Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

My cousin was in town lately and i got a chance to play with her Acer Aspire 4720 Laptop, only for 4-5 hours, but enough to give me a gist of its pros and cons. The laptop comes with 14.1” LCD Screen, Intel Core2Duo Processor T5450, 160 GB HDD , the laptop has a 4-5 hour battery life.

The Acer utilities were not working on her laptop though. Also when i tried to connect to my Wifi connection, it didnt work. The drivers bundled with the laptop are highly confusing, the WLAN Adaptor had 5 different drivers on the CD which left me confused. Later i was able to figure it out and Wifi worked , this was ofcourse after hitting the switch on the front of the laptop.

The laptop has a 1.3 MP web camera with a Microphone so Skype Videochats are a breeze. The laptop impressed me with its speed and clutter-lessness, ofcourse the laptop comes preinstalled with Linux  so you can use your own Windows key and save on costs if you have a MSDNAA account like me.

Anyway the laptop is sturdy and is giving no problems at the moment. So all in all i see no problems with it. Wifi and integrated bluetooth are premium features included in the laptop.

The 1GB RAM is less by today’s standards, so get it upgraded to 2/3 GB according to your wishes and budget.

Please dont mind the low volume

The phone as you can see is really great, the P320 is full value for money, remember this Asus P320 review is genuine and we actually own and use the product reviewed.

In what will directly impact the sales of the Iphone 3G phones, the Indian Government today announced plans to e-auction the 3G spectrum in India. BSNL and MTNL will get the spectrum automatically by paying the highest bid price, private operators will have to bid.

International parties too can bid for a piece of the Indian 3G spectrum slice but with a catch, they will either have to get a license or invest in an existing Indian company to offer 3G services.

The non-availability of 3G services was the biggest drawback as far as the Iphone 3G’s sales in India were concerned. Vodafone and Airtel must be thanking their stars as this announcement is bound to boost both interest and demand for the new Apple Iphone 3Gs in India which is expected to be launched this month.

The 3G or 3rd Generation platform offers download speeds of 14.4 Mbits/second and upload speeds of 5.8 Mbits/sec . These speeds are much more than the present ones offered under 2G. India has a huge range of 3G phones in the market for a long time now, but the services were missing. 3G will allow services like video calling, streaming data and VoIP at a fast and hopefully economical price.

The 3G spectrum offers a much higher bandwidth which ensures faster data transfer as more channels are available and simultaneous transfer of different types of data like Voice, Video and misc. data.

Also announced in MNP or mobile number portability, so people will be able to switch networks without changing their numbers. Idea and Spice users who wish to get the Iphone may choose this route once the MNP is implemented.

Well i used to hate all that Mginger spam i got earlier, but now i am sort of liking the service, their new Mginger messenger allows you to send free SMS to anyone in India, and believe me the messages are sent instantly unlike some other web services which may take hours to send SMSes, so anyway , i am enjoying the free SMS service on Mginger, and hope you do too.

The links are affiliate links because i really recommend this service for the free SMSing :). As far as earning money via SMS ads goes, i have earned a grand total of five rupees from them, but others who were much more proactive in spamming have earned a lot more.

Click here to Join Mginger

Ok so things seem to be heating up as the launch of the Iphone 3G in India nears, Airtel just sent a teaser email which announces the launch of the Iphone 3G on their networks but falls short of giving an exact date on which Apple Iphone 3G will be launched in India. The mail was probably meant to sustain interest in the hyped launch.

The Iphone 3G is seeing an extended wait in India, Vodafone has currently given no news as to the launch date for the Iphone 3G. There are reports that Vodafone’s exact Iphone launch dates are 22-26th August 2008 , these ofcourse are unconfirmed.

Apple has also made an Iphone India seciton on its website, the site lists the Indian operators that will launch the Iphone 3G, Airtel and Vodafone. It also however has no information on the exact Iphone India launch date.

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

So finally i was fed up with my earlier router which would start rebooting itself sporadically sometimes and wouldn’t calm down for hours. I filed for a change in router and my area’s engineer did it pretty fast.

Its a Telenet router TNDSL 2120 and hopefully wont fail me. It has slightly more features than my previous router, but the same firmware, version is newer. My earlier one was a Broadcom router which served me for 10 months before becoming problematic.

The last level support in my area from Tata Indicom broadband has been pretty good. The nodal officer at the top level is a horror though, if you live in Delhi, there is no use contacting the nodal officer of Tata Indicom broadband, he will never solve your queries and keep blaming it on someone else. Its such a long story that i cant even post it here. TOOOOOO LONG !

I hope the current officer is changed quickly though, people like him don’t deserve to be in such posts.

Well you all cant have enough of Iphone related stuff so we gotta bring out another post. While the Iphone India Airtel/Vodafone FAQ is a great place to quench your Iphone 3G thirst, a lot of questions just need to be answered again and again, big names are starting to copy our posts and post structure. When newbies start writing posts, there are bound to be mistakes, a newbie writes that 3G in India is expected later this year ?

The truth is there is no telling when 3G services will be launched in India, 3G allows faster data transfer rates, video calls and other exclusive features. The iphone 3G’s main advantage is pretty useless in India and Vodafone and Airtel know that. They are relying more on Apple fanatic and fanboys to gobble up the Iphone and creating hype around the launch. Vodafone which will be the first to launch the Iphone 3G in India is doing a lousy job of promoting the Iphone, many people are not even aware that the Iphone is going to be launched, and many of those who are dont seem to know that Iphone doesnt run Symbian or Windows mobile.

Also you dont need sources in Vodafone/Airtel to predict availability. Ofcourse the Iphone will be sold out when its launched in India, when will it be launched, anywhere from August 2008 to October 2008. Airtel has a later launch date as it jumped onto the bandwagon later.

Anyway thats it for now, more Iphone 3G India related stuff soon.

For all of those who have tried to find the railway schedules and fares on the Internet, there is no feeling more frustrating than the stupid errors from one of the Railway’s servers that its  too busy. These servers all have Indian names BTW like real people. So enter private company, the railways provide them access to their database, in-turn the private player takes load off the railway’s servers, symbiosis !

Rediff Online Indian Railways Train Enquiry Video Review

The above video review tests the functionality of the Rediff website.

Pros:

• Faster than Normal Railways Search
• No Logging in required unlike IRCTC
• Easy to Use

Cons:

• Station suggestion needs improvement
• It would be great if Rediff passes info to the IRCTC website
• Booking should also be allowed directly

Verdict: An incredibly easy to use and functional service, it offers great utility, highly recommended.

Another tale of bad customer service, this time from supposedly the best and most expensive brand in the consumer durables market. But Sony India just lost all the respect i had for them.

Hopefully someone can forward this to a Sony India personnel. Thanks, i as a consumer am appealing to your guys reading this.

So it all started when i purchased a Digital Camera (Cybershot) from an authorised Sony dealer alongwith a Memory Stick. The dealer told me that the memory stick has a 5 year warranty , i asked him to mention this on the bill so that they don’t refuse. A warranty card was inside the Digital Camera package but there was none in/with the memory stick.

Anyway the memory stick turned out to be junk, losing files like crazy. I goto Sony service center in New Delhi and the guys there tell me that i need a warranty card, i tell them the dealer didnt give me a warranty card. So they give me Sony India’s corporate office (Mathura Road) number which i call and ask to speak to customer care , i am redirected to their call center (i think) , i tell the lady my ordeal and she says that there should be no problem and transfers me to a senior at their Mathura Road office. She talks to service center guys who say they need a warranty card, hands the phone to me.  Now i am talking to Ms. ________ (name hidden for privacy) , she is the rudest person that can talk to a customer. Literally shouts at me that warranty card is not a paper sticking to the memory stick (WTH !) , i tell her to mind her tone, she replies : my tone is not complicated and then says “now that you say it , your stick will not be serviced without a warranty card” , anyway my blood is boiling at this point of time so i say ok and slam my flip phone.

Anyway 2-3 things, my only fault was trusting the dealer and Sony as a company, please look into the following points:

1. Why is your staff at office not trained to talk politely to customers ?

2. How is it a customer’s fault that the dealer didn’t hand the warranty card ? Its for precisely this reason i asked him to mention the warranty in the bill, i am a genuine customer, with a genuine bill bought a genuine product from your authorized dealer.

3. I have a proof of purchase, i have the product but still Sony India refused to solve my problem.

Update:

I received a reply from their Northern Region customer care head, i have sent my invoice to them, i will keep everyone updated, hopefully Sony India will live up to its great name.

Earlier occasions where bad service was highlighted and was successful in company’s response:

• Tnt Courier Customer Care issue : An employee of the company read our post and helped.
• A seller on Homeshop18 committed a fraud on us, the company later refunded the money and courier costs