TO REFILL OR NOT

Often while talking to customers or responding to readers I am in a dilemma whether to suggest a refill or a new printer cartridge. Well, this week I will list the options and tell you how to go refill safely. But please note, these are my comments and parts of this article have been sourced from leading manufacturers of printers.

Life was simple in the days of the dot-matrix printer. The dots were printed like a typewriter using a similar ribbon. You could go to any third-party manufacturer and they would change the ribbon inside your cartridge for a tenth of the cost of a new one. Then came along laser and inkjet printers which sucked the ink out, along with a lot of money from our wallets. This was when the trouble started.

Most of us have some time or the other fallen prey to refilling gangs who charge anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 800, depending on the cartridge, but leave us with spoilt printers that no one would repair. Service centres would tell you your printer was dead because you used refilled cartridges and that the repair could not be covered under warranty.

As my friend and business acquaintance who runs a chain of cartridge refill and remanufacturing franchises across the country advises, the chemistry of inks is very different. The same ink can’t work for 600 dpi and 1200 dpi printers. Similarly, between two models of colour laser printers from the same manufacturer, the inks would differ. But the refill guys just use the same set of inks—a concoction of chemical, colour, and water—to fill your cartridges. These would eventually leak and kill the printer.

So, the next time you buy a printer, I suggest you check the manufacturer website, and not the dealer about warranty information. I found this following quote on the HP website: “For HP printer products, the use of a non-HP ink cartridge or a refilled ink cartridge does not affect either the warranty to the customer or any HP support contract with the customer. However, if printer failure or damage is attributable to the use of a non-HP or refilled ink cartridge, HP will charge its standard time and materials charges to service the printer for the particular failure or damage.”
This is what the FAQ section of the Epson website says: “Epson does not recommend refilling or using third-party ink cartridges. If these third party products cause a failure, the repair of that failure will not be covered under warranty.”

There wasn’t much on the Canon or Samsung websites, but industry sources say no printer manufacturer (though their service centres might) would refuse to service a printer just because you have used a third party cartridge.

Though one has to be fully aware of the bad practices in the industry, the market is gradually getting structured. Leading players like Cartridge World, Laser Tech and others are making it a better market. Some remanufactured and compatible cartridge suppliers like Inktec sell compatible cartridges for roughly half the price of the original cartridge and run the same length without damaging your printer.

On the other hand the large printer manufacturers are trying to keep you away from refilled cartridges by putting in chips that count the number of prints. These have a flipside though. Your cartridge designed for 2,000 prints would stop printing if you have printed as many pages, though covering just 2 per cent of the paper and even with ink still left inside the cartridge. Cartridge World and Laser Tech have started offering chip resets, but not for all cartridges.

Cartridge refilling, if done carefully and through proper channels, is a benefit to the environment. If you want to go for a replacement, just make sure your empty cartridge does not land in the hands of refillers.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, dated Sunday September 28, 2008

Messenger on the Move

Here is how to stay connected with Internet contacts through your GPRS phone
I recall when I got myself a BlackBerry about three years back. I kept thinking of a way to chat with my teams using the phone. Time went by and in came Google Talk. There were other third party utilities which could do the same, but all of them wanted money.

There wasn’t much you could do if you were on a general GPRS phone and still wanted to use all your messengers. Well, finally, I have the answer for you and it is called Nimbuzz. But only if you are on a Symbian Series 60 phone—not iPhone, Blackberry or Windows Mobile.
So, what is so special about Nimbuzz? After all, there are other players like IM+, Agile Messenger, E-buddy, and Fring which offer similar services. But I liked the Nimbuzz, and this is why.

I use ICQ, AOL Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Skype and Facebook, as well as an internal chat messenger that runs on a protocol called Jabber for our corporate team. At times I carry my Skype phone with me so that I can make cheap International calls—with tarrifs falling, we may not have to do that much longer. But carrying so many phones can be tough and I have always wanted to move Skype to one of my phones, so that I could skip to Skype when I wanted and stick to GSM during the rest of the time.

Facebook chat, too, is becoming more of a necessity, as most of my school/college friends don’t use messengers. Moreover, I did not want to load too many applications on the phone and wanted to stick to a single application — on my computer I use Trillian for Windows, Pidgin for Linux and Adium on Mac to give me one list of all my contacts, irrespective of the messenger.

And this is exactly what Nimbuzz does for your phone, and that too for free. Nimbuzz even has a client for the PC, so your experience on Windows is no different than the one on your cellphone.
So, is it all good? Well, not really. The Edge/GPRS services in India are far below quality and they need to be improved drastically. At times my messenger conversations went missing, and at times I could not make Skype calls because of the poor GPRS/EDGE service. On the upside,...3G will soon be available in the country. And if your phone has Wi-Fi, you can use Nimbuzz to chat or make Skype calls over the wireless network.

There is some serious competition too. Ebuddy, which offers MySpace, Google, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL and MSN, though without Skype, is also free and hence the nearest competitor to Nimbuzz. IM+ offers all that Nimbuzz has to offer, minus MySpace and facebook, but only if you pay $29.95. Fring offers Skype, MSN, Google, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL and SIP (another VoIP Provider), but no Facebook and MySpace. But Fring is still in Beta, and we should see other things added to it.

For now, Nimbuzz is the best way to stay connected while on the move. Download Nimbuzz from nimbuzz.com, and as they claim, join mobile freedom.
To know if your phone is compatible see tinyurl.com/tech2-nimbuzz

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The article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday 21st September 2008.

Two days with the iPhone

It’s a great phone, but with many flaws, so if you want to own one wait for a better price and 3G
The iPhone is finally here, and it is not making waves except in Page 3 circles. I know you want the phone, I want it too, but is it worth the money you have to dish out— as a friend used to say, “now we need to take housing loans to buy gadgets”. Anyway, I got a chance to live with the Jesus phone for two days, and this is what I felt.
Though I have never seen a better phone for business use, it has a whole lot of shortcomings. But still, if I were to buy a phone, it would be an iPhone, but only if the price was right.

The biggest complaint would be that the battery dies out too quickly. Though I was not using Wi-Fi or 3G, or any of the connectivity features, I had to recharge the phone and pray it would last. Since the phone was on loan, I did not have the car recharge kit. I could always recharge it using the USB port on a laptop, but the other end of the phone requires a proprietory connector—why can’t all companies stick to USBs so that it can be recharged anywhere? The phone has a string of features like Bluetooth, Automatic Screen Brightness, Edge, 3G and Wi-Fi; to make sure you get good battery life, turn these off, but then that would make it just another phone.

I did not try out Edge, as I think no one should buy this phone to use it on Edge, it will have to be used as a 3G phone. Luckily both my house and office, and most of the places I work out of—friends’ homes, cafes etc—have wireless. Connecting on Wi-Fi was not bad, though pulling email every time I went into a Wi-Fi zone was rather tiresome. I’d rather stick to a Blackberry for now.

the phone. I also loved the ease with which conference calls can be made. In a usual business day I end up doing about two to three conferences with my team and my customers, and it’s a painful experience with most phones. With the iPhone, all you have to do is press the Add button, call the person, and then press Join. I managed a three-party conference call, even going into private mode with one.

I also managed to crash the phone quite a few times, very unlike other Apple products. I then realised that the phone had over a 100 apps installed in it. Once I removed some of these Apps, the phone was easy to work with. I felt the typing was a bit slow, but then I am used to a regular keypad.

People have complained that it does not have a flash and can’t do picture messaging, but these were not big issues with me. Usually, I do not send MMSes and don’t really know a lot of people who do. The missing flash, though, can be a bit of a problem if you use your phone camera too much.
The interface is brilliantly done. However, getting the search in contacts took some getting used to. But the way the phone asked me each time if I would like to take the call on the speakerphone, the regular iPhone or my bluetooth headset was something I liked. Connecting to the bluetooth headset was also a breeze.

I loved the fact that Apple has given a standard headphone jack on...the phone. I also loved the ease with which conference calls can be made. In a usual business day I end up doing about two to three conferences with my team and my customers, and it’s a painful experience with most phones. With the iPhone, all you have to do is press the Add button, call the person, and then press Join. I managed a three-party conference call, even going into private mode with one.

I also managed to crash the phone quite a few times, very unlike other Apple products. I then realised that the phone had over a 100 apps installed in it. Once I removed some of these Apps, the phone was easy to work with. I felt the typing was a bit slow, but then I am used to a regular keypad.

People have complained that it does not have a flash and can’t do picture messaging, but these were not big issues with me. Usually, I do not send MMSes and don’t really know a lot of people who do. The missing flash, though, can be a bit of a problem if you use your phone camera too much.

Another little problem is that you need a pin which comes with the phone to take the SIM card out. Though no one needs to swap SIMs regularly, if you lose the pin, you are in trouble.

The capability of the iPhone to sync with my Mac or Windows PC is great. The way contacts are stored is also awesome, but sadly I could not search the contacts by first name, maybe I was doing something wrong. The switch to turn the phone from ring mode to vibrate is reminiscent of the Palm. The volume keys felt sturdy, and added to the solid feel Apple has built into the product.

So, do I want one? Yes. Why don’t I have one right now? One the cost is too high, and 3G is still not here. But there is no other phone that offers the same experience, and no one, yes no one, beats the touch interface.

For now, I am going to buy the new iPod Touch, as it can do email on Wi-Fi, along with music, video and even the apps, only the phone is missing.

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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 14th September 2008

A BAG FULL OF GADGETS

I hate to travel, but I have to travel. My work involves travelling extensively across india, and I hate it. No, not because the roads are bad, the public transportation drags and people are uncouth, but from a technologist’s point of view carrying all your gadgets, making sure you are connected, toys charged and mails answered, is a challenge.
So, what do I do, other than write articles on my trusted Blackberry? Well, a few things that I have learnt, other than making sure there is plenty of diet colas in my car and mineral water bottles, is to carry the following with me:
Recharger and rechargable batteries. It is tough when you get dependent on someone to buy batteries for you. These days there are manufacturers like Uniross that keep you going, always.
Anchor power strip with universal connectors and indicators. This is my favourite gadget and something I have stashed away in every corner. The led lights on it tell me if its safe to connect my gadgets in case the earthing is not proper or the phase and neutral have been reversed. It also does away with having to carry multiple convertors. Charging my camera, Blackberry, laptop and mobile phone becomes easy even if the hotel, like most in India, provides just a single power outlet in the room.
On this particular trip we came across a lovely bottle of wine that we all wanted to enjoy. But in this small hamlet, a corkscrew was too much to ask for. So in came my handy old travel companion, the Victorinox 25-in-one Swiss Army knife. Though I love the model with a torch and pen drive in it, I am still old fashioned and use the one with just the tools.
Torchlights and flashlights always seem to have run out of charge or a bulb when you need them. So a chargeable torchlight is a must-have. Though this is still not easily available across India, you can find it at most Chinese gadget shops. Or carry a crank-operated light that uses light emitting diodes (LEDs) for the light source and has a crank mechanism which means you can just crank it up any time, anywhere to turn it into a flashlight.
Now, I need to get back to enjoying the cool winds of the Himalayas.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 31st of August, 2008

Touched by Beauty

HP’s touch screen PC is a beauty, but slow and pricey
REMEMBER Minority Report? It had a sequence where Tom Cruise could solve a crime by flying through records, all using his hands to move things around on a virtual screen, on a virtual computer. Well some geeks at HP got inspired by the movie to build the world’s first all-in-one touch home PC, and it’s called the HP Touch Smart. This is HP’s second attempt—the earlier one was not very successful—but this one is much smarter, and looks more like the iMac or the Dell XPS.
The touch screen
At 22’’, this is the largest touch screen there is. Though the touch screen is good, the HP touch interface, the program that lets you play your music, videos, leave an audio or a text note, play around with your pictures, touch or crop them, is literally an overkill. It is good for my two-and-half-year-old nephew, who can now touch the computer and do things, as he does not know how to properly use a keyboard or mouse, but I am not going to trust a Rs 90,000 machine in the hands of a toddler.
There are a few things that are missing in the touch interface; the voice note function is good, but there are flaws. I was taking this phone note, repeating everything I heard on the phone. After the call I played the note, but forgot to save it. In a few minutes I took another note, and the machine overwrote the first one. This is a machine for people with dumb computer skills, and that’s really sad.
The webcam performance in daylight conditions is good, but at night it is very bad, it can barely see anything. If fact, you get spooky images as the screen light fills in.
Since the HP Smart Touch ships with Windows Vista Home Premium, the Windows Media Center is built-in and has a much better response to touch. Though the PC comes with a huge remote control, I did not bother to use it. After all, I am not replacing my television, at least not yet.
Where HP Touch Smart scores over the iMac is the TV Tuner, an IR Blaster which lets you change DTH channels using a software, Audio Out and Audio In.
Like the iMac, and other new generation machines, it features a slot DVD drive where you slide in the disc. What is good is that HP has given an eject button next to the drive. Apple does not have this function. However, it’s not easy inserting a DVD while sitting in front of the machine, you have to get up and do it.
A small clip at the back of the machine helps you tidy up all the cables that are coming in/out of the machine. The only wire that comes into the machine is the power cable. The size of the screen and the great emphasis on the design of the machine allow you to slide in the keyboard under the PC.
VERDICT: HP deserves a lot of credit for what it has done. If you are looking for an allout entertainer, and don’t mind spending money on a very, very slow machine, just because it’s the latest in technology, this is a must-buy. But for this much money, you can actually buy one of the fastest desktops on the market now.
For videos and pictures from the review, please visit: gsapra.blogspot.com
WHAT I LIKE
The wireless keyboard mouse is a standard accessory
The ambient light—reminiscent of an IBM thinkpad called the Think Light, or inspired by the light on the Philips Ambi Light TVs—with three brightness levels
The black shiny mirror piano finish, ideal for a country which prefers black over a white machine
The built-in SD card reader
The side USB ports
The brilliant microphone
WHAT I HATE
Synchronising the keyboard mouse the first time was a pain, it took me over half-an-hour to figure it out
Taking the dongle out from the back of a 22” screen, is not such an easy job, especially when you have spent a lot of money to buy the machine and turning over means risking a break
Windows Vista: The machine that came from HP for the review had a 4GB RAM and the Core 2 Duo 2.17 gave it a score of 3.8 on Vista, a tad too slow for me
Power adapter: Yes, the machine uses a bulky power adapter. Why not build an integrated supply into the PC?


Bootup Time


HP's Touch Interface


Skype on HP


Windows Media Centre

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 24th August 2008

iPhone 3G Finally Here / STEEP Price

Vodafone beat Airtel to send it's first round of announcements, the iPhone3G is finally here, and will be available from Vodafone as promised on the 22nd August. So what does it cost

Rs. 31,000 for the 8GB Version
Rs. 36,100 for the 16 GB Version
No Contracts
Advance Payment Rs. 10,000 to confirm Booking

Below is the Mail from Sanjay Sawhney, AVP - customer service, Vodafone for confirm of launch

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Hello Gagandeep,

Thank you for registering for your Apple iPhone 3GTM with us.

We are delighted to announce that the iPhone 3G will be available in India from August 22, 2008
It will be available in 8GB & 16GB models, priced at Rs 31,000 and Rs 36,100 respectively.

Be the first to get the iPhone

We have received a large number of registrations. As there are limited stocks, make sure that you get yours first, by paying an advance of Rs 10,000 to confirm your booking.

Where can you make this advance payment?

The iPhone 3G will be available at select Vodafone Stores. All you need to do is drop in at any select Vodafone Store between August 20 and 21 and make the advance payment by cash or credit card. Don´t forget to show the iPhone booking SMS, which you would have received from us, when you visit the Vodafone Store to pay the advance. To find a Vodafone Store near you, click here

Get an appointment now. No queues for you.

Once you pay the advance, we will immediately give you an appointment date and time, starting
August 22 when you can come and experience a full demonstration and collect your iPhone, all ready to use with your contacts and settings, by paying the balance amount.

Hurry! Limited stocks.

Remember, the sooner you confirm your booking, the earlier you´ll get your iPhone. We have limited stocks and it will be on first come, first serve basis.

Buy a Vodafone connection now!

As you are not a Vodafone customer, you will need a Vodafone connection for your iPhone 3G.
We recommend that when you come to confirm your booking, please do get yourself a Vodafone connection too. Remember to carry a passport sized picture, photo ID proof and address proof as these are required for activating your Vodafone SIM card.

Happy to help

If you have any queries, log on to www.vodafone.in/iphone or call us on 9811098110 and we´ll be happy to help.

Hurry and be one of the first to make the iPhone 3G your own.

Regards

Sanjay Sawhney
AVP - Customer Service
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Do I want one ? YES
Will I take it ? NO
Why ? Have you seen the Cost, 3G not here, no contract, long term support available


So, Do you want one ? Yes
Will you Take it ?

G

Desktop Video Conference a Reality in India

Video conference has been a thing of the future, the thing, that science fiction books spoke of ever since we were kids. Desktop Video conference has been happening for sometime, and you could always fire up your desktop, with a web cam, and do a video conference, but the Digital Divide, of people who did not know the PC, or how it operated, was a big issue. Dlink, one of the pioneer Networking companies in India, announced the availability of the GVC 3000 in India, made in India.

I have requested Yogesh Sharma, their Branch head in Delhi, for some review units, and should soon do a review, if I get the units. Though the details of the GVC 3000 are as follows:

* SIP Standards compliant, Interoperable with the SIP servers’ world wide
* Multi Codec Support H.264, H.263, H.263+ and MPEG-4
* Video Telephony at a bandwidth as low as 128kbps
* Excellent Audio and Video Lip Synchronization
* Tiltable LCD and Camera
* Excellent Video and Voice Quality on TV for group participants
* E.164 Dialing
* Audio and Video Privacy Options

Waiting for the review units.

GS

Beauty with brains, Mac style

It’s time to take the iMac more seriously

Well, I may sound like a bore with my newly-found love for Apple machines, but trust me, I have never actually felt this way about technology before. Problems with Windows Vista have had a lot of people look at Linux and Mac, and the Mac adoption rate in India is at a high now. Though the iMAC has been available for quite some time, i thought this is the best time to review iMac as a desktop for your home or office.
The first thing that strikes you is the clean lines and the lack of a tangle of cables — the machine just has one power cable, a cable to your keyboard, and one from the keyboard to the mouse. The other thing that hits you is that there is no CPU box, and wow, isn’t that screen big.

Setting the standards for elegance and simplicity, the all-in-one iMac packs all its components — from processor to video camera — into a thin anodized aluminum frame. Though this makes the machine heavy, its 20” / 24” display sizes make it an awesome experience to work on. The glossy widescreen delivers incredibly rich and vivid colour. The sound quality is wonderful—if you listen to music on this machine, you can make sense of what Surround Sound actually is. The screen is bright, and graphics responsive.

The built-in webcam is great, but night picture quality is not all that good. But, why would you want to do a video conference from a dark room. The performance of the machine meets all expectations. With the fast Core 2 Duo processors, and the Agile Mac OS X, the machine works beautifully. However, you will have to take the machine to the store to upgrade the RAM.

The built-in wireless is great, and very receptive to the signals. It was able to connect to all five wireless devices in my home. I have a large compound and my other laptops/desktops can find only two in any room. The bundled Apple Remote lets you remotely play music, movies, forward, rewind, almost everything you’d like to do with a home entertainment system. Like most of the other devices from Apple, it’s so sleek you can’t even see the screws.

But did I like everything? Well, not really.

I hate the material that Apple uses for its keyboards on the iMac and the Mac Book, the keys tend to get dirty too fast, and you can’t really clean them. The mouse is very nice, but getting used to its interface maybe a problem for some people. If you can, spend an additional Rs 6,000 to buy the S530 Logitech Desktop Wireless Set for the Mac—the mouse and keyboard are nicely built, it also helps clean up two more wires, leaving you with just a power cord.

My nephew, who is used to the glowing Apple logo on my Apple laptops, wanted me to light up the logo on the iMac, but sadly this one does not glow. The slimline DVD drive built into the monitor is placed high up, making inserting and taking out discs easy. Only if Apple had built in a video-in / TV-in option, I could replace my TV with this entertainment centre.

So if you need a new PC at home, or are thinking of changing your PC, it’s time you looked at iMAC. The Mac, is not about learning something new, it’s about unlearning, forgeting how you worked with PCs all these years. Give it a shot, and trust me, you will be surprised, and shocked that you did not switch over earlier.

PS: If you don’t want to change to a Mac, and are happy using Windows, watch this space for a review of HP Smart Touch PC next week.

Specifications
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 to Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8
RAM: 1 GB to 2 GB
Hard disk: 250 GB to 320 GB
Screen size: 20” to 24”
Warranty: 1 year, extendable to 3 years at extra cost
Price bracket: Rs 56,600-83,500
Ports: Mic-in / headphones out / DVI-out / Ethernet / 2 Fireware and 3 USBs (all behind the monitor)
In the package: Keyboard, mouse, Apple remote, DVDs and documentation

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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday August 17th, 2008

MTNL Makes Public Announcement of TV on Phone

Though this service has been available for quite some time, but today was the first public announcement of TV on Mobile Phones. This is the first service provider to launch Live Television (Actually about 4 to 5 minutes delayed, as we are still on GPRS and not 3G) on your Mobile Phone. Powered by Apalya, a service provider based out of Hyderabad, this has put MTNL on a lead advantage with other major cell phone providers.

The service is right now available on Nokia and Sony Ericsson Handsets, details atMTNL compatible Handsets, but the price announcement is very interesting, at Rs. 99 per month for a Set of 15 channels (Aaj Tak, BBC World, Bindaas, Cartoon Network, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC TV18, CNN IBN, CNN Mobile, IBN7, INDIA TV, NDTV 24x7, NDTV India, NDTV Profit, Times Now & Zoom). Channels Such as Fashion TV, and some Spritiual Channels (Iskcon Temple, Haji-Ali Dargh, Mumbai, Siddhi Vinayaka Darshan, Shiridi Sai Baba Darshan) are also available, but no details about Tariff of these is available.

From the looks of it, even the Babu's at MTNL don't like Doordarshan, I thought that needs to be compulsarily built into any kind of Cable / CAS / TV / IPTV / DTH Etc etc..

G

MTNL Slashes Broadband Pricing

Though personally speaking, I would want to stay as far away from MTNL as I can, as of today, it's been over 2 months, my telephone line is lying dead, and they can't do anything about it, my experience with MTNL owned services is nothing short of pathetic, but the above ad from the Hindustan Times, today, on the eve of the Independence Day, shows that the price war is just about to begin.

Indian Broadband is ruled majorly by Airtel / VSNL - TATA (ex-dishnet) / and MTNL / BSNL, though most of the customers looking for reliable connectivity choose Airtel, but in Area's where Reliance has launched services (Speed is a concern with reliance), people have looked at Reliance as an option.



Currentlyunlimited Data Transfer from Various Vendors costs
256 kbps
Airtel: 799 pm
VSNL - TATA: 1,000 pm
MTNL (From Today) 599 pm (Earlier 799 pm)
Reliance: 999 pm (300 kbps)

1 mbps
Airtel - Bharti: 2,222 pm
VSNL - Tata:3,600 pm
MTNL (From Today):3,999 pm (Earlier 4,999 pm)
Reliance: 2,999 pm

Though new revised tariff's are not published on MTNL's website. | All plans are for Delhi prices, and prices taken from individual websites.

Though the Ad makes them look cheaper, they really aren't, except in the 256k fight.

G

Acer Aspire One / Finally Here in India

Last Week, in My Indian Express, My Editor cut out the name of Acer Aspire one, but well, it's finally here. Just got the Press Release, and should soon get my hands dirty with one. The Market is hotting up and we should see a pretty big price war soon.

Acer Aspire One is available in 4 cool colours, Seashell White, Sapphire Blue, Coral Pink, and Golden Brown. Keeping Acer's past in mind, I am sure, they will launch all 4 colors at the same time (remember Asus EeePC was avilable only in White or Black, and MSI did not launch Pink in India).

W S Mukund, Managing Director, Acer India said, “In phase 1, the netbook is available through Croma and 250 odd retail stores across India. These retail stores include Acer malls and franchisee stores by partners.”Acer feels the initial push of Aspire One needs to be through the retail channels as it is basically a touch and feel product for people. By next month, we will decide about pitching the product across our traditional channels of distributors and resellers, Mukund said. The Aspire one (with 3 batteries), launched in five colors, is priced at approximately Rs 20,000 plus taxes for Linpus Linux Lite and Rs 22,000 plus taxes for Windows XP Home.
The Aspire One is available through Acer’s five distributors including Ingram Micro, Redington, Salora and Esys.

More Details coming up soon.

G

The HP Smart Touch is Launched in India

It's Finally Here, the HP SMART TOUCH
Our Fingers are the best pointing devices in the world, the most sensitive to feeling, and a wonderful tool to work with, HP has taken the iPod Touch, and the iMAC, and blown it up to build the HP Smart Touch. After exactly 2 months of it's first launch in Berlin, the Smart Touch was launched with fanfare at a press event last night (12th August 2008), at the Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi.
"We will have this in stores in the next 2 weeks, though primarily starting with the Class A cities in India, down the road we would have it available in all our 200 odd HP World stores across India. The price point is expected to be Sub 90K", commented Rajiev Grover, Director Consumer Products - PSG for HP. He also mentioned "I will send you some papers on how we have made sure that the screen is actually screen resistant". Mr. Walker from HP, said that this is the first time a touch screen this size has been launched, doing a touch screen on a small screen is easy, but this big (20") is a little difficult.

Though on my trials, the PC hanged twice, but hey, it's Windows Vista, Rajiev also commented that they have tested it out and have ironed out all the bugs. I should get the test unit in a day or so from Burson Marsteller the PR Agency for HP, and should run a review, both here and in the Indian Express, so look out.

HP Smart Touch Ad:


HP Smart Touch Experience:

G
PS: the best part of the release last night, was the Laser Show, with a Dancer, amazing stuff.

Don’t buy the MSI Wind, not yet

Not the right time to buy the small laptop
WELL, I know that’s not the most apt headline, especially not for a cuddly little laptop that costs you just about Rs 25,000, so small that you can lug it around without noticing it, and can turn your colleagues green with envy. So why this tough line on the MSI Wind. Well, read on.

The recently announced Intel Atom Platform — MSI Wind is the first next book to use it — has put a lot of computing minds into overdrive, and set them thinking how we can take lowcost computing forward, what are the possibilities. And there is always a debate on why you should and why you should not. But in recent years, there has been a big hype on how you can use your machines, with Microsoft upgrading us to a Mac-style environment called the Vista, and even Mac becoming cutting-edge. Earlier, only Linux offered a no-frills desktop computing environment, and to a certain extent the Windows XP. Sadly, Microsoft has discontinued Windows XP sales, though you can buy a Windows Vista licence and downgrade it to XP, so you can run XP on these Atom machines.

But if your usage, like most people, is to browse the Internet, check mail, watch online videos, listen to music, watch a movie, sync your portable media player, work on Word documents, crunch a few numbers in an Excel sheet and make Power Point presentations, the Atom, the Celeron and the Sempron will all suit you well. My typical usage of this machine will be to carry it around to coffee shops to jot down my thoughts, and leave my power house of a computer back home to do the number crunching, and spare time to Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence using SETI.

These new machines will change the entire scenario, making life much simpler for students of B Schools and other higher education centres who have been forced to buy laptops since they are affordable. But, yes, they are not the right fit to get those fancy Windows Vista graphics, neither are they great for ripping DVD’s as all these functions require a lot of power. Still, there is nothing better for your day-to-day use.

But, is it the right time to buy a netbook? I’d say, despite all the temptations, don’t fall for it just yet. Things are going to change within a couple of months, and these will make you regret buying it today.

Here is what’s in store:
By September, the Lenovo Idea Pad S10 Ultraportable, using the Intel Atom Chipset, should be out.
The Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Ultraportable will be out around the same time. But it’s still not clear if this will be brought to India, though it features a cool changeable face plate — remember the Nokias of yesteryears.
Intel has already announced a Dual Core Intel Atom to be released in September, which will change the landscape quite a bit.
Dell Inspiron Mini comes out in September with an approximate price tag of $300.
So wait, if you can, that is.

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The above Article appeared in the Indian Express, dated 10th August 2008

The clean-up drive : How to rid your PC of viruses in seven steps

How to rid your PC of viruses in seven steps

OUR computers are a lot like our body, they also go down with virus attacks, and are often tormented by zombies and trojans. Not surprisingly, a bulk of the mail that I receive in reference to my article each Sunday is related to virus infections, malware, badware, bots and what-nots.

A lot of us techies will advice you to format your system, forget about your data, and start afresh. Others will genuinely want to help you out. But the truth is, it takes a lot of time to clean a virus mess. So this week, let me tell you how to do it.

Assumption 1: I am going to do this article around Windows XP, the most penetrated platform in India. It can also work with Vista, but not as successfully.
Assumption 2: You already have some kind of antivirus installed. In case you don’t, then we will install it, but you will need to skip steps 1 and 2.
Assumption 3: You have an antivirus software on a CD—not the pirated kind. If you don’t, ask a PC enthusiast to send you one, or maybe buy one of those computer magazines and use its CD.
Step1: Close all programs, except Windows.
Step2: Fire up whatever antivirus you have installed. If you don’t have any, skip to step 3. Go into antivirus settings and enable deep mode scanning—some antivirus scanners will warn you that this is slow, ignore the warning. Now, look for the action option—what to do if a virus is found. Change this to ‘quarantine’ (do not set it to delete, not yet). Run the scan. Shut off the monitor, just the monitor. Leave your PC alone for anywhere between one to three hours, depending on the size of your hard disk.
Step 3: Turn on the monitor. If it’s still scanning, leave the PC alone for some more time. But if it’s done, open up the quarantine report, and see how many files have been moved. These are the dangerous ones. If nothing comes out of this scan, well you are lucky.
Step 4: Shutdown your PC, and restart. When the PC is starting, press the F5 key to boot the PC in safe mode. Once in safe mode, it will give you a warning that some things will not work. Now go to Add/Remove Programs, and uninstall your antivirus; this is an important step. After you remove the antivirus, you need to restart your PC in safe mode, remember to keep the F5 key pressed.
Step 5: Once restarted, put in the antivirus CD—please don’t use a thumbdrive/pen drive for this—and install the antivirus, preferably one of the free ones like AVG Free, Bit Defender Free Edition, or CA Antivirus Free Edition. Once installed, run deep scan again. Since your PC is in safe mode, and most of the old files are already in quarantine, this will be faster than the last time.
Step 6: You will see some results, move all of them to quarantine, and then shutdown your PC. Reboot it in normal mode.
Step 7: In normal mode, connect to the Internet and update antivirus. Once updated, run a full scan again. Sometimes it will find more threats, but this is unlikely if you have used the latest CDs.
Done. Your PC is now clean. In case you still have some viruses, or are getting too many errors, you will either need to format the PC or get an expert to clean it for you. But if you do the above steps, scan your PC regularly, stay away from downloading unnecessary utilities and backup often, you will not lose much data.
Happy computing.
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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express, on the 3rd August, 2008.

Gadgets for future wishlist

Five cool devices that are set to become must haves for home and office

The IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) is a premier international design competition held each year in Virginia, US. Though a lot of industrial products—from fork lifts to drills—win awards, this year at Idea 2008, it was the Apple iPhone and the Blackberry Curve that walked away with the honours.
Of the 1,517 entries received by the organisers, Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), this year, 205 were judged good enough for awards. In my column this week, I list the 5 devices that I think will hit the mainstream and will soon be on your gizmo wish list.

Eneloop Solar Cell Charger N-SC1S
Solar energy is a hot topic of discussion these days. So you can be sure that the eneloop Solar Charger will be on everyone’s mind. It is a charger that you keep in the sun for charging. It has a USB connector, and you can charge any device that accept a USB connector for charging (MP3 players, some cameras, and most cellphones). The device can also recharge your regular AA or AAA batteries (rechargeable) without using electricity mains. The Sanyo device should be available here soon.

C2 Climate Control from Herman Miller
Already available in stores in the US, the C2 Climate Control conforms to what is called human-centered design. To keep you comfortable at your desk, the Be Collection’s C2 heats, cools and filters the air you breathe. It utilises less than 1.5 amps of current, and turns off after four hours automatically. It can stand on your desk and conveniently micro control your micro environment.

Silicone Travel Bottle
In this age of a flat-world business, time spent on the road has increased massively. Fearing water-borne diseases, travellers carry their own water bottles. For those who want to travel light or fear leakage, here is a marvellous design by Paul Koh. A bottle that is easy to clean, doesn’t leak and is easy to squeeze. In addition, it’s a cool looker. Available for $20 for a set of two. Pricey, but then, aren’t all designer stuff?

Decathlon Artengo RollNet
The only thing available in India right now at a price of Rs 1,399, this roll-up table tennis net helps you convert any flat surface—a table, a drawer unit, the top of a cycle rickshaw—into a ping pong table. Its winding and clipping systems allow you to easily mount/unmount the net.

Haworth Brazo LED Lights
LED lights are everywhere these days—torches, toys, knick-knacks. Here’s one, more upmarket stuff. The Haworth Brazo is an office table lamp that saves power and gives an eco edge to the office environment (LEDs use lesser energy than CFLs but produce more light). With a stainless steel body, this is the first LED lamp to offer focus control. The 360 degree head rotation and the 90 degree head adjustability allow tangle-free manoeuvrablity.

For interesting additional information and details of other winners, visit idsa.org
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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday July 27th, 2008.

THE iSUBSTITUTE

How you can make believe that the iPod Touch 2.0 player is the iPhone
The new iPhone 3G released last weekend, but we in India are still far from getting one in our hands. I have a solution. And it’s not a clone or another so-called iPhone beater. It’s the new iPod Touch 2.0.

I know it’s not a phone, but it does everything that the iPhone does—other than call, of course. The iPod Touch 2.0 has in-built Wi-Fi, an email client, Safari web browser, capability of using mobile ME, applications, a cool version of Google Earth, Contact Search, Multiple Calendar Support, Push Email with MS Exchange Capability, Web clips, and improved attachment viewing. Now that’s a lot in a music player.

The Wi-fi makes this a better buy than other MP3 players because you can not only view YouTube videos directly online—without having to first download them to your PC and then sync them to your iPod—but you can also buy/download music directly to your iPod.

The Email client means that if you are sick and tired of lugging around that laptop at home, you have a smart substitute that lets you send/receive emails, maybe check the stock index, all while catching the show on television.

The screen is large, and is sensitive to gravity (turn it around for landscape in landscape mode, portrait in the straight up mode, etc).

You can use Google Earth to locate your house or to browse the streets of your city now that everything is mapped, and you can use the search on it for some directions (though this is admittedly not always precise) as long as you have Wi-fi connectivity.

The Notes application is interesting—I could pen down my MITs (Most Important Things) without any headache. Its capability to render PDF Files, and open Word and Excel files was something that was totally gratifying.

Safari works well, is fast and precise, though with e-banking sites requiring Internet Explorer, this device may not be the best to access your account details.

The music handling is great, and the switch from album art to lyrics was something that a lot of the people I showed the new iPod Touch to found interesting. Video rendition is brilliant, though YouTube was still jerky, thanks to slow broadband speeds in India. On a long road trip, I was listening to music for more than 10 hours, so when Apple claims 22 hours of battery time, I believe them.

The tie in with Mobile ME meant I could synchronise my address book from my Mac laptop with my Windows desktop and the iPod easily.

There were some interesting applications at the newly opened Web Apps store, but I did not test many of these. What I found engrossing was the one that turns your iPod Touch, or your iPhone, into a piano. Nice. With more applications now being developed both for the iPhone and the Ipod Touch, this goes from being a mere musical device to a more intriguing machine capable of lots of things.

The price ranges from Rs 15,000 for an 8 GB version to Rs 25,000 for a 32 GB version.
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The above article appeared in the The Indian Express, on Sunday July 20th, 2008

LONG-TERM BARGAIN

The funny looking, eco-friendly car can be a good low-cost second vehicle

The other day, when the Reva was launched—re-launched rather—in Delhi with the state Government offering sops, I thought I’d check out the tiny eco-friendly car. One look and you know the electric-powered Reva cannot be anyone’s primary car, just one that can be used for chores and errands.
Build: The shape of the vehicle is peculiar but it grows on you. The body is built of ABS plastic, which the company claims is dent proof. The steering wheel is a tad small, the instrument panel of bad quality, the hand brake difficult to use and the brakes hard. The curved windscreen is nice, but the hatch is a little troublesome. And if you want to fold up the rear seats to make space, you’ve got rubber straps to hook them to!
Drive: Start the car and it comes on without an engine hum. The Reva does not have a clutch either but the handling was good. I drove the car at about 50 kmph, and loved the feel of its spunky engine.
Seating: Enough for two adults if you are not too tall. Two small children can be accommodated in the rear.
Air conditioner: Brilliant, the test drive unit cooled up pretty fast.

Beyond just the smiles you get when you drive along, there are a few things to remember about the Reva:
Changing the battery: The 8-battery set has a warranty of one year only. The company says you will not need to change them for at least 3 years. But given that a battery life is 18-24 months, you have to prepared to pay Rs 60,000 every two years for a replacement set.
Maintenance cost: The company claims a maintenance cost of Rs 600 every three months for service done at your door step. But it’s more likely that you will also have to spend an extra Rs 200 for basic maintenance like replenishing the battery water, etc.
So, does it make sense to buy this car? Well, a company buying the car makes a lot of sense since it can claim 80 per cent depreciation in the first year. To an individual buyer in Delhi, the sops (no registration tax, no VAT, no excise) makes the Reva an interesting option. Elsewhere, it could interest the quirky and those committed to the environment. But, having said that, it could become the mode of transport for a young couple in metros if they drive at odd hours to work 15-20 km apart. A businessman offering small services (computer repairs, A/C servicing, etc) can also think of the car for himself and/or a team member. The car is cheap to run and can be charged at the customer’s end.
One more question: Is there a future for the car? The biggest cost component from my view is the ABS body. Reva could have used fibreglass and brought down the cost. Besides, the Reva is not a hybrid, which uses both electricity and fuel. As it is, it cannot switch to a biofuel for a drive longer than the 80 km it can run on one 8-hour charge. Also, besides the charging points at home, none are available in the public places. You cannot charge it at your usual parking lots, but with shopping malls now installing 15 amp power sockets that a Reva requires for charging, maybe a mall parking could be a pitstop.
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The Above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday July 13, 2008.

THEM CLONES

Statutory warning: This article is not to be taken to mean the column is encouraging piracy.

That said, let me add that there are times when you do need to back up those DVDs of your favourite movies in case your careless niece leaves it to the mercy of the dog.

Happily for us, DVD writers don’t cost much these days and with writable DVDs available for as little as Rs 7 per disc, making a duplicate copy of a movie can be an easy home project.

But did you know you can’t really copy a DVD directly as they are protected? That is a problem of sorts. However, there are ways to bend the system, so to say.

The first step is the arm ourselves with a software called DVD Shrink. It’s available for free on the Internet, so all one has to do is to go to http://tinyurl.com/dvdshrink and download it. We need some utilities. So, go to http://tinyurl.com/vobtool and http://tinyurl.com/dvddecrypt. While downloading and installing them, remember to instal DVD Shrink the last. Once installed, set a few preferences. For this, you will need to press Edit and Preferences.
Set target DVD size to DVD 5 (4.7GB).
Check Hide Audio and Subpicture Streams of Insignificant Size.
Check Automatically Open VIDEO_TS subfolders.

Now move on to the Preview Tab, and make sure you select Stereo Stream, not 5.1. Next go to the Output Files tab and put a check mark in Remove Macrovision Protection. Leave the rest of the options as Default and press OK

Once this is done, you can start work on backing up the DVD. Click on Open Disk and you will get a list of available DVD drives on your PC. Select the one that has the movie. Press OK, click on the Open Files button. This will open the Video_TS directory. Select the file that you see. The software will then run some quick analysis. Just let it do its work, which is not a long process.

Once the analysis is complete, we can go ahead and select the movie subtitles that we want to save as well as the sound tracks. DVDs can store data in more than one language on its sound track, but when you want a back up it is possible that you don’t want the French or the Chinese versions. Since all you may want is the version in English, why clog up the disc unnecessarily? The screen is split into five parts. On the left, you can see the disc structure, Menu/Movie/Extras. If you don’t want to the Menu and Extras in the back-up, you can deselect them on the right by unchecking the boxes on the file details. Similarly in the main movie, you can uncheck languages that you feel you don’t require.

On the lower left you will see the preview of the movie, and on the bottom a bar that shows you the disk capacity. If the bar is red, it means you have more content than the blank DVD can hold. You could try deselecting some unneeded options to bring down the size of the file. It it’s green, it’s time to go to the next step

Click on the Backup Button at the top and it will start to make a copy of the DVD’s content. And soon enough, you have the clone of the original disc.

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The Article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday, July 6, 2008

No Popcorn Pleasure

Renting movies from Big Flix has its good and bad moments

THERE was a time when DVD players were expensive and not all of us had them in our homes. But the mass production factories in South Korea have brought down the prices. My first DVD Player in 2000 cost me Rs 23,000, and now I can buy a branded player for under Rs 3,000. So the problem isn’t the player now, the DVDs are. The movies you want to watch are still cost Rs 299+ and this makes the movie rental business interesting. Seventymm took the lead, then came in guys like Moviemart, and now big brother Reliance has entered the business with Big Flix.

Big Flix is spending millions on advertising, and it appeared a bargain to be able to rent movies unlimited for unlimited time at just Rs 299 a month. A month ago, I took the bait. It took me less than two minutes to sign up on www.bigflix.com. I was surprised to see that contrary to their ads, they had a limited number of regional language films, but for those whose basic choices will be English and Hindi films, they have enough. They offer the option of renting out 1, 2 or 3 discs at a time.

In the FAQ section, I learnt I needed a wishlist of at least 25 titles to ensure timely delivery. I opted for some 30-odd titles and waited for my movies to arrive. I had registered on a Saturday and presumed I wouldn’t hear from anybody till Monday. But Sunday brought a surprise visitor who came armed with two titles from my selection. However, he demanded that I hand over two movies I had borrowed. I informed him I was a new member and that I did not have any Big Flix items in my possesion, but he would have none of it. A ring to their call center on Monday (no responses on Sunday) ironed things out, and I was told this would not recur.

But things went wrong after that with confusion over titles delivered, about the number of discs I was entitled to borrow at a time and other hassles that left me aghast at the ineptness of the whole operation. Even after sending an email to customer care (an automatic ticket number was allocated and I was assured my complaint would be looked into), two weeks down the line, the discs don’t arrive on time, no one from customer care answers and movies automatically go into a pick up request.

I kept a movie for more than five days to see if I could hang on to it for as long as I wanted. I got a courteous SMS reminder reminding me of my misdemeanour and asking me to arrange a pick up.

Here is the score sheet

Customer Service: Worst possible
Movie listing: Good. Claims 15,000 titles.
Staff: Courteous generally, but most of them are ex-courier boys so some can be off-putting.
Presentation: The movies come packed in their original boxes. Some discs never played on my players due to a lot of scratches.
Delivery: No guarantees, erratic.
Pros: Big Flix has stores across the country, so you can always go there and pick up movies or return them easily. Online site could have been better, but it is improving.
Cons: If you want to watch a specific movie on a specific day, you are good either buying it or watching it on Video on Demand on DTH or renting it from the local DVD fellow.
Cost: Attractive

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The above article appeared in Indian Express on Sunday, June 29, 2008

Same data, different devices

Synchronising may become easier with Apple’s Mobile Me service

The iPhone is coming to India. I know this is not hot news. The real excitement is the reason why you should buy the iPhone when it’s here in India. And no, the reason is not the cool touch features of the phone or its pictures, videos, audio. The truth is, the iPhone will be a smart business phone.

The bane of technology is that we are saddled with multiple devices. I have a home computer, a laptop, a Blackberry and a few other devices I use to access the Internet and or do my work (some shared computers, some hand-held consoles). Upwardly mobile people have at least a cell phone, a home computer/laptop and an official laptop/PC, and keeping information, documents, contacts, email all synchronised among these devices is a bit of a bother. I wrote in this column recently on how to access your PC remotely, but if the problem for you is synchronising your files, Apple has just announced a new service called Mobile Me (www.me.com).

The service rides on the inability of an individual user to access Microsoft Exchange for email. Also your office might not provide you with a Microsoft Exchange account. These would make ensuring the same contact information in your phone and your multiple PCs a difficult thing. With Mobile Me, possibly powered by Google, you will be able to manage this mess. Apple will provide you with a 20GB file storage online, a synchronised email, calendar and address book, and a capability to share your files, data, and music across PCs. How this works relies on an acronym called Push.

Say you update a contact on your iPhone (right now, the service is available only on the Apple phone), and you add a picture and the birth date of a contact. Immediately, this update is ‘pushed’ to Apple’s server, from where your PC (Windows) or Apple Mac pulls the information when it is put on. Similarly, if you access your email on your Apple or PC at home and move it to a different folder, or add an entry in the calendar for an appointment with your customer. When you reach office, you will see the same entry and your emails filed properly on your office machine.

You can, of course, say you can do this with other online services too. But what makes Mobile Me interesting is that this will work with Apple Mail Client, Outlook and some other clients, so there will be no need to open a web page and looking through folders, files, calendars to find where you stored the information.

To know more, head to www.me.com, and see the video. Ladies and gentleman, Apple has done it again.

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The Above article was printed in the Indian Express, on Sunday June 22, 2008