Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

Well the Iphone 3G will soon have its worldwide launch, but India stands to miss out yet again. While the Iphone is being launched even as we speak , its interesting to note the implications of the launch on Indian Iphone 3G enthusiasts:

1. India will most probably have an August 2008 launch for the Iphone 3G, unlike the normal perception India is having a deferred launch for the new Iphone. This has been confirmed by both Airtel and Vodafone.

2. The first operator to launch the Iphone 3G would be Vodafone in India, its expected to be a soft launch with a limited number of handsets. Vodafone beat Airtel to getting to be the pioneer handset manufacturer to procure the sets. Airtel will ofcourse launch soon afterwards, or may delay the launch till Diwali in order to get better sales. It will be interesting to note how Airtel combats the advantage that Vodafone will have of launching the Iphone early on in India before anyone else.

3. The price, as you know price is THE most important factor in the Indian market. The original Iphone was infact never launched in India many say due to the pricing. Anyway, the Iphone will not be $199 in India. Most are expecting it to be anywhere from 12000 rupees to 14000 rupees.

Also, unlike last time you wont be able to import and unlock, as the Iphones will be exclusively store activated in the US,the plan desertion and leaving charges will be enormous, making importing the Iphone 3G an expensive affair.

Keep looking at this space for more Iphone infomation !

Our Iphone for India posts are indeed the most popular posts on the blog ever with around 500 comments :O , anyway i was reading Techcrunch today and it seems that the new Apple Iphone 3G will be sold only with a contract. Moreover it will be activated in-store only. So unlike last time you wont be able to buy the phone without contract and unlock it. Apple and AT&T surely have learnt their lesson, but this strategy will ofcourse decrease total Apple Iphone sales while increasing AT&T customer numbers. This is because earlier people were buying the Iphone to unlock it, but now that wont be happening. Also more people will be forced to activate and stay with AT&T, meaning more customers for them and rivals will be losing customers. T-Mobile needs to think quick now

Also cancelling it will need $175 , so Iphone 3G may not be the next big thing after all. Disappointing !

Well last year’s experience of MCD online tax paying had went smoothly, this year was a little different, some minor glitches along the way.

Firstly MCD tells you that they issued you a password last year, my property tax receipt didnt have any password, people have suggested emailing MCD to get a password.

Anyway once you are through with registering and all, the new interface has the advantage of clubbing all your tax payments together, so you can take a print of your receipt any time you like. You might also be able to make multi property payments (not sure about it).

Anyway the payment methods multiplied this year, now you can pay online via Axis Bank gateway, HDFC Bank Gateway and ITZ Cash Cards. You can also pay with cheques by depositing them in select HDFC and Axis Bank Branches. But who uses a cheque when you got a credit card , they do charge a transaction fee though, to offset the gateway costs.

I paid with my HDFC Credit Card. The site does not support verified by VISA or Mastercard Secure Code which was disappointing to say the least. Verified by VISA and Mastercard Securecard add an extra layer of security to your transactions.

The payment went smoothly, but then the MCD site had another glitch. The receipt wasnt being generated, finally i realised the problem. The pdf receipt was being generated as a .do file, so i renamed it to .pdf and finally my property tax payment was complete online.

Ah well, i am very much in love with the great service offered by futurebazaar.com, and its no news to most people. Therefore i was disappointed when my recent orders took 2 weeks to be processed and delivered. My first ever futurebazaar.com order took only 3 days to be in my hands. But since then while their service in general is impeccable towards me, the loss in speed is very much noticeable.

Recently i had placed a large order with them consisting of 4-5 items, and the last of them were delivered only 1 month after the order had been placed which is slow by any standards.

One of the items costing around 600 rupees was received broken, but Futurebazaar was kind enough to get it replaced. The item was picked up from my home within 2 days by their courier (not TNT) and seamlessly a new order was placed and i got the item in a short period. But coming back to the speed issue :

All these speed problems point to the fact that futurebazaar.com is working on thin stock and has been having problems with fulfilling orders due to small stocks and when they do run out it takes a long time for them to replenish stock. The average shipout time on their site is constant at 4.8 days for a loooooong time now and it seems they have stopped updating it for obvious reasons. They use Bluedart couriers which are definitely one of the fastest in India, so the problem is not the courier.

Whatever the problems hope futurebazaar.com ramps up their supply chain management and is able to deliver fast and good service like i am used to from them

Also it would be great if futurebazaar.com actually gave AWBs to people after orders are shipped, Indiatimes and Homeshop18 have this facility , then why not futurebazaar ?

Is anyone at the future group listening ?

A lot of us aren’t aware that MTNL Delhi telephone bills can be paid online with credit cards, all you need to do is follow the steps :

1. Log onto http://billalert.mtnl.net.in/ and click on register to register a user for you and your telephone number.

2. After creating your user, login and see the left hand side menu, click on add telephone.

3. Fill in your telephone number and CA number which is available on your bills.

4.Now whenever you login and click on unpaid bills , you should be able to see the currently unpaid bills and pay them via the pay button which takes you to an ICICI bank payment gateway. You can then pay via your VISA or MASTERCARD.

Now wasn’t that easy ? I personally have been using this method for the last 2 years and have only once faced a problem when i made the payment twice (my mistake ) , anyway the problem was taken care of by contacting the MTNL accounts dept. pretty easily.

Disclaimer : We do not endorse any payment method, post is for informational purpose only.

Whenever i go out of Delhi, i am often asked things about Delhi, so we decided to do a new series. Living in Delhi - Tech Style

This is a new series on the Wisetechie blog. We shall be describing tech things we see work with or use in Delhi everyday. Whether its the Iphone which everyone seems to have in the Metro, or whether its the Delhi Metro itself, or whether its the new super cool green high tech buses of the Delhi Transport Corporation, the cameras at various traffic intersections, people using HCL Mileaps or Asus EEE PCs or their Macbooks.

We shall review one item of interest in Delhi at a time !

So be on the lookout for this series

You may also ask questions about how things work in New Delhi  (If you already dont know)

So the touchpad on my laptop was going to give me carpel tunnel syndrome. So i decided to get a good and cheap wireless mouse. Unfortunately in India there is no good bluetooth mouse available. All mice are actually crodless mice which ask you to place their receiver in the USB port of your laptop/desktop. My notebook has built in bluetooth, so i wanted to use this technology. The best way was to search for a Bluetooth wireless mouse with seamless connectivity. I chose the Logitech V470 (the white one as it was cheaper :P)

The mouse says its built for a MAC, humbug i say, its works pretty well with Windows Vista too.

The Good :

• Extremely responsive
• Seamless plug and play connectivity.
• Good speed and accuracy in terms of pointer movement
• Vertical scroll, horizontal scroll etc.
• Laser tracking, better than conventional Optical Mice
• Cheap in the US
• Comes with 2 free Duracell batteries

• Comes with a free carry pouch
• Looks and feels expensive

The Bad:

• Expensive in India
• No rechargable batteries
• Battery usage might be on the higher side
• Takes a little time getting used to
• Slightly heavy with batteries
• Should ideally be used with a cordless keyboard, otherwise its frustrating reaching out for the keyboard when lying down and doing some work

Most of the bads are the ones common with all wireless devices, hence the mouse deserves a good rating. I have been using it quite a lot with my DELL laptop. The mouse connects automatically to my Laptop and takes control of the pointer. I can choose to deactivate the track-pad if i want to, but i usually don’t. The mouse also has a convenient underside on/off button to conserve the battery. All in all a great buy.

Rating:

After i wrote to Imate’s customer care about the exhortatory spare part costs, this is the reply i got. They told me that the price is set by the service center and i should co-ordinate with them on this matter ::

Dear valued customer

Thank you for your email.

We would like to inform you that the price for the spare parts is only in concern with the service centre.

So we request you to please coordinate with the service centre.

For further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Best Regards,

<name removed>

This is the care they have shown for me as a ‘valued Imate customer’, needless to say i will never ever buy an Imate phone again in India and have recommended the same to all my family members and friends. The phones are great, but try and get service from Imate and they will clean your pockets

This is our wifi router which we use to connect to the internet via our laptop. Its a WRT54G model from Linksys (which is a Cisco company). Delhi has a very high number of unsecured wifi connections. Even in my building i get 4-5 wifi networks at any given point of time. And only 2 people are smart enough to secure it. The router however easily allows one to secure his/her network.

The router features a WPA2 key system by which you can ensure that your Internet access is not abused by anyone else. Next week we will be showing you how to prevent your MTNL and Airtel and Tata Indicom accounts from being used by people who are not authorised to do so via Wi-fi.

Also i setup the router unconventionally , instead of connection the router to the Internet port of the wifi router, i chose a different way. I setup the broadband router to be another node on the Wifi router , this way all the data is automatically routed via the broadband router without changing any other settings.

Also if you are planning to get one, try and get it from the USA, the routers are pretty expensive here in India compared to USA.

I am was the proud owner of a Imate phone till now. Sure it turned heads, one mention of Imate and people’s eyes twinkled. I was happy till recently. In college one day i saw that the screen had developed a huge crack. I decided to get the screen replaced. Having replaced the screen of one of my earlier phones for 800 rupees i didnt really think of it as that much of a big deal. I thought the screen would costs anywhere from 1000 to 1500 rupees.

I went to Asian electronics at Rajouri garden to get the screen fixed. The clerk very casually told me that the screen would cost me 4000 rupees. I was shocked, i asked him how it could be, the cost should be proportionate to the phone cost atleast. ‘Aisa hi hota hai’  the clerk said. One surfing the Internet i found more people with similar stories whose screens had gotten cracked by themselves and Imate had asked for exhortative screen costs. 5000 rupees another customer of Imate has written on an online forum.

Wow, i never thought that this company would be looking to make quick bucks by robbing its loyal and old customers with superoverpriced spare parts. Old and loyal customers should be respected not robbed. Ask Apple, it tries super hard to keep its loyalists and thats why its a successful company. I decided not to get the screen repaired. Its not that i cant afford the 4000 rupees , but its just that i cant stand the sight of an Imate phone now. Whenever i see someone with an Imate i think to myself, such an unlucky guy.

So i have also written to Imate’s support about this issue, lets see what they reply.

But advice to all our readers, think twice before taking this plunge.