Archive for the 'Reviews' Category

Nokia N79…..Damn you!!!!

Now, My old reliable Moto Razer ferrari edition, had out lived its life expectancy, it recently broke down and I had to get a new one. Post paid mobiles with plans are not my thing as I tend to feel tied down to one carrier and I have problems keeping with in my plan

So I called up my old aide, my dad, and asked him to buy me a cellphone.He luckily had one lying around. He read the name out to me….N-o-k-i-a N…NNNNNN 97.

“What kind of name is Nokia ?” He askes me… I am not sure what to reply… Finnish  I thought!

THis was the one I was supposed to get!

Looks Wicked... Touch screen And a slide out Keyboard

N97…The most advanced phone that Nokia had to offer….wow!! this must be my lucky day I thought.

A few moons later the packet arrived. I was so excited about the packet that I kept my room mates up all night(all 3 of them) …. .I went through all the forums on the internet, watched all the reviews of NOKIA N97 on the youtube and was some how hoping that my dad made a mistake of reading the model number right and some how it was Nokia N900 “The geek phone”

The Ultimate Geek phone... "Drool:

The Ultimate geek Phone.....:drool:

The packet arrived… I jumped up and opened the packet….My dad indeed had made a mistake…It was not Nokia N 97…..It was a Nokia N79….Damn!!!!! “Why does every one in my family have to be  “cellphone”ically  challenged!!! ?

Nokia N 79

NO slide out Keyboard!!!!!Damn You Nokia ...Damn you!!!!!

O man… N 79… I rather get my old faith ful out and get it repaired.What does the N79 have that The old faithful din’t have. Probably a GPS but that is it… what good is a GPS anyway?. My old faithful was a head turner,  like me…..Stylish and Black.

“Riddly this, Riddly that,

Whose afraid of the big black bat?” – The Riddler,  Some Bat man movie.

Moto Razer Black

My old faithful... My Moto Razer!!!! I miss you! Damn you N97!

Now I am stuck with the N79…. The OVI suite is outdated, Does not install properly, the online sync does not work properly, The phone is not recognized properly on the computer, I am yet to figure out how to disable the phone from using 3G,restarted my PC some 10 times today…. All this is not helping ….Damn you NOKIA n79.
Although they had given a instruction manual with the phone, but the OVI suite was of 2008, it has been updated some 10 times in the span of 2 years, GPS maps are free and what not.

At this point of time after un-installing and installing my OVi suite some 10 times, a quote from my friend, Rahul Sharma, comes to my mind

“If at first you dont succeed, try, try again, and then if it still doesnt work get a hammer, then if it still doesnt work after that…….READ THE MANUAL, then go buy a new one and do it right the first time!”

How do I feel right now?……Amm …. let me say if you are expecting a Black Berry and are given a Nokia 1100 and that too with the torch disabled….. That is exactly how I am feeling.!!!

Damn you NOKIA N79…You rott in helll!

Having said all that …any one wanna trade a Nokia 79 to a Nokia N97 or a N 900 ?

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Watch TV over internet for free

For people who know me ,they can say that i hardly watch TV.

The only time i watch tv is if India is playing some finals or a couple of times  here and there to watch news or watch watch karan thaper kick the congress ass

Well now that I am in Australia and do  not have access to Indian new channels I have found a s/w which allows me to watch India play final and cnn ibn when ever I want.

here is the s/w link.

it is called TVU player and it works

you download it install it and open it and type the name of the channel  you want to watch

for example

Cnn ibn

Star tv (Saas bahu)

Telugu

Oriya

Punjabi,

Well virtually all the news channels available in the indian subcontinent

and the best part it is free.

If you are in your office and want to watch TV using the free office internet…then here is your solution

A few screen shots to convince you that i am not lying

Watch TV over internet

Watch TV over internet for free

The side bar in the left will help you search for channels …you name it they have it

And one more in the full screen mode

CNNIBNin full screen mode

CNNIBNin full screen mode

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Acer Laptops

Acer Laptops Review

Aspire 5735 4624

The need.

I need a laptop to watch movie, surf the internet and do my assignments

Namely

VLC Media Player

Itunes

Mozilla Firefox

Ms Word

MS Excel

I want my laptop to be  decent in opening these applications, responsive and well cheap

With my computer knowledge i came down to

2 gb ram …the processor did not really matter to me as it never does,,,,what matter is the RAM,the more RAM you have the faser you get.

100-200 gb hdd As these are standard these days

A dvd writer (i’d like to back up my data  and burn a few movies now and then)

A Keypad in the keyboard should be nice…. A lot of excel is involved in reservoir engineering calculation..Al full fledged key board  will be a advantage

It should look good…My last laptop Sahara laptop was poked to be as use less as me (Ouch!)

Wifi should be there…my sahara robbed me of a wifi

The Answer

Make way for Acer Aspire….

It looks so high class …bluish cover,  polished glossy screen, man this bastard is a looker.

A perfect solution to my question

2 gb ram

160 gb hdd

Intel Pentium  dual core …(what ever it means)

A wifi with a signal up (apparently the signal remains up,,,daah)

A wide screen  with a glossy rich look and  wow now its as good looking as me (:P)

The draw backs

Windows Vista… I could have used a XP or a Ubuntu

The Plastic…feels like a bit cranky…I can live with that

The mouse buttons on the keyboard…they click too loudly

Apart from these I love my Lappy.

I could have used a webcam but then i can live with out a webcam and I have hardly had a webcam chat with anyone till now,,,, Aussie internet sucks

this is how my lappy looks

The battery life is decent enough and because its been over a year it seems to be coming down.

See a lappy is at least 5-6 years of investment so better chose something according to your needs.I chose mine according to my needs,,,,,if you play games extensively on your laptop then you might want to chose this

I chose this because it fit my Pocket and i got everything and I wanted.

I also play quake 3 and tomb raider every now and then on this baby with a very decent frame rate.

So chose..Don’t go for useless things like …O this button does this….this button makes that light glow…these this become redundant after a few hours

If you are a student …do check out the Acer aspire series as it scores better over Dell in terms of looks and neatness

It costs only $299 (USD) at BestBuy which equal to some Rs 12,000..killer or what

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Sahara Laptops

Ok Attention all masses..please never ever buy sahara laptops….

Now the details
I got me my sahara laptop model number LE1D just because of the price factor
it cost me around 25K..Well this was 1 year ago and the prices of a laptops started at 35 – 40 K
The configuration was a stupid one ..256 mb ram and a intel celron M processor.
The main purpose of the laptop was to keep it at him and browse the internet using its Network card.
LCD Was better for eyes rather than a CRT and a laptop looks good rather than a desktop

Within 3 months my nightmares started
The network card blew off
well never mind,i gave it to repair in NOIDA where they have their depo
Getting inside the depo is like getting inside a Nuclear power plant,(tight security)
I was checked thrice before i could make it to the reception

It took them 1 week to repair the laptop

Again after two months the same problem arose

Again i had to go the depo….
well remember the security clearance thing..this time i forgot to
mention that i had a ipod…..
while i was returning the gaurd caught my ipod (80 gb Video Ipod)
and said that i was theif and i was stealing the ipod from them .
No matter how hard i tried to convince he just would’nt bulge

So after sitting down for another hour or so it was cleared by the security incharge that
i was not stealing the ipod,he also warned me not to bring the ipod again (HUH!!!)
Man they need to work in a airport,,,we need people like them there

after one week the laptop was repaired again and i had to collect it .
Imagine travelling to one end of the earth to get a laptop under the Delhi May sun
None the less………

In the span of 8 months the laptop was repaired twice and the mother board was replaced twice.
They blamed my broadband internet connection chaps for that,I talked to them and they said that
they have over 1000 connection in my locality and no one has complained of such a peculiar problem
None the less the charged the whole wiring of my connection ,Still ever few weeks my network card wouldd go BOOM!

Well , one fine day when i go there AGAIN ,the receptionist started to ask me of i work here as
i am more regular here than the the employees.I din’t know how to react.As i went in there to give my laptop for
repair i was given the good new that the warranty had expired and i would have to pay for it.

This made me furious,well in a period of 1 year i went there 8 times and still i was not getting my laptop in a proper
working condition,If i pay for the repair ,is there any guarantee that it will not go boom again in a month or so.

The best thing the Sahara chaps could do for me was wave the service charge which was Rs.750,thats it.
They said that they will change the mother board again which will cost me 5K.
I was perplexed.
After a lot of argument they agreed to repair the laptop for the one last time and made me sign an agreement that
this is the last time i am getting it repaired for free and after this they will charge me and i cannot go to court
and stuff like that.

What could i do ?
I signed it and the laptop was repaired and within one week i went and collected it

After a month the network card went atomic again

I cursed the day when i brought this laptop

I had to remain with out internet for more than three months until a friend of mine told me about
“usb network cards”,You just plug it in the usb drive and it starts to act as a Network card.

I brought that for 200 rupees and my internet is working just fine.

Well thats not all,There are more factors for me in hating sahara

1.The battery backup life is less that half an hour ( Good thing that i do not need to make presentaions with it)

2.The laptop heats up like a heater(I run it on a table) it gets very very hot,my hands begin to sweat while typing)

3.The screen is loose (it keeps on shaking)

4.The finger sensing key pad is way out of control ( It just does not obey you ….left is right,you will get used to it )

5.The laptop overheats and shuts down (It just keeps getting better and better!!!)

6.Did i mention about the network card ? ( No comments )

7.Service center people are really lovely,You might want to keep you anger in controll as you will be
coming back to them. (Anger mangement classes for free)

Now a few good words

1. The receptionist looks good you can take her out for coffee or get married. (While waiting for one hour,
all kinds of thoughts start coming to your mind,I though that this was a part of cupids conspiracy,Some how it wants
me to meet this receptionist and wants me to fall in love and get married,If the warranty had not expired
i would have surely married her by now)

2. The AC adaptor,it works like a charm ,has not given me a single blue,A very good one,Working 72 hours straight

3. I am still using it ,i typed the artical in the laptop

In conclusion ,if you want to mentally harrases some one then please give this one as a gift,
But i would not even give it to my enemy

Please don’t buy this one

For those who have already brought it ,My deepest condolence and take joy in the fact that you are not alone,
MISERY LOVES COMPANY!!!!,Spread the word and JON THE CLUB

If some one wants proof, i still have the bills and receipts of my going to the service center ,i will scan it
and put them up for you.

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iPod 80 GB Review

Apple iPod 80 GB

I am rewriting my review on apple iPod

I got it in January last year and boy was I happy when I got it. It is a very good looking thing mind you. It is a attention seeker, but has the stamp of apple monopoly all over it

First of all, apple iTunes, it does not let you control you anything, it controls you. it will rearrange you whole music collection to one folder called “my music”, of course there is a option to disable it but, still it is a headache to find all your music collection has moved places

Movies,

You cannot just the popular formats available around, like divx or avi, you can only play mp4 format, where the hell do you get mp4 format movies?

Apples iStore.

For starters, I had never heard of the mp4 format, after googling for a while I found out that the mp4 format was made by apple especially for IPOD with anti piracy features.

Apple monopoly, any one?

Apple Ipod

Apple Ipod

So what happens to your DVD/movie collection?

You have to pay the same price again to get the same movie. JUST GREAT isn’t it?

iStore

Music

If you want to buy some music and directly import it to your iPod this is where you go.

Here each song costs around 99C

Movies

There is no other site which sells legal movies in MP$ format. Your collection is limited to the movies iStore puts up, not a big fan of the Hollywood Eeh? You have no other option. At least you could get some bollywood songs from iStore but not bollywood movies. And the price keeps on varying ranging from 5 to 10$ each.

LUCKY YOU.

Having an iPod is like living in CHINA, No freedom, No religion, Mao is your god (Steve jobs in this case).You just do what you are told

I really hate using the iTunes, my slow laptop has a hard time adjusting to it, it is a resource hugging monster, but I have no other option

And My iPod does not copy the data into it, it sync the data, which means it will only play the music which is present in your computer, you cannot delete any song from your pc or else it is erased form your pc as well.

This also means that for a smooth operation you need to have a hard disk bigger than 80 GB, probably 160 GB, you might also want to back up your data so I will go with 200 GB

Ya the iTunes only work on windows and Mac, no Linux support what so ever included.

As far as the iPod is considered there are no issues as the hardware is beautiful. You will hardly have any issues with it, though the headphones tend to go bad after a few months of listening in full volume.

I would suggest you get yourself a pair of Bose head phones ( you spent 20 K buying this clown so better invest another 5 k to make yourself feel better) Bose head phones and a iPod go together like brad pitt and Angelina jolie

Pretty confusing review huh!

I’ll draw the final lines here

Pros

1. 80 GB attention seeker in your pocket

2. Good sturdy model with no moving parts

3. Pretty sharp LCD with impressive picture quality

4. Good sound quality

5. Doubles up as an 80 GB pen drive in you pocket

6. A good click wheel

Cons

1. iTunes, the most successful monopoly product from apple

2. Sync ….the only way in

3. iStore monopoly, no Hindi movies

4.Not for rough use

5.Tends to get scratched easily

Findings and recommendation

After using it for a year or so I have the following recommendation

Get yourself any iPod but not the Video iPod, the video thing really gets redundant until and unless you really watch so many movies and have that music amount of free time. I just use the iPod for listening music

Any iPod…..Huh?

I got me an iPod shuffle, the teeny tiny one which is less prone to be broken by me (I gave the 80GB monster to my sister who has clean fingernails and a soft neck)

An iPod shuffle with a sennizer headphone.

80 GB of music…you will hardly have the patience to listen to all of them

I went for a 1 GB with 400 of my favorite songs, a good set of jogging headphones and I am good to go

The 80 GB monster is not for me…….I can think it is for some rich girl who has nothing better to do than roam here and there.

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