Is Rediff getting inspired from my Posts ?

I don't know, but I find a strange coincidence between the topics being discussed in Rediff's Message Board immediately after very similar posts on which I've written in my Blog. For example, in the month of March I wrote about "Work from Home" & to my surprise I found a discussion on "Work from Home" in Rediff's Message Board. This is not the only instance. If you see my previous post "Plastic Surgery - The Balaji Telefilms Way", you will find that a very similar topic "Which movie scene did you find most absurd ?", which is being talked about in Rediff from yesterday। Strange enough, but "बडे बडे शहरों में ऐसी छोटी छोटी बातें होती रहती है".

Plastic Surgery - The Balaji Telefilms Way

Are you an avid viewer of all the "K" serials ? I'm referring to all serials produced by Ekta Kapoor on TV nowdays. Its most certain that these serials have become a big time hit these days & kudos to Ekta for doing such a brilliant job. But you will inadvertently at some stage find that a character gets replaced in most of the serials owing to the fact of unavailibility of the actor/actress in that character. So in what way does this replacement take place. Its mostly shown as some tragic accident resulting in the actor's death. But later on you will find that there is reincarnation of the same character by means of some Plastic Surgery. There would also be some flashback clipping which will prove that the character somehow escaped the jaws of death but his/her face was burnt beyond recognition after which a Plastic Surgery was the only way left.

Plastic Surgery done..... fine. Whats so strange about it ? The funniest thing is that a Plastic Surgery just involves skin grafting & nothing else. But in the "K" serials once the Plastic Surgery is done all the vital statistics of the character viz., Height, Weight & Voice, also change. Isn't this quite funny? Atleast I find so :)

Taking care of your Data using "My Briefcase"

Due to fast improvent & stability in computing technology we sometimes tend to become reluctant of our precious data stored in the Hard Drives. I am not talking from a very technical perspective but from a layman's point of view. The Hard Drive data might contain your important project work or might be some lovely snaps of your last picnic or some other very important stuff. Remember that Hard Drives are mechanical devices & are bound to failures how much ever guarantee or warranty the manufacturer may offer. What to do in such a case ?

You don't even need to shell out much on expensive Backup devices or infact Backup softwares. Just be prepared to invest a little on the Portable USB Hard Drives readily avaialable in the market. To have a smooth backup of your Home or Office data just create BRIEFCASE type folders (in Windows) in these USB Drives corresponding to your Home or Office PC, as required. Once the Briefcases are created, just copy the folders in your Home or Office PC to the respective Briefcase folders. The adavantage of Briefcase type folders is that it easily synchronizes with your PC's Hard Disk. It only updates the files & folders from your PC to USB Drive that have changed after the previous backup. Thus you need not copy the entire file / folder once again to backup your data. This saves on repetitive copying & offcourse time. Also ensure to defragment your Portable USB Hard Drive from time to time & keep it in a secluded location so that your data is always safe & secure.

A stich in time saves nine.

Tech Review: Canon MP160 Print Scan Copier

Its almost a week that I've become used to my new gadget in my Computer Trolley - the Canon MP160 MFD. Though it has a large Form Factor (i.e. bigger in size), it turns out to be a decent MFD (Multi-Function Device) by paying out Rs.4000 at Cassette World, Lamington Road. Its a Print-Scan-Copier bundled package. I actually had planned to buy HP DeskJet F380 but ended in buying the Canon one after the shopkeeper suggested. So let me list some positives & negatives about this MFD.

Positives:

  • Low Price
  • Ease of installation of Printer & Cartridges
  • Paper Feeder is from top & so easily picks up paper
  • It has a Flat Bed scanner & so it becomes easy to scan thick documents
  • Scanning quality is also pretty good, though some other reviews suggest it to be a bad. As far as my experience goes, a human eye cannot differentiate minor errors in scanned images
  • Since it is a bi-directional printer, print speed is really quite fast
  • The printer driver provides a feature which can select the Ink tanks intelligently if any of the Inks (Black or Color) runs out & you have not replaced the same cartridge
  • Printed very neat passport size photos on Photo Glossy Paper using the EasyPhotoPrint bundled software
  • Scanning software provided (MP Navigator) is very easy to use
  • OCR software provided (Scansoft Omnipage) is easy to use & feature rich. I printed a formated excel worksheet & then scanned it & did an OCR. The text recognition was 100% & also the software allowed be to export the scanned document in excel format once again
  • Copier does good copying both in Black & Color mode
  • Can print directly through the PicBridge Port from Canon Cameras or any other Camera supporting PicBridge standards

Negatives:

  • By shelling out little bit more money you can buy the Canon MP180 which provides more copying features like Enlargement & Reduction. The MP180 also has a memory slot
  • Takes a pretty long time to print the first page
  • USB Printer cable is not included in the pack
  • Large Form Factor
  • The LCD gives you to select 9 copies in the copy mode & after that it shows "F" which means 20. So you cannot select anything between 9 & 20 copies while copying

All in all it is a very good SOHO printer. But I would personally suggest you to buy a Canon MP180 which provides little bit more copying features though the Print & Scan qualities are identical.Canon MP160 gets a rating of 4.25 out of 5 by the Gadget Guru.

Be an Alert Citizen

Around last week or so I was on my way back home travelling on the compartment footboard, as usual. While standing, the guy standing on the footboard right in front of me interested me. Why ? Probably because he was taller & well built than I am & moreover he was obstructing my view & the cool breeze hitting me in this hot summer. Though the guy interested me for some strange reasons as mentioned earlier, but as time passed I started becoming more curious about him. The next para will illustrate everything.

I boarded the train from Elphinstone Road station & was heading towards Kandivali. I guess he must have boarded at some other station prior to Elphinstone road because right from the beginning he was in front of me. He seemed to be in his late 20s & was well dressed with a creamish coloured cotton jeans trouser & a stylish shirt. He wore a metal bangle in his wrist with Sai Babas engraving on it. Right from the time I was behind him he started receiving calls on his Nokia 3250 cell phone. I could easily makeout that he spoke with a female (probably his fiancee) in 1 or 2 occasions. I don't know what struct me, as soon as he received his 3 or 4th call I just peeped across his shoulders to checkout who might be calling him. To my surprise I found out some strange name "Phir Ne Men Sa Chu" or so being displayed on his screen. I soon found out that almost all the names in his Contacts list where kept in an encoded format. So most of the names looked like "Hi Ne Ka Tum", "Koti Me Su" or some other garbled character. But believe me the guy spoke in Hindi throughout. Another thing which I noticed was that he used to delete his call records (Dialled Numbers & Missed Calls especially) after completion of every call & also delete all incoming SMS's after reading them. Since it was a moving train I couldn't read any of his SMS's (though unethical) nor clearly hear what he was speaking over the phone. By the time I could collect all possible information & be an Alert Citizen & actively participate in the Mumbai Unbreakable campaign Kandivali station had already arrived & it was time for me to get down. That guy travelled further, probably till Borivali or probably to some suspicious activities.

Since I didn't have sufficient proof against him or probably because I feared a bit, I couldn't report this matter to Police. But believe me we all need to be very alert while travelling, because you never know a terrorist might be sitting next to you.

Jai Hind..... Mera Bharat Mahan !!!!!

Excellent broadband usage monitoring tool to MTNL & BSNL users

With the year 2007 tagged as "The Year of Broadband" by the Indian Telecom Ministry, it becomes very important for us to track our downloads. Because with skyrocketting speeds of 2 Mbps at our homes, things just happen too quickly & by the time we realize how much we have downloaded using Torrents & other P2P softwares, we have a big fat bill from MTNL / BSNL charging us for exceeding the download limits.

I know its too boring to visit their extremely slow sites to check our Account Status. Then why not use a browser like Mozilla Firefox which also gives our account statistics in its status bar. Thats what a brilliant chap named Brian Fernandez has developed. He has developed an extension for Firefox which queries the MTNL / BSNL Servers & shows your account statistics in its status bar. You just need to save your username & password in its settings. Don't worry its totally safe & is being tested by many people in the India Broadband Forum (
http://broadbandforum.in). So what are you waiting for, just install Mozilla Firefox along with this extension available at http://thegoan.com/firefox & keep your Broadband bills under control.