Choosing the Right Color Printer

Digital camera penetration is growing, I see more and more film camera users now going digital, becasue the cost of running is low.. Printing film is becoming a tougher task, especially those of you who know me well, know that I love black and white film photography, the chances of getting a good photo by clicking, and then the chances of getting it printed are out of any safe probability estimates.

So if you have a Digital printer, and are thinking, why not print an image from the camera at home, read my take on choosing the right digital printer in the Express Money, with Indian Express, on Monday 21st August 2006.

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Dish TV is Hotttttt

The DTH market in India is becoming Hotter. The only private player in the Industry till a month back, Dish TV from the Zee TV Stable, now has a competitior, (sadly a lost competitor at the moment, learning to teeth), in Tata Sky.

After TDSAT's Intervention in making sure Dish TV has access to all Star TV Channels, Dish TV looks like a Leader.

I fought a battle with my Dish TV STB today to program Star Channels (well I will get them for free If i Get one of dish tv specials, till 31st December 06, and after that is when they will fix costs. Anyway, Dish now has some great offerings,.. Check out dish tv's website for a list of some new channels, and if you are a bit wiser on how to program the STB, check this link out at Lyngsat, which has a list of channels, you may not be getting on your Dish TV, but will be able to, if you go into the setup and change a few settings.

Happy Dishing :)

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Tata Sky is Online but Still Confused

Tata Launched TATA Sky, it's venture with Star TV and Sky Broadcasting with Pomp and show on the 8th of August. You had only heard of it, if you are an AVID star news watcher, nothing else. Then the site went kaboom, and you could not check what was happening. Yesterday Tata Sky, Launched their new site, and the full fledged advertising campaign across cities, the banners are up, and every one wants to know where to get a Tata Sky Dish Antenna, your's truly decided to get one for testing myself, and thought why not now evaluate if the Dish TV setup I have v/s the Star / Tata sky thing which one is better, so i was back on their site, and found a few things which were interesting to read,

Basic Hardware Cost: Rs. 2999
Installation + Activation + One Year Warranty: Rs. 1000 (Why isn't the warranty included in the product price)
Rs. 200 Per Month for Subscription (you get only and all star channels, nothing else, and no other options, it's 200 or nothing).

So I am doing a comparative on what it costs you, what do you get, look out for that.. In the meanntime, when I called all the dealers in Delhi (I made about 60 phone calls to various dealers), the list was taken from Tata Sky website, and none, yes NO ONE of them had heard of what Tata Sky is, and why their numbers are on the website. I then frantically started calling dealers in the other cities, and wow, same story, no one knows that they sell tata sky dish based system.. it was news to them, some of the dealers even asked, me launch ho gaya bhaiya, ke aise hi bol rahe ho

Well, one thing I figured out, Tata did not get their hosting right, got a partner to shutdown their website, put up a technology company to do a website (that does not work on any linux browser properly), and put up the whole electronics dealer directory from some site, and none of them new about the Tata Sky launch.

Well Good luck Mr. Tata, a businessman I have always respected, but never understood, hopefully this will be another of the ventures like your Indica Car, that will be a great succcess, but why, and how still escapes me.

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Tata Sky is TATA BYE (AKA Choosing the Right Hosting Company)

This week on TV News was dedicated to the launch of TATA Sky and how it's entry into the Indian Market will help people get a choice, after all, we are all tired of our cable operators. Some of us , like my Dad who were the early movers, chose the ZEE Dish TV and were all waiting for more channels, and the Star Bouquet on it for the last two years. Finally TATA Sky is launched.

But well, my post is not about Tata Sky or it's launch, it is about how to choose the right hosting company. After all you pay the hosting company to make sure the site is running, and not show you

"Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.34 Server at www.tatasky.com Port 80"

Why did it happen to Tata Sky, Well TATA is the owner of VSNL, country's largest Internet and Hosting company, Sky a Part of the Star TV Network is one of the largest cable / satellite television networks of Asia, and the Investment to start Tata Sky "Approximately 13,000 crores or US$ 28 billion, if I have my mathematics right".

Who do they choose to host their webiste, well atleast not my company, and atleast not VSNL, but a Shared Hosting Company run by Quadra Infotech (Using Shared hosting servers from DirectI), at a plan of maybe Rs. 5000, for a 100 MB disk space(well how much more do you need for a website).... without reading the fine print Bandwidth Allowed: 1GB... :) Well who will do 1 GB.. TATA did it.. you will do it, anyone can do it.. it's a matter of visitors coming to your site.

Who is the Culprit, someone called Mr. Rasesh Patel, who I believe is someone very senior in Tata Sky's IT Department.

Sadly, Mr. Patel, did not bother to verify the company and or the kind of service they provide, and also forgot to check out, that the same server had 288 other clients for hosting.

So beware and be careful, do not let your IT Guy or your Accounts guy take the decision on where to Host, check everything, read all fine prints... you never know.. you may become famous, and have a dead website saying "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later."

Have a Happy Weekend.. and Hopefully tatasky.com should be working before we say wake up and smell the coffee. It's 11th August, 2:18 AM.. and I am still up and awake trying to figure out, after all TATA should not have done this.

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Money Management Software - Mr. Mouse, the Financial Advisor

The New form 2/3 from the Government of India seems to be an impossible tax, after all you spend a lot of cash daily, ranging from your parking tickets, to the burger at Mac Donalds, that you never get a reciept for, or maybe better still, Dominos' pizza, that has the reciept stuck to the pizza box, you can't staple / file your pizza box as proof of payment to Domino's at the end of the year.

Thinking where your money went, or how you could have kept a good tight record of the cash flow, so taht the Form 2 and 3 are not a pain. Well read my take on some Money Management softwares by clicking here, or grab the Print copy of Express Money, with the Indian Express this Monday 7th July 2006, India Wide

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