Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

Ask any newcomer to the Internet if he has ever been conned, the answer would invariably be yes. Here comes the concept of a Trusted Internet , wouldnt it be great if before interacting with someone on the Internet, you would know if he/she is genuine ? , what if there was some way to tell that the person whom you are buying that auction product is going to defraud you.

Trusted Internet as a concept appeals to me, although i do feel that a 100% trusted Internet will never be a possibility. The use of secure certificates i believe is a part and parcel of trusted Internet. You can now know which sites to trust with personal info and which sites not to trust. The Identity of sites can be verified, so can the fact that your communication with a certain site is properly encrypted.

In the trusted Internet of tomorrow, computers shall be able to take decisions autonomously with a very high accuracy rate as to the authenticity of transactions. However money always comes and spoils the fun. I will take the example of our college computer labs, all of them run on AVG, and all of them have viruses because initially no AV was loaded on them and only when viruses started emerging the software was loaded as it became necessary. In case this trust was free, all S/Ws were free , wouldn’t it be better ? Comodo is looking to introduce free tools to make the Internet a little bit better for all

I have linked to Comodo above, i came across this concept of  a trusted Internet from their site only. I must say its a very interesting read

What do you feel ?

A few months ago i had posted about how Sony India was refusing to honour its warranty clause on a memory stick and how one of their employees Ms. __ (the company officials know her name as i had written it in my email to them) had behaved rudely. When i let her know that her tone was not appreciated she refused to help me and honour my request.

Anyway i wrote a strong letter to their online dept. (4-5 letters actually), and pretty soon a Sony India employee called me and told me to take his name at the service centre and my memory stick shall be replaced. It was amazing to see the affect of his name on the service centre people. Suddenly the service centre people who didn’t have means to test Memory Stick Pro devices now had a card reader which could test them. Funny the same employee who had told me this had a memory stick pro with himself. Anyway they reluctantly accepted my memory stick and warned me about a long wait time. Suddenly instead of shooing me like a beggar, the guy there was chatting with me.

Last Tuesday i got a call from them informing me that my memory stick was now available, woohooooooooooo to that !

But that joy was shortlived. On going to their Lajpat Nagar service centre i was shocked to see the replacement was of a memory stick duo and not the model i had given. The service centre receptionist rudely told me that the model i gave is not  made anymore (which is a blatant lie). He also asked me to purchase an adaptor myself, if Sony gives a pro adaptor with new duo memory sticks why didnt it give me an adaptor with my replacement for a pro memory stick, perhaps they want me to spend more money. What was more shocking though was the fact that i was told the only way to seek redressal is via emails, there is no feedback form or telephone system. In short the service centre is invincible. There is absolutely no way to write feedback at Sony India’s main service centre in the capital of India (thats what i was told). Even dhakkan companies who import Chinese stuff have feedback mechanisms at service centres.

I have written another email to them, but it seems like a dead end. It seems that their concern for the customers is only till you have the money to buy the product. The minute you buy their product, they dont care less. I saw so many Vaios today at the service centre that it sort of validated my decision to buy a DELL.

On a better note, i will be writing about Dell’s Next Day onsite Warranty service which is AWESOME ! Sony could learn a thing or two.

The HTC Dream which will be manufactured by High Tech Computer Corporation is going to be the first Android phone to be marketed and released. Android as some of you may be knowing is Google’s mobile platform. The Dream will cost $179 when purchased along with a T-Mobile plan. The good news is that HTC has a very strong base in India and might launch the phone pretty early in India at a very competitive price.

The Android platform is designed to take on the likes of Windows Mobile, Symbian and other generic and specific mobile phone OS manufacturers. However this particular phone is intended to compete head on with the Apple Iphone. The Apple Iphone has been a moderate success in the US and a complete failure in India.

The HTC Dream features a capacitive touchscreen interface, GPs, 3.1 MP camera, Accelerometer and a Qualcomm 528MHz processor. Its interesting to note we dont even know the processor used by Apple.

On the software front too, the phone is pretty good. As you can see in the video, it has built in Gmail, Youtube player. It features multiple desktops like most Linux systems and allows drag and drop for icons (How cool is that). The menu is brought up with swipes.

It also has a full QWERTY keyboard, gotta say looks pretty promising.

Amitabh Bachan started blogging on Bidadda and one fine day he releases some of his blog stats. Around 37000 visitors in the first 6 days of September, takes us the whole month to reach that number.

BigAdda also must be laughing all the way to the bank, great work from them too. So here is the thing if you are an actor/actress, start blogging. Not only will it dispell the whole thing about actors being dumb , it will also help you earn some money if you bomb at the box office (not that Mr. Amitabh Bachan is). For actors blogs may also act as bridges between fans and themselves.

I remember quite a few CEO blogs, CEO blogs inspire confidence in the company and give a platform to customers to share vital feedback with the company’s top management, something which might be prevented by corrupt mid level management. I personally am very impressed with people who hold big positions and still take out time to blog, the biggest example being Matt Cutts from Google. Others include some sportspersons and prominent journalists.

The obvious advantage to blogging if you are famous is that you dont have to go through the initial hiccup stages, a new site when started needs a lot of intellectual capital. A new site needs 100s of articles before its even notices. Wisetechie.com itself took a lot of time to get where it is today. And thanks to all our readers for their support

Quite frankly my plans to review the Iphone 3G in India went haywire as i cant afford to spend 31000 Indian Rupees on a piece of Junk which sells for 8000 rupees in the United States, i would much rather pool in another 10000 rupees and buy a new laptop.

Its been quite sometime since the phone has been released and i am yet to see an Iphone 3G in anyone’s hands. Not in college, not on the Delhi Metro, heck not even in the fuel guzzling cars that pass by enroute to the airport. The Iphone 3G seems to be a flop due to its high pricing.

I read in the newspaper that an Airtel spokesperson had said that Apple was responsible for the pricing of the Iphone 3G in India and not the companies themselves. Seeing the slow sales, EMI schemes were launched to incite people to buy the Iphone but it seems to be too little too late.

The high pricing made sure that the initial hype was discarded. The Iphone could have been a resounding success had it been promoted and priced in a better fashion. Apple marketing teams keep making mistakes, last time they didnt launch the Iphone in India , so people got ‘em from abroad.

This time they have priced it so expensive that volumes will be extremely low. Too bad for you Apple !

This is sort of a repeat post, i was chatting with my friend yesterday and he was really clueless about sending free sms to people. One thing which i dont get is, why is it shameful to use a free SMS service ?

I mean, am i cooler if i pay 1 rupee to Airtel for each message i send. So, when you are at home, save some money and use free SMS services to send SMSes to friends. It works with almost all Indian operators and is free, what have you got to lose ? I use the service by Mginger.

Also you do get the option to receive ads and be paid for the same, again the money there aint great but occasionally you get discount coupons which have to be shown in shops on your cell screen, although i must confess i have never tried them.

So sign up here to start sending free SMSes