Posts tagged Life
Roundtable with S.Somasegar, Microsoft
Apr 17th
My M.V.P lead Mr. Abhishek Baxi called me few days ago all of a sudden to tell me about the urgent opportunity to meet Mr. Somasegar S, Senior Vice President of Microsoft, Developer Division. Whose going to miss such an opportunity, so I packed my bags, took the first bus available to Delhi as train tickets were not available on time & reached Delhi.
I had no place to stay so stayed with my brother in his college hostel & thanks to his contacts I was able to locate Oberoi Hotel. I reached there on time for the meet to start.
Its rare to get a chance to meet such influencing personality like Mr. Somasegar S from Microsoft who is the reason why we developers & designers are able to create such magnificent solutions for Windows. He creates the hammer, using which we chisel out the craft.
I wasn’t expecting many people but to my surprise there were many people all from there own field of expertise. It was an honor to meet Mr. Vijay Malhotra again who inspired me to start paying attention to Linguistic when we make a software at InfraniX. I was also able to meet Mr. Vinod Unny, regional Director Microsoft.
I hope I didn’t make the attendees angry by throwing maximum question at Mr. Somasegar. I asked question like integration between Photoshop & Expression Blend, Microsoft DreamSpark initiative etc. Despite of having just one hour with us, Somasegar Sir were able to answer many of our questions.
You can view all the pictures at the Flickr Photo stream of Abhishek Baxi. I am adding some to this post.
Group Photograph
Even Grace Agrees, I am still fat.
Ah! I love to reflex my Rake Muscle
Apr 4th
Other then what I do for living, I am good in one thing only…Talking. People usually call me a Devil or sometimes Rake, better known as a maestro of words.
I had 3 presentations lined up this week in 3 Colleges of Lucknow with the marketing guys of my company. They wanted me to talk instead of them, so I had a good opportunity to stretch my Rakeness.
Today I had presentation & seminar in Sagar Institute of Technology & Management, in Barabanki, near Lucknow with the Third Year students of B.Tech – C.S & I.T.
As usual, I didn’t take any PPT with me or anything else, I just barged in & went on to talk with the students. The students were mostly mum & taking things lightly. I tried to ask them “What you don’t like about computers & how do you think you can fix or change it"?”
I found the same complaints which I have myself faced in academic life…
1. Education & B.Tech is regarded as a way to get a degree only.
2. Students have ideas & innovation, they just don’t know how to implement it. Most of the time when they do try, they are told by the teachers to concentrate on there course only.
3. They are unable to think out of the box.
Well, the situation has not changed a lot since the time when I passed 12 & when I decided not to go for B.Tech. I told the students just one thing, To hell with the system.
The job market is under recession right now due to which companies are not hiring fresher. They are instead going for people with some experience, but students are not able to get experience without proper training. All I told them that never let an idea die. If the teacher isn’t supporting, don’t take his help. If your parent’s are not supporting, don’t take there help. Its your life & do what you think you can do instead of being told what to do. Sometimes even the parents are not supportive so we cannot blame the students completely either.
Trouble with twitter
Mar 31st
Many of my friends are on twitter these days & twitter is said to be the next “Next big thing” in Web 2.0. Maybe it is good but I just don’t get Twitter’s Hype. I don’t want to tell everyone what I am doing at any given time. If I have a friend who I want to tell something, I will simply call him or her & say it.
Twitter is for Microblogging, ok..this I get but at least for me it has no use at all. I got real life friends who meet me in real life & I find real life with them better then virtual life.
I found this funny video of twitter troubles on Youtube.
You can follow me on Twitter though at http://twitter.com/gx_saurav
Real life is indeed better….
The Small Wonder : X-Mini Max
Mar 23rd
It is very hard to believe that despite of using computers for almost 10 years , I never purchased speakers. I am not that much into music & movies & watch them once in a while only so my primary source of Audio is my Philips SHP8900 Hi-Fi headphones.
Due to all this I never had good experience with speakers. I wanted to buy small portable speakers for my Nokia N79 which can run on battery & provide enough volume & loudness for 1 room. I don’t want to disturb the whole neighborhood so wanted something which is small, can run via battery, can be charged quickly & which can be carried to small parties in a Cargo Short’s pockets or a simple Backpack.
I found X-mini Max Stereo Speakers but wasn’t expecting them in Lucknow but I found them in Jumbo Electronics in Fun Republic. Jumbo Electronics is indeed a good place for such kind of fancy electronics items which are usually hard to find anywhere else in Lucknow. I was surprises to find X-Mini Max there & after a bargain I was able to buy it at Rs 2,200.
X-mini Max is available in a cylindrical packaging as shown above which is quite compact. The speakers look like a small bomb form a Sci –Fi movie when they are both connected together. Many eyes were looking at us when we were trying them in McDonalds 
.
The package contains the speakers, one connectivity cable & one small pouch to keep the speakers while traveling. When the speaker is inside the cloth pouch, it is still very small to carry in your Cargo’s side pocket.
My primary purpose of buying these speakers was to use with my N79 & once in a while with my PC when I have many people watching a movie in my room.
I captured some videos during video & music playback with my Sony Cybershot W80 Digicam.
Don’t compare these with full blown speakers like Creative T40 or iTrigue because they are real PC speakers & they are indeed better if you plan to use them on a PC only however they are not as portable as these X-Mini speakers.
X-mini gives sufficient audio to completely fill a medium size hall with audio. Whether you are listening to music on PC or using a digital audio player or mobile phone, the X-Mini will indeed give you sufficient audio. However, don’t plan to use them in Outdoor environment as due to open area the audio will spread in all direction & overall volume will decrease. The speakers are marked at 3.5W RMS each.
The only thing I have to which I can compare the sound quality of these speakers is my T.V’s speakers. Compared to them the vocal dialogs of T.V shows wasn’t that loud. The audio doesn’t distort up to 90% volume level but does distorts at 100%. Make sure you close the Bass accordion when watching movies as movies usually have dialogs more then music at which Bass can produce bad audio with these speakers.
Audio when watching movies is better when the speakers are placed on a 90 degree angel facing you.
The speakers provide a playback time of 8 hours with a full charge & take 2 hours to charge completely. They can be charged either by connecting to a PC via USB or a USB Wall A.C adapter. They can also be charged using D.C batteries if you have a portable travel charger with a Mini USB connector. I found one on ebay & have ordered it. During charging the light turns to red, when fully charged or playing they turn to blue. Light blue means battery is low.
Overall, if you are looking for big full blown speakers & if you are an audiophile for which even a point increase in treble means a lot, then buy these speakers after checking properly. However, if you are looking for something portable to use with your Notebook or Netbook PC, or Mobile phone or iPod or something else portable then X-Mini Max stereo for Rs 2,200 is a good purchase.
BSNL 3G : It works
Mar 19th
Finally, I got BSNL 3G USIM in Lucknow. Right now 3G is quite costly but the BSNL Voice calls costs less then Vodafone. You can read the tariff of BSNL 3G here.
Note : I am no longer using the BSNL 3G USIM. I inquired the information & did all the research for this service so this content & discussion on this blog post can continue.
3G is automatically activated when you activate the SIM using Rs 350 or higher activation voucher. To configure your phone for 3G Data Connection, just create a new connection with Access point “gprsnorth3g.bsnlmobile.in” or “bsnlnet” & leave all the other settings at default. Name it “BSNL 3G”. Then go to your phone’s “Network selection” menu & Select UMTS instead of GSM/Dual Mode.
If 3G isn’t available & if your phone is set in Dual mode then your SIM will automatically work in 2G mode. In that case the tariff will be same as 3G
The speed of BSNL 3G is HSDPA compatible & although I am not getting 3.6 mbps but the speed is still quite good at 512 kbps easily. Here is a screenshot which I was able to take of Symtorrent just before the speed throttled. The speed is 48 KBps or 384 kbps. To test the speed of your GPRS/EDGE or 3G connection check your DSL Report’s Mobile Speed at http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed
1) IMAP & POP3 E-Mail is supported. I am able to access my E-mails in my N79′s inbuilt E-mail client.
2) HTTP is supported. I am able to log in to chat networks using Slick.
3) FTP is also supported. ftp.gxsaurav.com works too using Webkit Browser.
4) Fring works fine, I can even make calls to people using Google Talk & Skype on computers.
5) SymTorrent works fine for downloading Torrents.
6) I am able to connect my PC to BSNL 3G using Nokia PC Suite’s One touch access.
There is a great handy software called JoikuSpot Premium using which we can connect a PC to 3G internet of a Mobile phone. JoikuSpot turns your phone to a secure mobile WLAN HotSpot. No need for USB dongles, cables or Bluetooth. The light version is pretty much useless so premium is all you should buy if this is what you need. However, if you have Nokia PC Suite, you can also use to connect Mobile to PC to Internet. This is the speed I get.
BSNL has data plans starting with lowest denomination at Rs 250 in which you get 300 MB bandwidth. Now, for casual users this is a lot of bandwidth & they will only use 50 MB in a month when using Data services only in Mobile phone. BSNL also has a trial Pack of Rs 60 in which you will get 50 MB bandwidth but this trial pack can be used only once in any USIM & is valid for 15 days only. I would really urge BSNL to make this trial pack a proper 3G data pack in which for Rs 60 the user will get 50 MB bandwidth for a duration of 30 days. This is something every 3G subscriber will surely buy as most people associate 3G with High Speed Internet, but they forget that 3G is also about a better network connectivity & voice quality.
I was also able to make a video call to a friend Shuvadeep from Durgapur. He is using HTC Touch Diamond. I was able to take a screenshot during the video call but for some reason the screenshot application didn’t capture his video.
