Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

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

Well, we had made these videos a few months ago telling people how to secure their Wifi connections quite frankly because many people use other people’s internet without their knowledge. We had made the videos to prevent pranks where kids use other people’s networks to save some money.

But the recent blasts in India opened a new picture. Terrorists used the Wifi connection of an American citizen living in Navi Mumbai to send threatening emails and emails taking responsibility for blasts. As an Internet user, its your responsibility to secure your connection and make sure criminals are not using it. The following 2 videos will help you secure your Wifi connection. I will also make another video, showing you how to implement MAC address filtering to further strengthen your Internet security.

These videos are for Linksys WRT54G series, if you have some other router, refer to your user manual to see how this is done or search youtube, someone might have made a video for your model too.

Securing your Wifi connection (WPA security , only people will passphrase will be able to logon to it wirelessly)

Password protect your Router also

This post is issued in public interest

Well it is an important question in the world of today, more and more Indians are purchasing stuff online and importing it into India. But the question most people ask is the same. What about the customs duty?

Well to be frank with you, anything you have bought abroad and are bringing into India is chargeable as far as custom duties go except some duty free items like IT Products (Digital Camera, LCD Monitors,RAM,Processors etc., confirm the list though).

Seasoned ebay sellers and other online stores try to ensure that loyal Indian customers aren’t forced to shed customs at all. Remember you don’t need an IEC number to import stuff for personal use.

Here is what most companies do so that you don’t have to pay customs for importing stuff into India :

1. They mark the product as a gift on the customs declaration form of the package. This is illegal by the way , but there is no way to detect whether the thing is a gift or not. Unless the other person leaves an invoice inside the so called gift

2. Even after declaring the commodity as a gift, Indian customs will still charge it if the price is above Rs.10000 , so these ebay sellers under-declare the value of goods. This is a double edged sword, as if the product is stolen it would mean that you would not get the right price from insurance, so this can lead to losses.

Now both these steps do save duty to the importer, but you should realise they are probably illegal and be ready for consequences. Also keep in mind the more expensive the courier, the more closely the customs will examine your package. They know that EMS and DHL aren’t used for low value items, hence these packages are scrutinised more than others. On the same time Airmail and Registered Airmail is more prone to theft especially in India.

Now the fact is most genuine importers don’t mind paying a little duty on the products they are importing into India, but the customs are so notorious that most try to circumvent them, because they know if their package is caught by Indian customs, there will be a lot more paying up to do! Also if you are importing in bulk and you don’t have an IEC, you are in big trouble.

Another question people have is what happens if the customs find your item chargeable, dont worry no one will send you to jail unless you are importing prohibited stuff. If your item is found chargeable, your package will be seized by customs and you will be sent a letter usually asking you for purpose of import etc. Be truthful while replying. If customs are satisfied with your reply, then they will calculate the appropriate customs duty and send the postman to your home who collects the duty and delivers your shipment. As easy as that. There is a small fine too for mis-declarations. Frequent mis-declarations will get you in trouble though. So be on the right side of the law. In case you have questions, feel free to ask via comments. Also this is not legal advice, hire a lawyer if you need legal advice.

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.

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.

Nokia is a funny company, after it recalled the faulty batteries, it literally saved its reputation, but the interesting thing is who lost ?

Matsushita did for one, they will bear all the costs of battery replacement. But did Nokia gain in monetary terms ?

It might shock you , but it did. With all the hue and cry over the batteries, one could contact Nokia by 3 routes ::

1. Web
2. Outlet
3. SMS-es to 5555

The third option is the jackpot, gullible and non-techie users found SMS the most convenient way to find if their battery was indeed defective. But most of them weren’t aware that Nokia earns from short code SMSes sent to 5555. 5555 is a premium number for sending SMS. So in a way ,bad batteries made money for Nokia in India atleast. All said and done, its really bad business ethics on Nokia’s part to earn from their customer’s misfortunes.

Of course i am waiting for someone to sue Nokia over this.

Employers all around the world are keeping a closer watch on their employees, whether its sneaking on their web browsing habits or reading their personal and corporate email. While there is little you can know about how they are tracking and using your web browsing habits. Your IT Hub system administrator knows about your browsing habits. He knows how much time you spend on Orkut or Facebook. Perhaps he is the one who told the company about the man hours wasted on Orkut and Facebook, which led to the sites being banned.

There is an easy way to track your email and to see if its being read by someone else. The easiest way is to send an email to yourself with a picture hosted on your server.Include words like secret and classified documents in the email. Dont post actual company secrets. Dont read the email yourself, and see in stats if that particular image was requested. You will also be able to see the IP address of the person reading your email. Doing a WHOIS on it, you will be able to tell whether its someone in the office who is reading your email or whether its a friend who has been able to guess your password. I am saying this from personal experience , guessing passwords isnt so tuff.

LCD screens can get dirty easily, but they require extra care when cleaning them, otherwise you can do more harm than good. LCDs are easily damaged by a lot of things and factors. Your notebooks, Ipods, mobiles all have LCD screens. LCD screens do not need anti glare stuff no matter what your PC salesman tells you, so dont get cheated.

LCD monitors are also very delicate.

Cleaning an LCD screen

Never use alcohol, detergents or even mild soap for an LCD screen. All good LCD screens have outer protective coatings which can get damaged by abrasives, so always use a soft cloth (muslin), never use a scrubber. First switch of the LCD monitor and disconnect the power supply. Now wipe the screen with a cloth and gentle strokes, do not apply pressure or you may damage your screen. In case you see some dirt sticking, put 3 drops of water on the cloth and clean gently. Dont use too much water also.

Pressure on an LCD

Never press on LCDs too hard. Pressing too hard can permanently damage LCD pixels in that area.

Same image for so long, LCD Burnouts

LCD burnouts are another huge problem. Those who use CRTs are not aware that using LCDs can cause burnouts if the same image is displayed for a long time. Like my monitor has a weak imprint of the firefox browser, which basically stays there. That area also has become more prone to future burnouts. I was stupid. One should always use screensavers on LCD monitors, keep the waiting time as 2 minutes only so that screensaver is deployed quickly.

Extreme Temperatures

Never keep your LCD monitors directly in the sun, heat will damage your LCD monitor. Always keep the LCD monitor in a cool and well ventilated area. Also never use the LCD monitor in snow or sub-zero temperatures. It can cause permanent damage to the pixels.

Handle Carefully

Although it may not appear so, LCDs have glass too. Shocks to the screen can cause it to break and render your LCD useless. Sometimes cellphones in pockets get so much pressure that their screen just cracks and you have to get an expensive new screen.

Dont stick stuff to it

This might sound stupid, but NEVER stick post its to your LCD, the glue will damage your LCD monitor. I have seen people doing it.

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Keep these things in mind and enjoy your new LCD monitor. Remember LCDs save money compared to CRT monitors and produce lesser heat helping you save on AC bills too.

This post goes out to all those who have limited bandwidth Internet accounts, and would like to save their limited bandwidths. Even though i dont have a limited bandwidth account, sometimes when i want to check my email fast, i still use Gmail for mobiles or Yahoo WAP to save time.

With some tips and tricks, this is possible on your Personal Computer. Here is a step by step guide telling how to access Yahoo Mail and Gmail through WAP through your computer , in the process saving some very hard earned bandwidth=money and time (also=money).

1. Get Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firefox will help us open the WML pages.

2. Install the WML Browser Addon (Extension). WML stands for Wireless Markup Language, for your understanding, think of it as HTML for WAP(Mobile) devices.

For Yahoo Mail

Log onto wap.yahoo.co.in (Almost all nationalities’s people will be able to use this, except Japan i think because they have a different username system), Click on mail, and login !!!!

 

For Gmail Email

Log onto http://m.gmail.com

Enter username and password and you are through !!!

How this would save bandwidth and time

This is very elementary, most cell phone WAP connections these days are low speed and expensive and billed by usage. Hence it makes sense to have only stripped down pages as WAP or WML pages. While a normal page may require a data transfer of 200 kbs, a WAP page would be about 4-5 kbs. a saving of approx 195 kbs. It you visit that page very frequently, it makes even more sense as the savings in bandwidth would be larger.

On a 56 kbps connection, it took me >10 seconds to load yahoo mail beta, Yahoo Mail WAP loaded almost instantly, hence time is saved.

So whats the catch ?

Like all good things in life, this one too has some weakpoints. Most sites wont use SSL for their mobile application pages(but Gmail for mobile does mind you). Also the display is anything but appealing. The website is basically a skeleton but most functionality is still retained.

Opera mini it seems is everyone’s favourite , why shouldnt it be , the way it renders huge pages into a few kbs is ultracool. So many people had asked me how to scrap in Opera Mini on Orkut , the answer is simple (If you want to see how to login using Opera Mini onto Orkut , see our previous post
1. Just type what all you need to type in the field

2. Then type this javascript: submitForm(document.getElementById(’b2′),’submit’);

Remove the space between : and s in the above command.

Similarly to know more such tricks , just see the javascript of the action you want to perform on Orkut and then you can use the same javascript URL on your mobile phone browser. This has to be done as Opera mini doesnt support javascript fully till now. Another good news for all you Opera mini fans is that Opera Mini 3 Beta has been released, keep looking at this column for a review !