anything personal. If a tracker is there and you do not notice it, whoever placed it there (could be any user of that PC before you) will be able to recall all of your keystrokes - logins, passwords etc.

These trackers cost less than £30 and they are definitely out there already.

FREE WAREZ

2007-09-03T11:27:00.000+05:30

Hello Techies......

If you have read my previous posts on Open Source softwares and free softwares, here is a update on that topic. I would strongly recommend these utilities for your PC ,

CCleaner : On my "Spring Clean ur PC" , I've mentioned as a excellent software to clean out the junk left by your various softwares in your PC. Their latest version 2.0 has been completely revamped with further enhancements to their excellent feature set.

Free Download Manager : A very good download manager with now support for BitTorrent, embedded video download from sites like youtube, metacafe etc.

JZip : Based on the 7-Zip open source platform this compression utility can handle zip, rar, ace, iso files.

Note: All trademarks and logo are properties of the corresponding companies.

Plug & Surf

2007-10-17T18:28:00.000+05:30

My brother has recently got a Tata Indicom Plug 2 Surf device as a back-up to the existing BSNL Broadband connection. I decided to give a test ride in my Acer TravelMate laptop.

First the pack contains the USB 1x CDMA modem almost similar to a "Thumb Drive" but marginally bigger, with a mini-cd, installation manual. Without reading the manual (one of the whims of a computer engineer :-) ) I plugged the device and inserted the CD but after the initial installation steps, it said the hardware was not installed properly. So then I unplugged the device, from the autoplay screen of the CD pressed Installation, which installed the tata indicom dialer and after the software installation , i plugged the USB modem it got installed automatically and the green light started blinking indicating that the modem was correctly working now.

Then I started the Tata Indicom Dialer software. Its a single window with various options like "Connect", Inbox, Contacts, Settings, Sent Message. Once the device is plugged in I was able to receive or send messages. The address book had options to store number and group numbers too. The upper part of the window showed the reception strength and other service information.I tried calling this tata indicom number from my mobile, it was ringing in my mobile but the device didnt show any response in the monitor or in the device itself.

I pressed connect and got connected almost instantly informing the speed was almost 230.4 Kbps. I opened 3 tabs in Firefox, and atleast one of the 3 pages said it couldn't find server. To check two mail boxes it took me almost 5 minutes which I was able to do in a minute in my broadband connection.Next I checked its speed using McAfee Speedometer it said my connection speed was 40 Kbps.

To conclude its no way going to replace your broadband / Wi-Fi connection. The only advantage is that it can be used anywhere in India where tata indicom connection is available to check your mails or catch up on news.

At a price of Rs. 2850/- (72 $) and Rs. 100/-for the SIM card and a monthly rental of Rs. 325/- (30 hours free per month), if you think you need a way to be mobile internet you can try this. Its slightly better than GPRS connection provided by GSM operators (in India) as far as I have tried.

Building a PC

2007-11-05T17:36:00.000+05:30

Last week, I was on the lookout to upgrade my aging CPU in my home, with a decent performing one. So here is what I finally picked up,

Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0 Ghz (From what i've read across the web , Intel still outperforms a AMD Athlon X2, even though it costs a tad more)
Intel Original 945 GCNL Motherboard ( Has a PCI express slot but supports only 667 / 533 Mhz DDR2 RAM)
80 GB Seagate Barracuda Hard Disk 7200 RPM (I find 80 GM as ample enough space for me)
1 GB DDR2 Transcend 667Mhz RAM (Single stick, Dual channel work when there are identical sticks in each slot)
LG 18X DVD Writer (Prefer Lite-on writer but wasn't available)
Mercury 400W ATX Tower

All this came to a grand total of Rs. 14,500/- (370$), and lets say 5500/- for a 17" CRT, 500 for a keyboard / mouse combo, 500 for stereo speakers you will end with a good Budget performer (for a total of 21000/-). For techies / dummies, computer parts prices vary a lots and for those in India check out PriceGuru & ComputerWarehousepricelist