Best Laptop deals in India @ consumermate.com

With Technology becoming cheaper, it becomes even more necessary to get the best out of the latest available Technology. Here is where consumermate.com pitches in. A product of 9.9 Media group.

It’s a complete Web Portal which guides you with A-Z information to have the best Technology deals in India. Currently it lists only Laptops & very soon other products would also get listed. Currently the Home Page is primarily divided into 6 sections – Find a Laptop you need, Digit Test Centre Reviews, Hot Deals, New Launches, Ask Us & Consumer Support. The best feature about the Portal is that most of the Laptops listed here have been thoroughly tested & rated by Digit Test Center – a premier Technology Testing Centre of the Digit Magazine, India’s No.1 Technology Magazine published by 9.9 Media group itself.

Through the Find a Laptop you need section you can search for the Laptop you have been looking for by short-listing through Price, Weight, Screen Size & the Brand. The search has been designed in a very user-friendly manner & even a layman could search. The Hot Deals lists all prevailing schemes with few Brands. Here you would find Combo packages like a Phone / Printer FREE along with a Laptop, etc. And if you are among those who would like to have the latest stuff, then you should definitely look out for the New Launches section. You could also send in your personal query on a specific Laptop Model based on Street Price or Dealer’s Info, & the consumermate.com team would be more than happy to answer your queries.

But before you finalize on any specific Laptop model don’t forget to check out the Digit Test Centre Reviews. I guess words are not enough to describe this interesting Technology Web Portal. You should definitely explore to find out more.

Is your handy Glucometer showing incorrect results?

Its almost been 2 months with my new Accu-chek Active Glucometer, which I have gifted my mom. Hearing all good about this meter I finally decided to go for this as it is said that it gives quite accurate results.

Two days back I went for the standard Blood Glucose tests (Fasting Sugar & Post-Prandial - 2 hours after heavy meal) for my mom. Simultaneously I also got the tests done in a Pathology lab to confirm that the readings that I achieved using both were quite close. When the lab reports were out in the evening, I was very disappointed as there was a huge difference between the Accu-chek Active & the Lab Blood Sugar values. Fasting Sugar - 88 mg/dL (Lab), 152 mg/dL (Accu-chek) & Post-prandial Sugar - 108 mg/dL (Lab), 176 mg/dL. Both the readings varied by almost 70 mg/dL.

To clear my dilemma I then called up the Customer Care at Accu-chek & scheduled an appointment with their executive. After the executive arrived at my place today, I explained to him that both the tests were taken under exact similar conditions & within 15-20 mins time gap. The executive then verified the instrument with the 2 Standard Control Solutions that he was carrying & confirmed that the instrument was perfectly alright. Some of the important things that he told to keep a note is listed below -

1. The Blood Glucose level of Diabetic patients vary quite fast & might change within a matter of few minutes.
2. While puncturing the skin do ensure that Blood comes out easily without applying much pressure. You might attain incorrect readings if you press the skin too much to apply the drop of Blood on the Accu-chek system. To be on the safer side he suggested me to keep the penitration depth to 4 on the Accu-chek Sofclix Lancing device (device used for pricking).
   
3. The Lab tests are conducted almost 2-3 hrs after the patient gives the Blood sample. Since Blood Glucose tests are generally done using Photo-metric meters, the results thus obtained might vary significantly.
4. To cross-check that your Glucometer is giving correct readings, do the tests at the same time while you give your Blood sample to the Lab.
5. Cross-check your Lab reports with other Labs also.
   

Among all the things he discussed, I found the above 4 points logically correct. Among them I found that I was using 1.5 penetration depth setting for my mom using the Softclix Lancing device. I was also pressing hard to get a drop of Blood & this might have caused more concentrated Blood to have oozed out, thus showing higher Blood Glucose values.

I have found many people saying that these Glucometers are a shere waste of money. I just shared this incident with other people using similar self-testing Blood Glucometers facing similar problems, so that they don't arrive at a conclusion that these meters are a waste, without making proper investigation about the measurement procedure. Please use the correct method for taking the reading, else contact the Customer Care to know more before drawing any conclusion.

Fully utilising your new Bluetooth Headset

After carrying Bluetooth enabled Cell Phone Handset from past 5 years, I am atlast a proud owner of a Bluetooth Headset - Nokia BH-320. Not sure whether its a genuine Nokia piece (as it shows "Made in China"), I could atlast buy one due to the excellent deal I got it for. I picked up the piece from grey market for as less as INR 700 after lots of bargaining & showing competative deals from other shops. It comes in an original Nokia Packaging Box, although without any Manual ;-)

Rest assured, the piece is Brand New & comes with a Charger too. It also comes with a Detachable Ear Loop which could be detached (by pulling lightly) & fixed back, to suit your Headset for Left Ear or Right Ear. Before I start describing its full features, I would first help you out with Pairing this device with your Phone. Since it did not come with a Manual, it was an R&D exercise pairing it with my Handset, since the usual method of pairing using Discovery Mode doesn't always work with this.

Pairing - To turn on the Headset you need to keep the CALL BUTTON pressed for around 3-4 secs. Once its turned on you can find that a small Blue Light keeps blinking above the Call Button, indicating that the Headset is in Discoverable mode. Now you can Turn On Bluetooth on your Handset & start with the option of New Paired Device. If the Phone shows you BH-320 on the screen, then its great, you can Pair your Phone with the Headset using the Passkey "0000". If not, you first need to TURN OFF your Headset by pressing the CALL BUTTON for 3-4 secs. Now initiate Pairing from your Cell Phone using New Paired Device & keep the CALL BUTTON pressed on your Headset until it shows BH-320 on the screen. Once paired, you can connect to the Headset (Audio Device) & explore its features (works with Nokia Phones) listed below -

1. Call Pickup - On Phone ring, just press the CALL BUTTON on the Headset once & you get connected.
2. Call Reject - On Phone ring, just keep the CALL BUTTON pressed for 2 secs & the call gets rejected.
3. Volume Control (for Music Player & Call) - Use the + & - buttons provided on the top of the Headset to Control the Volume.
4. Voice Dialing & Voice Commands - When the Phone is in Stanby Mode you can use this excellent feature of Voice Dialing & Voice Commands by pressing the CALL BUTTON once. Within 2-3 secs after the CALL BUTTON is pressed you would hear a very short Musical Tone after which you can Speak & initiate the Voice Dialing / Commands. P.S: The screen at this time shows Speak Now. This feature is really helpful at places where you cannot remove the Phone from your pocket to search the Contact List.
5. Auto Switch-Off - If the Headset looses pairing with your Phone either due to range or due to Bluetooth being turned off from the Phone, the Headset automatically switches off after 5 mins of idle time.
6. Range - The Headset has a range of 10 meters & this could significantly reduce due to EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference) of other Radio devices in the vicinity.
   
7. Battery Life - The Box talks about 150 hours of Standby Time (Time during which the Headset is paired but not being used for Calls / Music) & 6 hours of Call Time. Currently I am getting a Call Time of 3.5 - 4 hrs approximately, probably because its new. While on Call if the Headset runs low on Battery, it starts emitting short beeps & the LED colour turns from Blue to Green. It charges to its peak within 1.5 to 2 hrs with a 5.7 V, 800 mA Charger.
   

Its been almost 10 days with this Headset & I am quite happy with it. There are other similar models available like N95 which also boast of similar functionalities. I have also paired the Headset with my Windows Mobile Phone. Unfortunately with Windows Mobile, I found the Volume to be less during Calls & that this Headset cannot be used with the Windows Media Player. With Windows Mobile, it can only work as a Hands-free. You can also pair this Headset with a Desktop or Laptop, if they have an built-in Bluetooth Support or you have a Bluetooth Dongle which supports Audio Gateway profile in Windows.

I am anyways very impressed with the Headset looking into the Price & the quality its offering. Why don't you hunt for one in the grey market, probably you could pick-up a cheaper deal!!!

Low Budget Upgrade of your Desktop Hardware

My PC had bore the brunt of the 26/7 deluge that had happened in Mumbai wayback in 2005. It was still continuing to work fine until last month, when it finally succumed to its injuries :-)

I had an excellent original Intel 865 GBF Desktop Motherboard since 2003. It had 5 PCI slots & also 8 USB Ports. But last month when my PC conked off I had no other option but to replace my Motherboard with a new one. Unfortunately the new family of Intel Processors are Pinless & so I had to look out for a Motherboard with Legacy Processaor support, since I had a P4 Processor which was with Pins.

I then found an Asus Motherboard with Intel 865 Chipset. Although the Motherboard was quite smaller in size & had support for PCI Express Graphics Card as well as DDR2 support, I was still not happy with it since it lacked some of my basic needs - less PCI slots (only 3), less USB Ports (2 - Front, 2 - Back) & only 1 IDE Slot. Among them the one that bothered me most was only 1 IDE slot, because I had 2 IDE Hard Disks, 1 IDE DVD ROM & 1 IDE CD-Writer. 1 IDE slot meant that I could connect only 2 IDE devices & for me the priority would be my 2 IDE Hard Disks.

Inspite of the IDE issue I settled for this Motherboard by selling off my CD-Writer (for Rs.250) in exchange of a SATA DVD-Writer for Rs.1200. I also upgraded my DDR1 RAM of 512 MB with DDR2 RAM of 1 GB which just cost me Rs.400 (800 - 400[old RAM] = Rs.400). I now had a working configuration with 1 GB RAM, 2 IDE HDD's, 1 SATA DVD-Writer. I thus had 1 SATA Port still unused out of the 2. I still didn't sell off my old DVD-ROM thinking that I would somehow upgrade my HDD's from IDE to SATA later on. My PC was now working fine & I started looking out for options to fix my old DVD-ROM so that I could easily perform DVD to DVD (copy on the Fly) copies. Finally I found the stuff that I was looking for - an IDE to SATA (& vice-versa) convertor. Image shown below -
This convertor is available for just Rs.350 & the 40 Pin IDE Port connects to your legacy IDE CD/DVD-ROM drive & the SATA cable needs to be connected to the SATA Port labelled IDE Host with the other end connected to the SATA Port on the Motherboard. One thing which most people forget to do is to plugin the Power Cable to this convertor. Instead of using a separate Power Cable you can use the one used in your Floppy Drives too. Another important thing is that you need to set your legacy IDE CD/DVD-ROM drive in MASTER mode using the jumper. Without these 2 important things your legacy IDE CD/DVD-ROM drive would not get detected by your BIOS.

With the above mentioned investments on new Hardware I now have a very good upgraded System with 1GB RAM & a DVD-Writer, by just shelling out Rs.4500 approx. from my pocket.

Isn't this a low budget upgrade of your Desktop Hardware in times of recession?