Introducing the world of 3G to Indian mobile consumers–A review of 3G service providers and their tariffs

After mobile number portability it is now time for the telecom industry to woo the customers to the latest in the industry. Yes indeed, 3G is the talk of the town. With 3G available from all the major service providers both for their pre-paid and post-paid consumers, everyone can now experience ‘on the go’ internet experience from their smart phones. What remains to be seen is how the Indian consumers are going to embrace this technological advance. And this to a great extend will depend on the data plans and tariffs that the service providers will offer. I have compiled a list of major 3G service providers along with the details of their post paid charges (wherever available).

Comparison of the tariffs and service

Of all these, Vodafone’s deal is currently the best as one gets to try the 3G experience ‘at no extra cost’. But when Vodafone will start charging for the service, I guess BNL will get back to be he best again. Not only are the charges vey nominal, the service is also good. I find Airtel to be the costliest amongst the lot (They even charge you at 50paise per minute on Customer service calls – that’s pathetic!). I have personally tried Airtel and BSNL and from my experience, I find BSNL beat Airtel hands down I terms of cost, browsing speed and issueless connectivity. Airtel has intermittent breaks in connection and is relatively slow in comparison. Vodafone, I heard lives up to the ‘Super man’ zoo-zoo levels of expectation. (Again Vodafone did come up with the best series of Ads for 3G – they seem to have on hell of a creative team)

State wise list of service providers:

Here is the details of 3G service provides in different states:

State	Service provider
Andhra Pradesh	Bharati Airtel, Idea, Aircel
Assam	Reliance Telecom, Bharati Airtel, Aircel
Bihar	Bharati Airtel, STel, Aircel, Reliance Telecom
Delhi	Bharati Airtel, Reliance Telecom, Vodafone
Gujarat	Idea, Vodafone, Docomo
Haryana	Idea, Vodafone, Docomo
Himachal Pradesh	R C0m, Idea, STel, Bharati Airtel
Jammu & Kashmir	Aircel, Reliance Telecom, Bharati Airtel, Idea
Karnataka	Bharati Airtel, Docomo, Aircel
Kerala	Idea, Docomo, Aircel
Kolkata	Reliance Telecom, Vodafone, Aircel
Madhya Pradesh	Idea, Docomo, Reliance Telecom
Maharashtra	Idea, Docomo, Vodafone
Mumbai	Bharati Airtel, Reliance telecom, Vodafone
North East	R com, Bharati Airtel, Aircel
Orissa	STel, Aircel, R com
Punjab	Docomo, Idea, Reliance Telecom, Aircel
Rajasthan	Docomo, Reliance Telecom, Bharti Airtel
Tamil Nadu	Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel
Uttar Pradesh (East)	Aircel, Idea, Vodafone
Uttar Pradesh (west)	Docomo, Bharti Airtel, Idea
West Bengal	Bharti Airtel, Reliance Telecom, Vodafone, Aircel

 

Even though 3G is  the hot cake now, the usage will greatly depend on competitive pricing. Also as a smart phone (like iPhone, android models or Nokia smart phones) is a basic necessity for this service, that will also act as a dampening factor. Nevertheless, I believe that this revolutionary technology will reach the masses very soon even if the service is priced quite on the higher side now. I am sure the charges will settle down to customer friendly rates within a short time – remember when cellphones came to India, incoming calls were charged at Rs.65 per min and today we are paying homage to 1 paise/min!

What do you think? Do you have 3G enabled handsets? What 3G service do you use and how do you like it – Please share your views!

Apple iPad 2 vs Motorola Xoom vs Samsung Galaxy tab - A comparison of features, hardware and usability

Its Showtime for the tablet competitors Apple, Motorola and Samsung and for tablet lovers, it can’t get better than this. Gone are the days of Apple monopoly in the market. Now, the customer is the king and we have for the first time real competitors to consider when thinking about the latest in electronics market – tab. The release of iPad 2 (read the features and highlights here) had Samsung do some serious re-thinking about its price and features before launching it in the market. Also there were reviews on Motorola Xoom which showed that there were some areas of improvement when compared to the iPad2. However, with Android making its presence felt among users of wide ranges of age group and profession, it is customer oriented market yet again and here is how I compare the tabs (Read a detailed comparison of Android vs iPhone here). Again, in this case too, I am not going to say if one tab beats the other or if Apple wins over Android or Android gets better than apple – just trying to bring out an unbiased review.

Comparison Chart:

	Motorola Xoom	Samsung Galaxy tab 2	Apple iPad 2	Advantage
OS	Honeycomb	Honeycomb (android 3.0)	Apple iOS 4.3	Purely for the brand power and also because Honeycomb is still raw and yet to be experienced – Apple
Display	10.1”	10.1”	9.7”	Though Apple’s display is slightly smaller than the other two, it looks cuter than the other two to me – Apple
Resolution	1280 x 800	1280 x 800	1024 x 768	Definitely Motorola
RAM	1 GB	Not Available	512 MB	Motorola
Processor	1 GHz Terga 2 dual-core	1 GHz Terga 2 dual-core	A5 1GHz dual-core	Again for the tested and extremely satisfying performance – Apple
Camera	5 MegaPix rear camera with LED Flash / 2 MegaPix front camera	8 MegaPix rear camera with Flash and 2 MegaPix front camera	Rear camera pix rating unspecified, front camera VGA	Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 – Apple disappointed everybody big time here
Memory	32 GB – Expandable memory up to 32 GB in microSD	16 or 32 GB – Nothing specified yet about external memory	16, 32, 64 GB but no external expandable memory	Motorola – MicroSD slot was one of the most expected feature in the new version of Tabs
Wi-Fi	802.11 b/g/n along with Personal Hotspot	802.11 b/g/n	802.11 b/g/n	Tied – similar specs
Network	3G (upgradable to 4G – if you don’t mind shipping it back and forth to Verizon to get this done)	4G HSPA / EDGE / GPRS	3G HSDPA / GSM / EDGE / CMDA	Samsung Galaxy Tab for the 4G
Externals	9.8 x 6.6 x 0.5 / 12.7 mm / 1.61 lbs	9.67 x 6.7 x 0.43 / 10.9 mm thick / 1.32 lbs	9.5 x 7.3 x 0.34 / 8.8 mm thick / 1.33 lbs	Apple – truly lives up to its marketing slogan – thinner, lighter and smarter
Ports	HDMI, USB 2.0	USB 2.0	HDMI (with adapter)	Motorola Xoom

 

Apple’s exciting features like Facetime, excellent multitasking still scores overs minor hitches in Motorola (like problems with microSD, confusing buttons in different applications and heftier finish than iPad2). However Motorola Xoom is a serious competitor to Apple in the tablet race and we are in for some exciting market analysis in near future!!

What do you think about the latest tabs in market? Do share your views and reviews on your tab experience

VMware view client App for iPad–next leap from RDP / VNC Citrix and Wyse apps in market

 

One of the primary arguments that many people have against owning an iPad or even better the latest iPad 2 is that this 10 inch piece will never grow up in capacity to handle what their desktop / laptop can handle in terms of work. I must say that either these people are unaware of the business apps that are available in market or haven’t worked out how to use them to perfection. Yes I am talking about the VNC / RDP apps that are abundant in iTunes apps market. VMware has joined the bandwagon (in league with Citrix and Wyse) now making it bigger and better with their VMware view app for iPad.

 

RDP / VNC apps for iPad / iPhone / iPod

As this post is not a review on the RDP and VNC (Virtual Network Computing) apps that are available in the market, I am not presenting an exhaustive list here. The two apps I have given below are arguably the best in this category in the market

1. iTap RDP (Remote Desktop for Windows) By HLW – Paid App ($11.99) – Use this app to take RDP of your machine when you are connected to the local network. Or if you can get a public IP from your internet provider, you can set your laptop/desktop with a static IP and you can then access your machine from anywhere in the world from your ipad. Once connected you will actually be working on you laptop/desktop with its hardware resources!

2. Desktop Connect By Antecea Inc. – Paid App ($14.99) – This has the choice of either connecting through VNC or through RDP. The same idea of public IP holds good here too to make your machine available from anywhere in the world. One good feature about this app is that you can turn off the touchscreen option and then your whole ipad becomes the giant touch pad and can be used to control mouse pointer movements (if you have difficulty in point touching)

TeamViewer By TeamViewer – free App. I know that this app cannot be even mentioned in the same breath with the RDP / VNC apps but if you are not too freaky about security (when you accept team viewer policy it means you allow your session visibility to team viewer), this one will just suit the bill for accessing your machine over the internet. But the only drawback I can think of is that, you cannot log your machine off and team viewer must be left running all the time. So don’t go sharing the Partner id and password!

What does VMware view do?

The VMware view client for iPad that has been launched on Wednesday (9th March 2011) and will now enable enterprise users access their workstations from iPad (I can’t start imagining how happy my husband’s going to be about this). Simply put, if the virtual machines are available in the cloud in a data center, you can access them from your iPad using the FREE APP from VMware (VMware View for iPad By SpringSource). VMware likes to call this a ‘finely tuned solution’ with PCoIP protocol for a faster and smoother user experience – even over 3G!! This app is compatible with external bluetooth keyboard and external display.  With the latest iPad 2 boasting HDMi, the display can be over a wide screen LED TV.

Special features of VMware View App

Once you have the app installed in your iPad, just click on the VMware view icon (middle icon in the bottom row) to connect to a virtual machine by entering its IP, followed by the username and password in the next screen.

The desktops that are provisioned to your user accounts will show up. Click on the one that you want to connect to and the desktop comes up on the ipad

The interesting feature that enhances the usability of this app is the drop down menu that appears on the top. From the drop down menu, you can choose the following options:

1. Keyboard: Opens up the keyboard for typing within applications such as Microsoft word from within the machine

2. Trackpad: Using this trackpad is similar to using the touchpad in any laptop. Controls the mouse pointer

3. Control Pads: This opens up the control keys, function keys, alt keys and other usability buttons like page up and page down that is most commonly used in a windows machine. Interesting yeah!

4. Gesture Help: A Help on what gestures on iPad means what to the Virtual machine.

5. Options: From here you can choose the touchpad sensitivity and enable / disable tool tips.

6. Disconnect: Disconnect from the virtual machine using this button from drop down menu on top. You can reconnect to the virtual machine and start from where you left off from you ipad or from your workstation.

 

UPDATE: Check out VMware official blog on the VMware view app for iPad at VMware website – link here

 

I think this app comes as a boon to most of the business and enterprise users who have the maximum inclination to buying an iPad. Do you? Are you already using of RDP / VNC apps - What do you think of this app?

Android Malware Apps with Trojan Rootkit–Details of the Apps and how to protect your android from Malware Apps

Google has now come to face the biggest problems of open sourcing – malware apps are in circulation. These apps disguise themselves as if they are genuine and legitimate apps. More than 50 apps have been pulled from Android market after they were identified to have malicious code in them. Which means, if you download any of these apps, it will be automatically deleted from your phone. This malware attack has showcased one of the biggest weakness of Android OS – no app moderation. I had mentioned about the certificate errors that we were receiving on the market.android pages for most of the apps in my post on the Cricket apps for android. Furthermore, when you choose to download and install an app from the android.market website  it happens as smoothly as downloading it from the phone’s android market and there is absolutely no authorization prompted at the device end. Even my Nokia E51 (which is like a 3 yrs old model) has a second layer of authorization at the device level to install an app that was chosen from Nokia apps website!

What does the malware App do?

Once you install one of the malware apps, it will root the device via rageagainstthecage or exploid. This can then steal the device data and the personal data and transmit it to a remote server when you will still be playing with the new free app! The details that are stolen are:

* IMEI

* IMSI

* Product ID

* Language

* Personal Details (like user ID and other data you have in the phone)

The scariest bit is that, it just not stops from stealing the data but, it acts as a open backdoor – which means, now more malicious code can be downloaded into your phone without your knowledge!

How do I protect my android?

Lifehacker has a detail post on how to tell if an app is a malware or not – this one is a worthy read to protect your phone from future attacks. However, if you already are a victim of this malware attack (Google did a great job of pulling out these apps in a matter of 5 minutes from the first report – though this deletes the app from the phone, it can do nothing about the malicious code that might have been already downloaded through the backdoor), then you have either of the following two options:

* Try doing a reset to factory defaults. Yes this means losing all the precious data and apps that you have collected so far, but there is no choice other than this.

* Taking the phone back to your service provider (hopefully they’ll replace it with a new phone)

What is remote disabling?

When I said Google had pulled these apps back, it means, these apps were deleted from the users phones without taking any permission from the users for doing so. Not that we are complaining for removing the malware, but this posed the bigger question of how Google can tamper with the apps of an user’s device without the permission from the user. It was not long ago that Amazon had to face the user’s wrath for remotely deleting a book from Kindle across the country. Apple also got into a tight spot for remotely disabling iPhones  that were running on unauthorized OS (Update: Apple has applied for patents to do this now). So it is another question that Google has to answer for

What are the malicious Android Apps?

There were 21 malicious apps by one publisher Myournet – this publisher has now been entirely removed from Android market

• Falling Down
• Super Guitar Solo
• Super History Eraser
• Photo Editor
• Super Ringtone Maker
• Super Sex Positions
• Hot Sexy Videos
• Chess
•下坠滚球_Falldown
• Hilton Sex Sound
• Screaming Sexy Japanese Girls
• Falling Ball Dodge
• Scientific Calculator
• Dice Roller
• 躲避弹球
• Advanced Currency Converter
• App Uninstaller
• 几何战机_PewPew
• Funny Paint
• Spider Man
• 蜘蛛侠

Apart from this list, there are 30 more identified to be malicious by the security app Lookout. These were by the publishers ‘Kingmall2010’ and ‘we20090202’

• owling Time
• Advanced Barcode Scanner
• Supre Bluetooth Transfer
• Task Killer Pro
• Music Box
• Sexy Girls: Japanese
• Sexy Legs
• Advanced File Manager
• Magic Strobe Light
• 致命绝色美腿
• 墨水坦克Panzer Panic
• 裸奔先生Mr. Runner
• 软件强力卸载
• Advanced App to SD
• Super Stopwatch & Timer
• Advanced Compass Leveler
• Best password safe
• 掷骰子
• 多彩绘画
• Finger Race
• Piano
• Bubble Shoot
• Advanced Sound Manager
• Magic Hypnotic Spiral
• Funny Face
• Color Blindness Test
• Tie a Tie
• Quick Notes
• Basketball Shot Now
• Quick Delete Contacts
• Omok Five in a Row
• Super Sexy Ringtones
• 大家来找茬
• 桌上曲棍球
• 投篮高手

As long as Google leaves the android apps market un-moderated, use your better sense when downloading and installing any apps. Take the necessary precautions and have the security app installed in your droid to add the extra layer of security!

The new iPad 2 (second generation iPad) features review and what is missing in iPad2

Lo and Behold! The much awaited gadget of the year – iPad 2, the second generation iPad was launched two days back and has put a full stop to all kinds of speculations about it. Steve Jobs (who still looks unwell) was clad in his trademark black turtleneck and blue Jeans to unveil the latest pride to the apple family.Being gadget freaks, that we are, we had our own set of expectations towards the next generation of this wonder gadget and was waiting eagarly to see how it was different from the generation 1 ipad.

For all those who are still saying, this is a redundant piece of gadget which is just tossed in the market to do what an iphone / laptop does, consider this – Will you want to take your laptop out every time you travel to watch a movie / presentation or would you rather prefer a tab? If you are answering that you’ll just be fine with a iPhone / smart phone my answer is this – I prefer to fly emirates rather than any other flight for just one reason – the in flight personal entertainment screen is by far the biggest among all the other international airlines. The name of the game is portability!

Lets get back to the iPad2 and its features:

Appearance and Aesthetics:

* Lighter and Thinner than the previous iPad version – 8.8 mm thick which is 35% lesser than iPad and weighs 1.3 lbs

* 9.7 inch screen (There were a lot of speculations that iPad 2 was shrinking to a 7 inch screen – thankfully this speculation was wrong)

* LED backlit, multi touch display with Finger print resistant oleophobic coating – in short the same as in iPad. With iPhone 4 in circulation with Retina display, I almost 99% believed the speculation that iPad 2 was getting retina display as well. Really disappointed here.

Hardware Features:

* A5 processor (Dual core) with 1 GHz speed

* iOS 4.3

* 9 times better graphics than previous version

* 10 hr battery (inbuilt again)

* Dual Camera

           -  Rear camera is good – has video recording capacity of 720p HD at 30 fps.

           -  Front cam-VGA (WTH! who uses VGA these days? Even iPhone4 has 1.2MP front cam)

* Bluetooth 2.1

* Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n

* HDMi Port (the only worthy enhancement) – charge as you watch when connected to TV

Usability Features:

* In built new Photobooth App for photo modification

* Facetime enabled

* Stream media over network

* HSUPA – Uploads over 3G gets faster and better

Price:

The product is priced same as the iPad. But some better sense has prevailed that those who got a new iPad within the past 14 days are eligible to get a $100 refund as the previous versions prices have been slashed down.  This was something that I liked!

Size	Wi-Fi only	Wi-Fi & 3G
16 GB	$499	$629
32 GB	$599	$729
64 GB	$699	$829

 

iPad2 will be released to US users on 11th March. UK user can experience iPad2 from 25th March and just as was the case with iPad gen1, India has no dates yet (I hope it does not take 8 months like iPad)

Will you buy an iPad 2
	Absolutely Yes - I love the brand
	Nope, am happy with my iPad
	I'd buy Xoom/Galaxy tab
	Definitely No! I hate the gadget explosion
pollcode.com free polls

The Disappointments:

No Retina Display

May be this will be incorporated in iPad 3

No SD Card Slot

Well this was mostly expected as Apple markets with price slabs corresponding to its internal memory size and having a SD card will beat that purpose. Nevertheless, it would have been a delight to have had the feature

No USB / mini USB

I still can’t see why Apple doesn’t have this. It is a pain to keep syncing only using itunes. I hope the designers get this in place in iPad3

No Near Field Communication (NFC)

Come on!!! Android 2.3 has this. Is apple trying to compete with Honeycomb or not?

No 4G

With 4G being the next in-thing, I can’t accept iPad 2 doesn’t have it already.

To me this release of iPad seems to be way before what their actual schedule must have been. It misses most of the features that most of us were nearly 99% sure it’d have. Not sure if it was pushed before its time just so that Steve Jobs can present it to the world himself (?!) When Steve said that iPad2 was going to get the other designers ‘back to their drawing boards again’, I found it hard to believe as I see much better features and display aspects in its competitors. Well, if iPad 2 still emerges the winner among its contemporaries, it'll purely be due to the ‘Apple’ brand power.

So what do you think? Are you happy with the iPad 2 or would you have not minded to wait few more months to have all the other features included in it (like me)

Apple iPad features, hitches, prices and deals

Life takes a full circle” – I guess Apple iPad is another gadget that stands testimony to this saying. Moses came back with the 10 commandments inscribed in two tablet and the tablets became the means of communication. It has now, once again – only that this electronic tablet may not be sacred to the Vatican masses but it is demi-God for its users! The sheer beauty and style will mesmerize you. There has been several arguments made about ‘why I don’t need an iPad’ just as was the case with iPhone (read smart phones – coz  android phones is breathing down iPhone’s neck in terms of features and market competition). Even some of the ardent Apple customers needed persuasion to see the whole new cool way of doing things. For those who are still saying that the iPad tab seems an evolutionary link between  Laptop and iPhone, I will not greatly disagree. Even if it were going to do just what the laptop did, isn’t it cool that such a cute 10 inch beauty does all that?

The Technicalities:

Size:

iPad has this beautiful 9.7 inch LED backlit, glossy, widescreen, multi touch display with a resolution of 1024 * 768 pixels (132 ppi) and finger print resistant coating. Try however it may, the Samsung Galaxy tab (even though the colors were more prettier there) looked too petite with its 7 inch screen. iPad wins hands down

Processor and Memory:

1 GHz, Apple 4 processor which boasted high performance coupled with low power system on a single chip. If this processor definition fails to awe you, I wonder what will (Can’t wait to see what’s in store in A5) .

Here comes the first hitch (trust me there are only very few of these – is it blasphemy already to find hitches with the demi-god?) – No external memory. Not that I am complaining, it was perfectly ok to run the iPhone with just the internal memory, but I personally feel that an external SD memory would have been simply great! Standard Apple memory sizes available – 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB

Battery:

Inbuilt non-removable battery (the second hitch). The battery lasts up to 10 hrs when used with Wi-Fi (which includes watching video and audio). If you are running on 3G data network all through, the battery runs for 9 hrs.

Other WOW Features:

1. 3G enabled through micro sim

2. External keyboard (an excellent accessory!)

3. Runs all iPhone/iPad apps (including apps that can replace a kindle)

4. Web, email, maps, GPS and much much more

Other Hitches:

1. No camera – one blogger had written this - on saying why he thought not having a cam in iPad was not that bad at all  “If I am driving and I see a beautiful sunset, I will not reach out for my laptop to take a pic”. Very true. You will not want to take a photo with the 10 inch tab every time. But an avid blogger who blogs on what he sees around him, will definitely want to click and write from the same device. Also, in the age of video chats and face time, single camera system by itself is being frowned upon. In that aspect yes, this is a hitch.

2. No USB/HDMi port – when an iPad almost takes the place of a laptop, it is a disappointment to see no USB or HDMi ports in the iPad. Every single piece of electronic junk on the planet seems to have a HDMi port these days… what were the iPad designers thinking?

Prices:

What I loved the most was the pricing. It was neither too high (to make it another of those unreachable desires) nor too low (to look worthless). The prices at the time of launch was:

Size	Wi-Fi only	Wi-Fi & 3G
16 GB	$499	$629
32 GB	$599	$729
64 GB	$699	$829

 

And it remains the same till date. The best deals that I’ve seen so far are from amazon.com (the difference in price is between few cents to $5 – if you can call that a deal )

Are you a proud possessor of iPad – share your pleasure. Or are you waiting for the next gen iPad, do share what improvements you want to see there.. I am doing that list next :)

Top 10 exciting cricket apps for Android mobiles

After the Top 11 cricket apps for iPhone for the world cup season, its time for the top 10 cricket apps for android mobile users for the cricket world cup season. I must say that the choices of apps were more than what I actually expected (imagining the lesser ratio of apps in comparison to iPhone apps). While all the top 11 in iPhone Apps section for cricket were free apps, there are some paid apps in this post. Here goes the list: (The links go to the market.android page and it is indeed a shame that the certificate error has not been corrected .. grrr)

	Cricbuzz Cricket Scores & News Cricbuzz.com	The best app for android users in terms of visual appeal, the screen design and the functionality & features. The highlighting features are fastest cricket score updates and ball-by-ball commentary. Also most of the android users who tried this app has appreciated the speed and have nothing negative to say.	FREE APP
	ESPNcricinfo By ESPN	Official ESPN App. Has ESPN’s ball-by-ball commentary, breaking news and audio and video features. Includes push notification features. Has evoked mixed reactions from users. Seemingly works good in few models and raises hell in other models working on Android OS	FREE APP
	Xplore Cricket WC2011 By HCL Technologies	This is more of a schedule and info kind of app - must have for foreign fans - has exhaustive details like maps and directions, Food and Restaurants nearby the match venue. Also includes live score card and latest news too. This app has received mixed reactions from various mobile users. I guess, it works better with few models and not all.	FREE APP
	ICC World Cup 2011 Konstant Infosolutions	A simple scheduling app. Again as with the other apps, few android users love this app and few others say it is slow and crashes in the midst of something	FREE APP
	Cricket Free Kuchbi Inc	Features includes Live Scores (Mobile scorecards), Fixtures and Schedules, Video highlights, Ball by Ball coverage. Not many complaints from users like the other 3 above. For me personally, the visual appeal is not good enough	FREE APP (Premium Version available as paid app)
	CricScoredroid - Live Cricket Sachin Patil	A very nice app developed by a single man! The features includes current score, results and fixtures, audio Commentary, comprehensive Scorecard and ability to subscribe to notifications and alerts. Simple app with not-so-fancy look. Has received good user reviews too	FREE APP
	Icc World Cup 2011 adeptpros	Shows Live Scores, Schedules, Player stats and post match Results. Has good and pleasing screen designs	PAID APP $2.00
	LiveCricket MobileWASP.com	A visually well designed app for Android mobiles. Features include cricket scores, match details, commentary and cricket news. Looks cool and from user experience works cool too	PAID APP $2.99
	Cricket Scores - TCS TCS 27 Limited	Displays live cricket scores from the Total Cricket Scorer website (www.totalcricketscorer.com). Has okie types visuals. But I felt it was costly for the purpose it served, especially with the availability of other cool free apps	PAID APP $3.21
	Live Cricket Scores Nua Trans Media, India	This app just points to cricinfo.com and also does not boast very good visual effects. But serves the purpose of giving the live scores	PAID APP $1.60

10 iPhone accessories that you can live without

Whenever a new technology / product comes out, it is evident that accessory manufactures have a field day coming up with ideas to accessorize the product. And if the product is highly successful in market, needless to say, these guys earn their share of buck too. Well iPhone is one such market for which the market is swarmed with accessories. Accessories the you’ll want/need (see my previous post on 10 ‘Must have’ iPhone accessories) is the first category. And there is yet another categories that you think you might want but will forever be shelved if you ever get them. So here goes my list of 10 accessories that you must absolutely not consider buying. There may be some exceptions (which I have mentioned in the list), but otherwise, trust me, you don’t need these!

1. Designer Cases for iPhone: The Ed Hardy iPhone case or Hello Kitty/flowery/girly designed or the tiger/leopard skin like cases may draw you like magnets towards them when you see them first. And in some cases you might end up buying only to regret throwing $15-30 in the drains. They DON’T look elegant on an iPhone. Go with the leather case or the default glass case that Apple hands out for free!

2. Armband: I can understand having an arm band for a iPod (I see joggers having this) but it makes absolutely no sense in getting one for your iPhone. Furthermore, you’ll have to remove the case that the iPhone is in to fit into this one and when you go to work, you have to switch cases again – that is if you mind having to wear the arm band over your suit

3. Bluetooth Keyboard Case: Well this is one of the exceptions that I was talking about earlier. If you are on the chubby side with big fingers, this might be necessary. But even in that cases I’d suggest getting a stylus (see at the end of the post), instead of carrying a bulky case around.

4. Passport Wallet iPhone Case: There seems to be absolutely no limits to integration. For one thing, why would you want to keep the credit card in the iPhone case?? A definite bad accessory that you can live without!

5. Bicycle Handlebar mount for iPhone: First thing, it is not safe! Can you imagine the distraction this can cause to the biker sitting right at the sight of vision? One could argue that it is convenient this way, but safety first is what I would say!

6. FM Transmitter for iPhone: This might look alluring.. wow you can play FM from iPhone – but stop and think – how many FM transmitters do you already own? Do you need another piece for the same job? I mean there is no ‘iPhone pleasure’ element associated with this right?

7. iMusic Pillow: Is the radiation around us just not enough that we need this to keep us in the ring of radiation even when we sleep? Absolute no to this accessory. What are headphones and external iPhone docks for?

The last three here below are in fact nice accessories, but are not real necessities. So they find their way into the list of accessories that you can live without.

8. Stylus: If you are already tired of touching your iPhone (I don’t think I ever will be), this accessory can help. But as I said earlier the big fingered do need this.

9. iPhone Stand: I won’t actually criticize this one – but it is up to one’s own interest

10. Extended battery cases: With multitude of options to charge an iPhone (wall socket, through laptop/desktop), I didn’t think this is a necessity. If you don’t mind losing the aesthetic value of the iPhone (your phone’ll look 1/2 to 1” longer), you can get this one.

How to connect a cisco router (WRT54G2) to the ADSL BSNL Modem (Huawei MT841)

When we were at US, we had the bliss of experiencing real high speed internet through the AT&T and Time Warner cable services. Such luxury (even if it was for a short duration) made me actually forget the snail speeds that I was using in India. Though I am very very happy about being back here (at last good sambar sadham !), the internet speed is really driving me crazy. The so called ‘3MBPS’ line never even reaches a 1MB on a ping test or bandwidth test. While that is one debatable point by itself, that’s not what this post is about.

When we came back, the techi guy that my husband is, got a laptop, TV, iPhone and other similar gadgets which connect through Wi-Fi. And he also got two CISCO routers (one N (what was he thinking *$%^!) and one G type) so that our home will turn into one big Wi-Fi hot zone. With all the network architecture and explanations that he gave, I also believed that it was just going to be a cake walk to set that up.

Unfortunately that was not the case and the ADSL modem (Type IV Huawei SmartAX MT841) could not handle the Wi-Fi it had to serve and gave its life up in a matter of weeks! Thankfully only the WLAN card is dead and the modem is still alive. So I thought it was time I configured the Cisco router with the ADSL modem. I did not muster up enough courage to tamper with Frank’s N Router (I’ll be dead meat if I mess it up) so I started experimenting with the G router. After several mishaps and ‘hard reset’ of router, I finally managed to do the configuration. But during my course of Google-ing and trial and errors, I found how many were trying to do this right.

So here goes the step by step method to configure your CISCO router (WRT54G2) to the ADSL modem. Any ADSL modem is fine for this because we’ll only be using one Ethernet port of the modem.

This configuration is for those who do not have static IP. From what I have read, configuring this with a static IP is much easier.

Step#1: Switch off the router and the modem (I tried configuring keeping everything ON and finally couldn’t remember which IP is for what. I guess even the router got confused :P)

Step#2: Connect the CISCO router to the laptop through one of its Ethernet ports and power the CISCO router up. It is better to have the CISCO router at factory default settings. So I did a hard reset of the router. This can be done by holding down the reset button at the back of the router for about 15seconds keeping the router on.

Step#3: Open IE and type http://192.168.1.1. This will open a popup asking for user name and password which will both be ‘admin’ .  After you give that, you will see the below screen

Step#4: In this screen, leave the “Automatic Configuration-DHCP” as such. Change the local IP address to 192.10.0.1. The starting IP address will be 192.168.1.100. We will make changes to this later. In Static DNS1, type 192.168.1.1 (this is the IP of the modem and this must act as the Default Gateway). If you know the trace route IP of BSNL, you can type that in the Static DNS 2. Select appropriate Time Zone (not visible in this screenshot, but it is below the DHCP part) and click on Save.

Step#5: Don’t panic if the screen goes blank or if ‘Page cannot be displayed’ comes up. It is because now your router has a new IP. Close the IE, open a new session and type http://192.10.0.1 and you’ll see the router’s username and password prompt. Give ‘admin’ in both fields and enter into the router. Now you will see that the Starting IP Address would have changed to 192.10.0._. You can specify any IP in whichever range you prefer your devices to have. Click on save.

Step#6: Now you may want to do a ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew from command prompt. Mostly this is not needed. But it is always better to be safe. If you do a IPCONFIG on command prompt now, you will see that your machine now has an IP like 192.10.0.100

Step#7: Now is the time to switch on the Modem. If you had done everything right so far, you will see the beautiful response from modem when you do a ‘ping 192.168.1.1’ from command prompt. Some thing like this:

If you get a ‘request time out’, then you’ll have to begin all over again. Remember to revert your router to factory defaults before you begin. But hopefully that will not happen if you had remembered to keep the modem off in the first place.

Step#8: If you got a response from the modem, that means, the internet is now served to your laptop with the modem as ‘Default Gateway’. So, we can go ahead and configure the wireless part. Open your router again from IP (http://192.10.0.1) with admin as Username and password. Open the Wireless tab and set Wireless Configuration to ‘manual’, Network mode as ‘mixed’ (this is because some of the recent devices have N supportable Wi-Fi only). Give a name for your Network (SSID) and select the wireless channel as 2.462GHz.

Step#9: Select wireless security tab under the wireless tab and set the security mode as WPA-PERSONAL and WPA algorithm as TKIP. Set a good WPA Shared key – if you don’t want to serve free internet to your neighbors. Now save these settings

Step#10: This is the last step (phew!) and the most important – securing the router. Never leave the router open with the default username and password. Anybody can hack into it! So go to the Administration tab and change the router password.

Now you are all set to enjoy wireless internet in your home!! Happy surfing!!

 

I am not really sure about the configuration part for those with Static IP. Would appreciate any inputs on that!

Has the Internet run out of Space?

According to CNN - On Thursday(today), the Internet as we know it (kind of) ran out of space. Read more here. Now we know there is a back up plan, but yikes - could you imagine? Interesting to think about.

Speaking of our livelihood...Show me where you blog, surf the net, etc... and I will post them here on Bright Bold and Beautiful. Do you sit on the couch with your iPad? Do you blog at your desk in your home office? E-mail your photos to laura.trevey@gmail.com

More ways to follow BB&B

shop * facebook * twitter * bloglovin * tumblr

MNP (Mobile Number Portability)–Who said it best?

Mobile Number Portability (or MNP) is the new in-thing in the telecom world in India and every service provider (well almost) is trying to rope in customers to their network from the others. But who has put on the best show in the town? That’s what I am writing here

The major competitors for cell phone service are BSNL, Airtel, TATA DoCoMo, Reliance Mobile, Vodafone, Uninor, Idea, Videocon and Aircel (famous in Tamil Nadu at least). Of which my personal favorite is Vodafone – not just because of my partiality of that being my first service provider, but because they have the cutest advertisements among all these for MNP.

VODAFONE AD–ON YOUTUBE

 

This ad is tops the list with a A+ for its cuteness and  simple to understand presentation – Vodafone has space for everyone so bring your friends along.

DoCoMo pretty much targets to convey the same message in its ad – the one where everyone’s playing trumpet for a guy. But it lacks the cuteness and clearness factor which gives it a B.

Idea has the crappiest ad where A.B Jr (Abishek Bachchan) asks ‘what will you get if you call 1800xxxxxxx?’ and answers it by saying ‘You’ll get idea’ – I mean where is the creativity here D-. 

Airtel, Reliance and Uninor doesn’t seem to have gone to the pains of making specific advertisements for MNP but simply have an additional 2 seconds of 1800 number at the end of their regular ad and might just barely scrap a pass mark.

What bites the dust and fails is the no promos by Aircel and Videocon. At least I can forgive Videocon as they are quite new and are yet to make an impression with consumers to ask them to switch to their network.  But what happened to Aircel?? Is there no advertisement department there – is it not a criminal waste to have M.S.Dhoni as the brand ambassador and not have an ad for MNP!!!!

OOPS! just realized that I missed the government service provider BSNL. This is one of its kind in being the best amongst all and having the least advertisements.

But these are just Ads.  This added freedom comes added responsibility  – responsibility to clearly analyze whose plans suits your needs the best. So people, choose well and stay connected!

Mobile number portability in India

On 20 Jan 2011, a new era dawned on the Indian Telecom industry with the launch of Mobile Number Portability (MNP). The option to retain a phone number with the freedom to change the Service Provided puts the customer at his rightful place - on top of the pyramid again. 

When the Cell phone culture started heating up in India roughly about a decade ago, the extent to which service providers went on to woo customers was incredible (quite as usual BSNL didn’t break much of a sweat but still ended up with many loyal customers – thanks to Mr. Dayanithi’s (the then telecom minister’s) ingenious ‘one India’ plan). But once things got settled and when India had larger number of mobile users than the number of sanitation units (read toilets) the customers were literally pushed down to the lower most part of the pyramid.

Most people had to retain the mobile number they had because that had become their identity. In doing so, they were torn between the multitude of service plans that were all intended only to confuse the customer more and making him end up paying for stuff that he’ll never ever use (because it was coupled & charged with a service that he direly needs). Like it or not, they’d to ‘maintain’ that mobile number.

Then came the ‘dual sim-card’ option in many phones – making the already foggy scenario even more sludgy. People ended up paying for 2 unfathomable service plans!!! I guess the wheel has ultimately taken the complete turn now and the customer is the King yet again with MNP.

So what does it cost – a mere `19 – a one time MNP charge

How is it done:

Simple 4 step procedure:

1. Send a message to 1900 requesting the UPC (Unique Porting Code) which is something like this

SMS to be sent: PORT 9xxxxxxxxx to 1900 

2. Get the 8 character (alphanumeric) UNC number in a SMS from 1901

3.  Now is the time to move your backside. Head straight to the nearest new service provider showroom or outlet and fill out the MNP and customer agreement form. Also attach the Address & ID proof and a recent photo (self attested) and in cases where applicable, the previous post paid bill

4. Get the new SIM card of the new service provider

After this you wait for at least 7 days (15 in case of Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and North East). After the wait, you will get an SMS with porting date and time. This is basically the time after which the old SIM’ll cease to work and you’ll have to use the new SIM card. There is a short downtime activity (almost 2 hours) that takes place after the porting time. Thankfully some intelligent soul has designed the downtime between 2 and 5 in the morning!

After the downtime, you can continue to enjoy the same number with a new Service Provider (do remember to change the SIM)

Is there any condition / catch:

Just the one catch that I noticed was that the SIM Charges, talktime and porting cost will not be refunded if you changed your mind halfway about the service provider that you want

Final Words

This is one of the best telecom initiatives in a very long time and I hope the word spreads across well and many get benefited from such a scheme.

If you are wondering why I have the Vodafone MNP banner at the top, I have two reasons

1. Vodafone was my very first individual Cell phone (Mobile phone) account and whatever crappy plans they had, I love them – customer loyality

2. In my next post I am going to write about the various advertisements by different Service providers for MNP

iPhone 4 - The addiction game begins now

This is yet another post that must have been here long time back. We got iPhone when we were at US. Till the time one buys (read decides to buy) an iPhone, they come up with 1001 reasons ‘why I don’t need an iPhone’. But once the craving sets on for an iPhone, every day one can think of  more reasons ‘why I need an iphone’

Well that happened in our case too. Till the time we could afford an iPhone 4, we were arguing what basic telephone features an iphone can do that a blackberry can’t?! With more and more friends moving on to iPhone, the craving just got irresistible and viola! we got an iPhone 4.

The sense of pride on holding an iPhone, snapping open and shut the exclusive leather case and all the related emotions that come with an iPhone are not easily describable. It is as if we got the Christmas or birthday present that we had been waiting for for the whole year.

For those who are still arguing ‘what can an iPhone do that a blackberry can’t?’ I have to say this, you’ll have to see one to know the multitude of Apps. The convenience of having all at once (a GPS, Outlook, Public mailbox, all the popular Instant Messengers (IMs) with video chat support, IPod music player, Dictionary, Barcode reader,  Doodle (for the artistically inclined – paint what you want whenever you want just with the touch of your fingers), and not to miss the 5 megapix camera) is an unparalleled experience.

Once you have had an iPhone, for about a month, the question that you’d be asking yourself changes to ‘How the hell did I manage everything before iPhone’

The ironic part now is that we have now returned to India and are still trying to see how to get our iPhone 4 working in India (I don’t like the term ‘jailbreaking’ ). My brother had gotten himself an iPhone from Singapore and that doesn’t seem to require any “jailbreaking” (huh! cant they have coined a better term) to work in India.

He took a Vodafone 3G connection and I must say the service was indeed impressive. The GPS is not precise though as in US but still I liked it. I was a bit skeptical about the bandwidth of service for an Indian GPRS provider – but after seeing the Vodafone service, I can say proudly that the service can be compared at par to any other good service providers of the west.

I have a BSNL Cellone 3G service and I must admit it works pretty well in my Nokia E51 smart phone. I can’t wait to experience the service in iPhone 4. Hope that’s some time sooner.. I can’t bear the sight of my iPhone sitting on bench like an ignored toy!

P.S. For those who are happy with the smart phone they’ve already got, apple has another option for you! Check the iPod generation 4 – the look and feel and the apps are absolutely same as the iPhone 4 except that you can only connect to an available wifi network and cannot browse/chat/check mail/use GPS ‘on the go’. If that’s not a requirement, you can get the iPot Gen 4 and experience the iPhone experience. But I give the statutory warning that after iPod Gen4, you might develop a craving for iPhone 4!!!

The disaster called Reliance Netconnect Broadband+

 This post was due a long time. When we came back to India, the most important necessity for my husband was the internet connection. So what did he do? Simply followed one of the promotional SMS that he received on his cell phone (mobile phone) and took the Reliance NetConnect Broadband + which offered up to 3GB speed. He failed to notice the ‘up to’ part and ordered the connection immediately.

What was the charge?

The modem cost was around ` 2500 and there were several monthly packs to choose from and we choose the Gold pack hoping to get the best available performance. The cost of that was ` 950 per month.

Ok with this we thought we were all set to experience the flashing internet service. Our hopes were all doomed on the very first day. The connection speed was in the order of few hundred KBPS. We thought we had made some mistake with the set up and called the customer support. (I must say here that my husband is an infrastructure management engineer in a software organizations and I must say is one among the best in his technology). We went through all the steps that he asked us to do. Finally he asked us to change the connection type to “Hybrid” and said it was going to be a home run from now and no more issues will come up.

Day 2: Still the same poor bandwidth problem. We call the customer support – that is the beauty with these products. Every time you call the cust supp, a new guy picks up the call and we have to start over from the beginning and he tries to make us do the exact same things that the prev guy did. So I told him to cut that crap and take up a complaint.

Then we fall into this typical Indian mentality of not following up with the complaint and trying to find other alternatives. So we moved the BSNL broadband modem to another place so that our laptop can connect thro wifi with that modem and forgot all about our complaint to Reliance.

Suddenly it dawns upon us that by end of this month, we were going to get the monthly bill for this dreadful service. So we call them up again and they tell us there was a problem with the tower that was serving our area and it would take at least 2 more weeks to correct the issue. The Cust supp guy agrees that our first month bill would be waived as the service was poor – but for that we had to call one day prior to our billing cycle day and tell them the whole Ramayanam again and ask them to waive the monthly charge WTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But we continued ‘trying’ to connect to this snail speed internet and at the heights of vexation called the cust supp to cancel our account. Now, we had barely used the service for 20 days and Guess what? they refused to return the cost of the modem ` 2500 – Mukhesh bhai’s crocodile mouth account had already swallowed it.

At the end of this debacle, we are left with a useless piece of junk and a loss of ` 2500.

But I would not condemn the product as a whole because after this bad experience we talked to few others who were using Reliance NetConnect Broadband + (in other areas) and some of them were contented with the service and bandwidth they were receiving

My advice to anyone considering Reliance NetConnect Broadband+ is – first talk to friends who use the service in your area. Take their feedback seriously and then buy this product because if you ever want to cancel the account you will not receive the cost of the modem back.

Western Digital WD TV Live Review

Okie! Here goes my first gadget review. I am going to tell about a very cool bit of technology innovation called Western Digital WD TV Live player. A small cute device that is going to change the way you viewed connected media before!

Honestly speaking I didn’t appreciate this amazing piece of work when my husband bought it. Well he is a gadget freak or more rightly an electronics-shopaholic. But just like any shopaholics he has his own way of convincing why that was a ‘can’t live without’ stuff. I was really skeptical if any of his reasoning was going to even convince me on this. But this time, it was the product that convinced me! I’d not say that it’s a gadget you can’t live without, but I’d definitely say its worth every penny for its versatility.

Features:

Full-HD 1080p video playback.

Plays almost all types of media

Audio - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Video - MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),MTS, TP, TS Playlist  PLS, M3U, WPL Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8), SMI, SUB, ASS, SSA

Doesn’t require a Western Digital networked device to be able to play the media in it.

Live streaming from YouTube, Flickr, Pandora, and Live365. What’s more here?? You can login to your personal accounts in these internet media sites and play just your favorites! (Unfortunately Netflix and Picasa are missing)

Comes with a good remote control.

Hitches:

Yeah it does have few hitches.

1. Though the network setup is really simple (just have to plug-in the cable from router), a small mistake in setting up file sharing in connected PCs can take ages to resolve. I personally had this problem (I had one Win7 laptop and one Win XP laptop – WD infact offered to take the device back as they couldn’t say why I couldn’t connect to the networked laptops. Thankfully I had sense enough to Google for the solution and we were able to do the network media sharing!)

2. No inbuilt wireless connectivity. But this can be excused as streaming media over the network is better when its wired rather than wireless. (We did try the Wireless-N adaptor, but it works pretty good as our router is also 802.11 draft2 N class - but definitely not as good as having it hard connected). So what's the hitch? The extra bucks that you’ll have to throw in for the wireless adaptor (and a N router)

Final Word:

This all in one wonder box is sure enough worth the money and will have you hooked on to it. Its a real piece of entertainment – Go for it! Its time for you to experience the good things that come in this small package.

Already own one and like it? Share your awe!

Having trouble with WD TV Live? Do drop me a line in Comments – I’ll try to answer those (as I had run into quite a bit myself during the initial setup)