Socrates’s experience

Setting up of MTNL's B450TC1 modem cum WiFi router

2012-01-26T09:56:00.020+05:30

Recently I had the opportunity to setup a B 450TC1 wireless modem cum router. Setting up is fairly straight forward & should not be a problem for anyone. To set up

1) We first open a browser & type 192.168.1.1 in the location bar.

You will see a similar pop up on your screen. The User Name is ‘admin’ and Password is also ‘admin’ after

2) Next you will see the following window

3) Click on the tab ‘Interface Setup’ -> ‘Internet’

4) Make ‘Virtual Circuit’ as ‘PVC 0’

5) Make ‘Status’ as ‘Activated’

6) Make ‘VPI’ as ‘0’ and ‘VCI’ as ‘32’

7) Select ‘ISP’ as ‘PPPoA/PPPoE’

8) Type your Telephone as your ‘Username’

9) And your CA No. as your ‘Password’ (CA number is your Customer A/c number found on your tel bill)

10) Next type TCP MSS = 1360 Bytes or leave it as 1400 (Default).

11) And type TCP MTU = 1492 Bytes.

12) Go to the bottom of the page & click on ‘Save’.

13) To enable DHCP go to 'Interface Setup'->'LAN' and select DHCP option

14) If you notice ‘DNS Relay’ is set as ‘User Discovered’ ie hard coded, I would suggest that it’s set to Auto Discovery.

15) To save click on 'Save' button at bottom of page.

16) Go to the ‘Maintenance’ tab & then on ‘Sysrestart’ (See Below)

17) Select ‘Current Settings’

18) Click on ‘Restart’

The basic ADSL modem setting are finished. To check if you are connected to the internet in the setting of the modem/router go to the ‘Status’ tab as seen below.

To setup the WiFi.

Open the router page as mentioned as before

Go to ‘Interface Setup’ ->’Wireless’ (See Below)

Make ‘Access Point’ as ‘Activated’

Add a SSID (Your Network name) of your choice but not your name of address.

Authentication Type is selected as WPA2-PSK

Encryption is selected as TKIP/AES

Pre shared key is the wifi password. For generating long random passwords you can use

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
https://secure.pctools.com/guides/password/

For further security I would suggest using the MAC filters for which in the above picture

Select ‘Active’

Action should be made ‘Allow Association’. And the MAC addresses of the gadgets you want to connect to the WiFi router should be added

Lastly click on ‘Save’ then as above

Go to the ‘Maintenance’ tab & then on ‘Sysrestart’

Select ‘Current Settings’

Click on ‘Restart’

I am now presuming you know how to get your other gadgets connected to this wifi router.

I am given to understand that this screenshots & setup is similar for UT-Star wireless Type II & IV, Beetel Type A 410TC1m, wireless type B 450TC1 & type C 480TC1.

Samsung Galaxy Ace Useful points

2012-01-10T19:44:00.023+05:30

I am writing this as I find new tips/tricks & hidden features on this phone a Samsung Galaxy Ace running Android 2.3.4 GINGERBREAD.DDKQ6 which is now available for users in India. This is not a review or spec sheet for this phone, as you can find ample of that on the net.

One of the first thing that a first time user (like me) of an android phone hears, is that the battery performance is poor this is true to an extent as the battery technology has not kept up with the facilities that are now offered & used on these smartphone.

Some of the features that I have switched off as the obvious suspects like WiFi/Bluetooth/GPS. In WiFi setting there is a ‘Network Notification ‘ which helps in checking & informing if there is a wifi network in your neighbourhood. Frankly I find this unnecessary as I would prefer to check this ONLY if & when I need a WiFi connection. Of course keeping this ‘on’ is a drain on battery power as well as a security risk.

If you do not use 3G then make your Network mode as ‘GSM only’ else your phone will forever try to search for 3G signals which you have not subscribed for & drain your battery. If you have subscribed for 3G then do not so the previous point but switch off ‘Data roaming’ unless someone else is paying your bill.

If you have installed apps on your phone many of them access your GPRS without your knowledge (actually we agree to it when we download & install them but how many read carefully the ‘Permissions’ tab). I found some apps, which I need doing this, I even noticed data being downloaded when I was scrolling thru my Home screens in such a case switch off the ‘Use packet data’ option. If you are a GPRS user then install a GPRS on/off app to make this easier.

When I first started downloading apps onto my phone I was asked to login to my Gmail a/c thru my phone, which I did but even though I opted against syncing my contacts it did anyway. I also noticed that the phone would try to auto sync my mail when I did not need it in such an eventuality I have opted for deselecting ‘Background Data’ which enables applications to sync, send & receive data at any time. (Found in ‘Accounts & sync settings’). This is fine when I am in my wifi range but not otherwise, so I did this. There is also separate option for switching off auto sync off. I have still to investigate why these two are separate. But remember to switch on (select check box) ‘Background Data’ when you try to download an app else it will not come thru :)

To check whether an installed app has an update you will have to visit ‘My apps’ section of Android Market. Items that have a new version available will say ‘Update available’. You'll also be able to select apps that you'd like to have update automatically. To do this, visit an app's details page from the Market on your device and check the box that says ‘Allow automatic updating’.

Keeping the option of making the Bluetooth in your phone ‘Discoverable’ also drains your battery & as well as a security risk.

Other features are the screen brightness can be reduced to what you find expectable. If your phone has the sensor that senses the ambient light to change the screen brightness check whether switching that off helps increasing your battery life. Using dark coloured themes or wall papers helps in reducing the drain on your battery as well as NOT using animated themes or wall papers.

A lot of Ace owners find the absence of ‘Profiles’ as they knew it in their older phones a bit perplexing/irritating, the easiest solution is to go in for a App that does the job but keep in mind to check ‘Permissions’) as I have found that many apps want rights to go where they have no business (IMO), of course that can be set at the top the page by selecting ‘Safe Search Strict’ (my choice). Also go in for an app which can be moved to the SD card or else it will just hog (already limited) space in your phone memory. For someone who just wants to put his/her phone on ‘Silent mode’ you can do it in the following way

Thru the menu ‘Menu’->’Settings’->’Sound’-> ‘Silent mode’.
Drag down your notification bar & touch the ‘Sound’ icon second from right which will go grey & become ‘Vibration’.
Go to the ‘Tel’ icon (Green icon, first from left) on your home screen & then on the top there is a ‘Keypad’ tab which will bring on the number screen. Keep your finger on the ‘#’ button & your phone will vibrate & go into ‘Silent’ mode’.
The second & third option work for me as my settings is that the phone will vibrate on if silent mode is selected. ‘Menu’->’Settings’->’Sound’-> ‘Silent mode’

Screenshot:

To take screenshot of your phone simply hold on back button and then click middle button, your screenshots will be stored into SD card under folder called screen capture.ie: home + back button.

To use your own MP3 as ringtone, sms tone or message tone. Create a folder on your SD card (internal or external work) and call it ‘Media’ folder. In that folder create a folder and name your ‘Audio’. In the audio folder, create three folders, named ‘Alarms’, ‘Notifications’ and ‘Ringtones’. In that folder you can put MP3s, suitable as alarm/notification/message tones or ringtones.

If you go to messages and press the menu button, you can go to Settings (at the bottom), select a ringtone for SMS.

A shortcut for making calls or sending sms is when you have selected a contact (you can do this directly thru ‘Contacts’ or thru ‘Favorites’ or thru ‘Groups’. If you swipe a contact right to left you can go to composing a sms. If you swipe left to right you be calling that contact.

To move apps from internal memory go to the ‘Application Manager’, found by clicking menu then ‘Settings’ then ‘Applications’ then ‘Manage Applications’. In ‘Downloaded’ tap an apps & it will show whether it has a provision for moving each app. As long as the ‘Move to.. .’ button is not grayed out. Just go into the application manager and you'll see the 3rd party apps listed in one tab, along with "running" and "on sd card," etc. Else you can use the ‘App2SD’ mentioned below.

The menu path is a bit different from one Android phone to another, but you'll find it if you start looking around.

For people whose phone is not recognized after connecting to their PC thru the USB cable.

1. Connect the Phone to your laptop

2. From your phone, open the notifications bar and select the USB Connected option and you will get a screen saying Turn on USB Storage... Click on that and press ok in the pop up.. and when you see your android guy turn orange, you can find your phone in the Computer window.

If you still have problems reinstall KIES again & try. If the problem persists then it’s possible that the drivers were not installed properly go to C:\Program Files\Samsung\Kies\USB Driver . you wil find a file called ‘SAMSUNG_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones’. Execute it (its an exe file) & then try again.

For those who miss the ‘Templates’ option which were present on their previous phones. Try this work around.

Another tip for those who miss templates I would suggest that the templates you had in your older phones (like me) which were used in sms replies can now stored as memo’s. When you want to use a template to reply to a sms do this. When you are viewing the sms you want to reply to tap on the compose option seen at the bottom (the keypad will pop up on your screen, ignore it), with the cursor in compose option tap the ‘Menu’ key (left of the ‘Home’ button) then tap on the ‘Add Text’ option you will get a menu with a title ‘Add Text’ with the following options ‘Contacts’, ‘Calendar’ &, ‘Memo’.

Tap on ‘Memo’ which will take you to your memos, go the relevant one select & copy then come back to your sms & paste. That’s it you are done. You won’t miss templates. Remember it means you can DIRECTLY insert contents of your ‘Contacts’, ‘Calendar’ &, ‘Memo’ into your sms or sms replies.

So far I have used four apps which are

1) Jaxtrsms: which uses GPRS/3G or WiFi to send free sms to anyone, anywhere in the world even if they DO NOT use this app. I have been by & large successful in sending sms.

2) APP2SD: which can transfer apps installed on the phone memory to SD card (provided the app allows it)

3) Tiny Flashlight + LED: which allows the use of the phone LED as a torch.

4) MyPhoneExplorer: (http://www.fjsoft.at/en/) which is the client for the s/w which I use as a suite for my phone. This s/w does all that Samsung KIES promises to do except updating the phone firmware & accessing Samsung apps.

A few observations about Jaxtrsms as on 22-1-2012. I noticed constant thru put in my GPRS (even when I am scrolling thru my phone menu) with a result I have shut down GPRS & switch on only when required. Other deficiencies are

a) When I send multiple numbers in an sms it would be nice to see them at a later stage. Currently I can only see the first name & part of the second name only no more.

b) Update 17-1-2012: None of my sms in the last 2 days seem to be reaching their destination :( Also noticed that the sms seem to reach Vodafone numbers but not Loop. Is it because the messages now come from LM which I think stands for Loop Mumbai!!!!!!!

c) Update 18-1-2012: Now I am quite sure that since this apps is using 'LM' for sending sms in India or at least in Mumbai Loop user do not receive sms from this apps:(

d) Update:20-1-2012 Updated the app on my phone & it now shows a 'D' next to a delivered SMS but sms sent to Loop Mobile customers still does not get thru even though it show the 'D' for delivered sign next to the sms :( very unhappy. Even when the sms gets delivered the ‘D’ sign does not change to ‘R’ as claimed.

e) I hope this is a temporary glitch & it will come out of Beta soon to live upto its promises of course service providers in India will have to cooperate. As it looks like they are now blocking sms from this app at their servers.

How do I check the WLAN MAC address of a Nokia phone?

2011-11-09T19:47:00.001+05:30

To check the unique Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Media Access Control (MAC) address that identifies your Nokia phone, enter *#62209526# press call (in the idle mode) or with touch screen phones after opening the dialler.

How to configure Netgear Wireless N150 model WGR614 wireless router

2011-01-30T09:28:00.038+05:30

This setup is for a Netgear Wireless N150 model WGR614 in conjunction with a D-Link DSL 502T on a MTNL ‘Triband’ ADSL broadband connection.

Before you install your wireless router, make sure that the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Property settings on your computer are set to “Obtain an IP address automatically ” using DHCP and for DNS settings "Use the following DNS server address' where you can enter the DNS address of your choice. You can check these settings by looking at the TCP/IP Properties of your Internal Network Connections, which are accessible through the Control Panel of your computer.To connect the wireless router, the computer, and the modem:

1. Turn off your computer.

2. Turn off and unplug the broadband modem.

3. Locate the cable (A) that connects your computer to the modem.
4. Disconnect the cable at the modem end only (B). You will connect it to the router later.

5. Locate the Ethernet cable that came with your NETGEAR product. insert one end of this Internet cable (See below) into your modem (C) and the other end into the Internet port of the wireless router (D). (The cable and the Internet port label are color coded.)

6. Locate the cable (A) that is still attached to your computer (see below). Insert that cable into any one port (1-4) on the router, such as port 4 (E), as shown in figure below.

7. Connect any additional wired computer to your router by inserting an Ethernet cable from one of these computers into one of the three remaining LAN ports.
8. Review that your network is now set up (as seen below); you are ready to start your network.

9. Start your network in the correct sequence, as mentioned below.

So much for the hardware connections. Power up the Netgear WiFi router & desktop computer. Now lets get to the basic configuration of the Netgear wireless router.

This is how I have done it successfully so you can too.
Open IE6/IE7 or Firefox browser and type 192.168.1.1, a window will pop up & ask for username & password. Default username is ‘admin’ & default password is ‘password ‘ both in lowercase letters. (For security reasons, the router has its own user name and password.) next you will come to the screen as seen below. The password can be changed later.

As I mentioned above the first thing we have to do is to change the IP of the wifi router as it clashes with that of the ADSL modem. For that click on the ‘LAN Setup’ on the right side tab to come to the pic seen below.

Enter a device name of your choice
IP Address: 10.10.0.1
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Next two entries are left as it is
Select check box ‘Use router as DHCP server’
Starting IP Address: 10.10.0.2
Ending IP address: 10.10.0.50 (you can specify a number upto 255 but I would suggest limit this number to what ever number of device you envisage will connect to your WiFi (I normally use 5-10).

Click on ‘Apply’

At this point you will loose contact with the wireless router through the browser. Double click on the computer icon in your task bar & go to the ‘Support’ tab and see the IP taken automatically by the machine will most probably be 10.10.0.2. Now type 10.10.0.1 in the browser location bar to gain access on the configuration page of the router.
Click on ‘Setup Wizard’ in the right side tab to get the following.

Click on ‘Yes’ & then on ‘Next’ to arrive at the pic shown below

Click on ‘Yes’

Now switch on the D-Link 502T and after the lights become steady, on the desktop click on ‘Start’ button -> ‘Run’ & type ping 192.168.1.1. If you get ‘timed out’ message, then there is some error, so go over all points above to see if you have missed anything. If you see a reply like the pic below all is well. You could also open another tab & try to browse the net.

You should be able to access the Internet on your desktop. Hurray So far so good, remember that your network is still unsecured and we still have to configure the security settings etc.

Security Settings

After that click on ‘Wireless Settings’ in the right side tab to arrive at the pic seen below

Give your network a name, the network name is also called SSID next

Region: Asia
Channel: 11
Mode: upto 150Mbps (there are three modes ‘upto 54 Mbps’ ie ‘g’, ‘upto 75 Mbps’ ie ‘b’ or ‘g’, ‘upto 150Mbps’ ie ‘n’).

In

Security Options: WPA2 PSK (AES) currently considered the best, below that enter the
Passphrase: (I enter a 63 character password)
Click on ‘Apply’

See
https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
https://secure.pctools.com/guides/password/ for password generation.

You can now turn to your wireless PC or laptop to connect it to the wireless network. Here I am assuming your laptop has a built in WiFi card, if you are using an adaptor then follow the instructions of the adaptor maker. XP has a very user-friendly wireless networking utility. If you’re setting up a network for the first time, use the Windows Wireless Network Setup Wizard, in the Control Panel. This copies configuration info to a USB flash drive that you can insert into each additional PC or device. If you use Vista/Win 7 (like me) it’s just as easy going thru the Control Panel for first time users. After you have gone thru the setup wizard and it has recognized the network with the name you had previously given it, enter the password where asked (When you use a password 63 or 64 characters long copy paste it in your WiFi router then save the password in ‘Notepad’, then transfer this password to a pendrive & paste it in your laptops.) now you should be able to access the Internet. So far so good but not quite good enough. We now have to set up the MAC filters.
In the right side tab go to ‘Advanced’->’Wireless Settings’

Enable ‘Wireless Router Radio’ & ‘Enable SSID Brooadcast’ & ‘Keep Existing Wireless Settings'’ Then click on the button ‘Set up Access List’ to get the pic seen below.

Click on ‘Turn Access Control On’.

Here you will see the gadgets that are connected to your WiFI network..

Click on ‘Add’ & enter the name & MAC address of the device.
Select the relevant radio buttons.
Click on ‘Apply’
PS Remember that now to access the router thru the browser the address is 10.10.0.1 and NOT the one you will find in the user guides (192.168.1.1). And to access the D-Link 502T thru browser you type 192.168.1.1. Happy surfing.

To find the MAC address of your computer go to http://socrates0.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-configure-linksys-wrt54g.html for your Samsung Wave GT-S8500. see below

Open menu in you Samsung Wave

Then open “Settings”.

Scroll down to open “About Phone"

Once you open “About Phone”, go to “System Info"

then open “System Info” & in tab named “Device” you will get the MAC address .

A few useful sites are mentioned below.

http://www.whatismyip.com/
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks
https://www.opendns.com/
http://speedtest.net/
http://pingtest.net/
http://airtel.in/speedcheck

Changing your Firefox default keyword search

2010-12-03T22:47:00.003+05:30

Of late I have been bugged by some software's making changes to my default search engine especially when I type the keyword in the address bar. To restore back to your original, open the about:config page and pull up the entry name keyword.URL, it can be modified to change the search behavior of the address bar. Mine is Google so to use google search change it to, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=, and now all your searches go through google. :D

Email Merge thru Thunderbird

2010-10-10T12:48:00.011+05:30

This is a tutorial to use the email merge thru Thunderbird 3.1.4 or later (Can be found here http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/ ). I have also used the add-on called 'MailMerge'.

First install the latest ver of Thunderbird & configure the email a/c. (I have not included the instructions here). Then install the add-on found here -> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/47144/

'MailMerge' is a Thunderbird extension designed by Alexander Bergmann. The Mail Merge extension is compatible with the latest Thunderbird 3.0.* releases, and is cross-platform. It supports two features, dubbed Mass Mail and Personal Mail.

'Mass Mail' allows you to create a draft email, put your intended recipients in the To:, CC:, and BCC: fields, then automatically split the draft into a set of identical copies with one addressed to each recipient. This is all done without special preparation beforehand; the extension adds a button labeled Mass Mail to the toolbar; you compose your mail as usual, then click on Mass Mail to perform the split.

The 'Personal Mail' feature is far more like a traditional paper mail-merge. You create a message template, with control codes in place of the fields you wish to include, then link the template to a comma-separated-value file (CSV) populated with your intended recipients. The control characters use double braces, and you can define any fields you want — just place their field names in the first line of the CSV. You will probably only use the recipient’s name and email address, so your template might just include {{name}} and {{email_address}}, but you could include other information from your address book in the body of the message if you need to.

Close Thunderbird for now.

Now lets get down to preparing the database containing the fields that you will use in the email that is going to be sent to 'X' number of people. As you will see in the fig. Below I have made columns with the title

'Salutations' which will contain 'Dear', 'Mr', 'Ms', 'Maam', 'Pachi' etc

'Fname' will contain the First Name of the recipient.

'Lname' will contain the Last Name of the recipient.

'EmailID' will contain the Email ID of the recipient.

After giving the column headings save the file as a .CSV file (Comma Seperated Values). Now fill in the details of all the recipients. This file can be opened in Microsoft Office or in OpenOffice. You can add other details if required taking care to give a column name which is indicative of its contents.

Now open Thunderbird click on 'Write' as seen below

In this window as seen below I have specified the column headings enclosed in double braces. For the recipients its {{EmailID}}. ie: In the 'To' type {{EmailID}}When the email is sent the email ids from this column in your database will occupy this space & that is what the recipients will see at his end.

Now you can type out the contents of the email & can be addressed as seen in the figure below, ofcourse you can format it in anyway. Some examples are

Eg 1:

To,

Dear {{Fname}} {{Salutations}} which will appear as

To,

Dear Shailesh Maam to the recipient

Eg 2:

To,

Dear {{Fname}} {{Lname}} which will appear as

To,

Dear Shailesh Parab to the recipient

You can try out any permutation and combination but remember that if you have a column in your database, you can place its contents in your email at a location of your choice.

Now to send the email click on 'File' in the Menu bar (seen below) & then click on 'Personal Mail'

you will get a window which looks like this (see below)

In this window you will have to click on 'Browse' push button to select the file which contains your database. If your database is small then leave other entries as you see them & then click on 'Ok'. But if your database is large I would suggest that you specify the 'Start' & 'Stop' containing the record numbers to limit the output of emails being sent at any given time.

One drawback of this add on, ver 1.3.1 working with Thunderbird ver 3.1.4, is it does not allow embedded pictures to be transmitted. Hopefully this will be rectified in future versions.

Setup instructions for MyPhoneExplorer for Samsung Galaxy S

2010-10-09T21:07:00.014+05:30

Samsung Galaxy S is also called i9000 on the Samsung website http://www.samsung.com/in/consumer/mobile-phone/mobile-phone/touch-phone/GT-I9000HKAINU/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&returnurl=

If you start MyPhoneExplorer ver 1.8.0 & click on ‘File’->’Settings’->’Phone with Google Andriod OS’ & then take the mouse pointer to ‘Sample’ next to it you will see that Samsung i9000 is mentioned in it which is the nomenclature for Samsumg Galaxy S. so this phone is compatible with this s/w. Also mentioned here http://www.fjsoft.at/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8965&sid=bd29b3f5949597ab220c86627645474a

You have to remember two things here in this setup

1) If you want to connect via cable or by Bluetooth the settings will be different & you will have to reconfigure separately for each type of connection.

2) If you are connecting thru USB cable AND you happen to connect thru different USB port then your configuration will change & you will have to come to this section of ‘Setting’ to click again on the push button ‘Search for Device’.

Before starting I suggest that backups be made of important data on your phone also remember that 'Andriod' is still 'Work-In-Progress' . :) Now lets get to the setup. Close the s/w & connect the USB cable (or bluetooth dongle) & then start the s/w, you should see some balloons popping up in your task bar, let that process go on.

Click on ‘File’->’Settings’ then click on 'Connection' (seen in the left pane). (See below).

Click on ’Phone with Google Andriod OS’.

‘OBEX packet size’ should be ‘Autodetect’.

Select ‘Write log file’.

Remember that the COM port number & Baud rate number seen in the figure below maybe different from what you see in the s/w on your machine, do not change it.

At this point DO NOT CLICK ON 'Search for Device'. That will be done last when all selections are done. (Page 6)

Now make the selection as seen in the following picture.

Next click on ‘Startup’ in the left pane & the following window will be seen.

Next click on ‘Appearance’ in the left pane & the following window will be seen. Here you can change the 'Font' & 'First Day of the Week'

Next click on ‘Behaviour' in the left pane & the following window will be seen.

Next click on ‘Sync’ in the left pane & the following window will be seen.

As seen the picture immediately above 'Only MyPhoneExplorer' is selected, as syncronisation is being inside this s/w itself in case you want to sync with another s/w like MS Outlook, MS Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail etc (depending on whether any of the above mentioned is installed on your computer), you will have to make the appropiate selection in 'Contacts', 'Calender', 'Notes' seen in picture above. Also the correct 'Sync protocol' should be selected. 'SyncML' is usually the universal standard but you might have to experiment here as the 'User Guide' is silent on this maybe the forum can help !!!

Next click on ‘Multi-Sync’ in the left pane & the following window will be seen.

Next click on ‘Advanced 1’ in the left pane & the following window will be seen.

Next click on ‘Advanced 2’ in the left pane & the following window will be seen. Here you can change the location of 'Photo Sync' folder (where photos are stored) & location of your database. Its preferable to keep them on a drive other than C:\ where the computer OS is stored.

After making all the selections as seen in the figures above are done, lets go back to 'Connection' again.

Click on ‘Search for device’. It should usually detect your phone without any problems, IN CASE it does not then you should play around with the ‘COM port’ selection depending on which USB port you have connected to & ‘baud rate’ to get it going. If it still does not, then post your problem on the forum (link given below) to get an answer from the developer.

Hope this helps :)

Forum for this s/w & can be useful in future for further reading about any bugs, shortcomings etc. They can be directly communicated to the developer for remedies.

http://www.fjsoft.at/forum/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=31449d2cff846bbedbf6d47708a2b32b

After this done I suggest you take a 'Backup' by clicking on 'Extras' in the Menu bar & then clicking on 'Create Backup' before exploring any further :)

How to change password of MTNL Broadband Account

2010-07-17T17:20:00.013+05:30

The Broadband User account consists of a Username and Password. This Username and Password is used for connecting to MTNL Broadband Network.

Customers are advised to change the password soon after the connection is set-up.

For your Broadband Account your Telephone No. ( Telephone No. on which the Broadband Connection has been provided) shall be the Username.

The CA number ( Consumer Account Number) of this telephone shall be the initial password. The CA Number is available on the telephone bill.

The change of password is required to be done at two places –

one on the MTNL Server and the
other on the MTNL Broadband Modem set-up.

First change the password on MTNL server and then on the Modem as described below-

Follow the procedure given below to change the password -

Connect to Internet and open the webpage, http://register.mtnl.net.in

Use your username ( Telephone No.) and the password ( your CA number) to login to your self-care page. (For th first time)

Your account details shall be displayed.

Click on the link - 'Change service passwords'. The following window shall be displayed.

In 'Service' select 'ADSL-'Your Tel No.'

Type new password in 'New Password' & again in 'Confirm New Password' and click on 'Change Password'. Successful acceptance of the new password shall be displayed on the screen.

Note - Also, register a secret question and answer from this page by selecting the link – 'Change Secret Question info'. This shall be useful to reset the password in case you forget the same. The password can be reset by using the Link on webpage –

http://register.mtnl.net.in . Customers are advised to register the secret question and answer.

After the password has been successfully changed on the MTNL Server, follow the procedure given below to change the password on your Broadband Modem.

The screen shots given below are for the modem D-Link DSL 502T modem.

Open your browser & type the following address, http://192.168.1.1 . This is your Modem's User interface. Please be careful while carrying out changes in the Modem as it may effect overall working of your connection. Do not change any other settings unless advised.

Type “admin” as username and “admin” as password. Then a new page will appear as shown below

This is the web interface of Broadband Modem.

Click on 'WAN' option. Under the heading, PPPoE/PPPoA, your telephone number is visible as your 'username'.

Type your new password carefully. This should be same as the one entered on the MTNL Server. This password and the password on the MTNL Server are matched before the connection is established.

Click the 'Apply' button at the bottom of page.

After this, click on 'Tools' option and select 'System' option on that page. The following window shall appear

Click on 'Save & Reboot' button to save your new password in the modem.

Verify by checking the status of connection by clicking on the Status Tab on the Modem User Interface. It should show connected.

This completes the process of changing your Broadband User Account Password.

Updating a laptop with Win XP to support WPA2 WiFi security

2010-06-16T09:44:00.001+05:30

Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2 (WPA2) is the latest version of security for wireless networks. It's more secure than Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and easy to set up using the features built into Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

In addition to the update for Windows XP SP2, you need two components:

1. A router or access point/router that supports WPA2-Personal

2. A wireless card with firmware and drivers that supports WPA2-Personal on your laptop its best to update the drivers of your laptop wireless card.

Also the patch Windows XP Hot fix KB893357 is required to update Win XP SP2 to support WPA2 PSK. This patch can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=662bb74d-e7c1-48d6-95ee-1459234f4483

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,30721-order,4/description.html

for details on WPA2 check out

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/security/wireless.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/expert/bowman_wirelesssecurity.mspx

How to configure Linksys WRT 120N wireless router

2010-06-15T22:59:00.014+05:30

Recently a friend asked me to help him create a home WiFi network to
connect his laptop with Win XP SP2 to the Internet. He was not sure if his laptop could support WPA2 PSK. Since his laptop was an Acer Travelmate 4152 NLCi, I went to the Acer website & had to search if it did. I finally found out that his laptop had a Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network.My friend had bought a Linksys WRT120N WiFi router for his home use, after setting up his network I was shocked to find that his laptop which connected so easily to the internet, at my place thru a Linksys WRT54G router was unable to do so thru this new router. And the strange thing was that another (office) laptop was able to do so !!!! After trawling the Internet for info on this problem I found the solution, that the firmware on the router could be the culprit. I noticed that the firmware ver on the WiFi router was ver 1.0 & that there had been FOUR ver updates till the time of purchase of the router (shows what old junk Croma is selling). The firmware on the router would have to be updated to the current ver which is 1.0.04 dated 15th Oct, 2009 & is 1.19MB in size the release notes state that it has a compatibility issue with the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network card which has been resolved.
‘Product: WRT120N v1Classification: Firmware Release HistoryRelease Date: Oct 15, 2009
Last Firmware Version: 1.0.04_____________________________________________________________________
General Notes: - Disconnect all wireless clients from the router during the upgrade process. Make sure no wireless clients attempt to associate with the router until the upgrade process is complete.
Firmware 1.0.04 (Build 02)- Resolve connectivity issue with Intel Centrino 2200BG - Resolve issue with Home Network Defender trial period gets activated as soon as the router is connected to the Internet’

Setting up the Linksys WRT 120N is the same as Linksys WRT54G http://socrates0.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-configure-linksys-wrt54g.html,
except that in the tab ‘Wireless’ -> ‘Wireless Network Mode’. From this drop-down menu, you can select the wireless standards running on your network. If you have Wireless-N, Wireless-G, and Wireless-B devices in your network, keep the default, Mixed. If you have only
Wireless-G and Wireless-B devices in your network, select BG-Mixed. If you have only Wireless-N devices, select Wireless-N Only. If you have only Wireless-G devices,
select Wireless-G Only. If you have only Wireless-B devices, select Wireless-B Only. If you do not have any wireless devices in your network, select Disabled.

Channel Width For best performance in a Wireless-N

network, select 40MHz only. For Wireless-G and Wireless-B

networking only, keep the default, 20MHz only. If you

are not sure which option to use, select Auto (20MHz or

40MHz).

Else everything remains the same.

Recently I came across two sites which generate random passwords

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

https://secure.pctools.com/guides/password/

The first is an online generator whereas the second is a s/w to be installed on your machine to do the needful. When you use a password 63 or 64 characters long copy paste it in your WiFi router then save the password in ‘Notepad’, then transfer this password to a pendrive & paste it in your laptops.

A few other useful sites are mentioned below.

http://www.whatismyip.com
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com
http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks
https://www.opendns.com
http://speedtest.net
http://pingtest.net
http://airtel.in/speedcheck

How to enter DNS setting on your computer

2010-05-31T10:23:00.023+05:30

This article was written for a relative who uses an Acer laptop & needed help on manually entering DNS settings.The task bar will have one/two icons like the one pointed out above, one will be for the LAN wire & the second will be for the WiFi. The method shown here for entering DNS settings is valid for both.

When you double click on this icon shown above you will come to a window, which should look like this

We have to focus on the last entry, in my case which I have labelled MTNL Broadband, that is not the default name to be sure look at the 'Status' column it will show 'Network cable unplugged'. Double click on this entry & you will come to the following window

Double click on the last entry 'Internet Prtocol (TCP/IP)’ & you will see

In the tab 'General', the radio button 'Obtaiin an IP address automatically’ should be selected & in the next you can manually enter the DNS entries of your choice. In my case I have used OpenDNS entries.

After that is done, click on the 'Advanced' tab &

the above window will be seen, here click on the 'DNS' tab & then click on 'Add' button to enter the remaining DNS entries (one at a time) :). After adding the remaining DNS entries click on 'Ok' on all the windows opened so far to close all of them. The DNS entries i have used are the following.

Open DNS

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
208.67.220.222
208.67.222.220

MTNL DNS
Mumbai
59.185.3.12
59.185.3.10
203.94.227.70

Delhi

203.94.243.70
59.185.0.23
59.185.0.50

Comodo DNS
156.154.70.22
156.154.71.22

Here are some VSNL/Tata Indicom DNS entries. All are at Mumbai.
203.197.12.42
203.197.12.30
202.54.6.60
202.54.29.5

Norton DNS
198.153.192.1 and
198.153.194.1

but since we use MTNL Triband (Mumbai) these entries will suffice.
To learn more about OpenDNS go to http://www.opendns.com/

How an Acer customer is treated.

2010-04-14T10:34:00.003+05:30

I write this as a very disappointed customer. I bought an Acer AS3810TZ – 413G32N in Feb 2010 from ‘Vijay Sales’ Prabhadevi showroom Mumbai.
The first thing I did on reaching home was to try & make the ‘Restore Disc’s’. As this laptop does not have a optical drive I was talked into buying a Transcend external dvd writer by the salesman, which cost over Rs 3700/- (I later found to my shock that it was available elsewhere cheaper by a 1000 bucks) . The first writer had a fault & was replaced after 5 days (by the dealer). The next at best works in a temperamental fashion & seems to be allergic to Moser Baer dvd’s. I would like to mention that the read/write speeds for dvd’s is 8X for this or any other ext dvd writer. I frankly feel one does not need this on a regular basis. In such a case it would be better to buy an external casing (Rs 600-800) for the DVD writer of your desktop (I presume you have one) & use that when necessary. And this also offers faster speeds.
I found that after the first disc was burnt the laptop gave an error that the making of the restore disc had failed & that I should insert another disc & it started to burn the first disc all over again, this happened FOUR times that means I wasted FOUR DVD’s.
When I went to the Acer website for the toll free number I found the ‘VOLUNTARY SAFETY RECALL’ option on your website & entered the details for this laptop and found it has an issue about the microphone cable.
I used the toll free number & made a complaint on 28-2-2010 regarding & on 1-3-2010 registered the laptop as it was in the recall list.
1. The WiFi on laptop cannot connect to my Linksys WRT54G WiFi router when the SSID is not transmitted but when the SSID is transmitted it connects. I also use MAC filters. Another laptop in my house has no problem for the last two years (running Vista home basic) in connecting to the same router when SSID is hidden. MTNL requires this.
2. When adding a bluetooth device to the laptop (mobile phones) it gives an error ‘Peripheral device – No driver found’ . And the phone icon on the phone has an exclamation mark. But I can successfully send/receive files to/from my phone !!!

I got a call on 2-2-2010 from a tech support person who requested me to go to the ‘Restore’ option and restore to factory settings. Since I was taking the laptop to the dealer ‘Vijay Sales’ Prabhadevi Branch Mumbai where the Acer rep stationed there did the needful.
After Restore from the HDD was done I was shocked to find
a) The WiFi was not detected at all. Its only when I went on the net (thru the LAN cable) & used the ‘Update option’ thru ‘Device Manage’ that connectivity was restored for WiFi
b) My Bluetooth problem (see 2 above) still remains ie after the factory settings were restored I paired my phone to the laptop & got the same error but I can send & receive files between mobile phone & laptop so its not really critical.
c) I also have noticed that I cant find the s/w for starting the webcam &
d) The multi gesture feature on the touch pad (where you can move two finger in opposite directions to expand what is displayed on the screen eg: desktop icons etc) has also stopped working after the ‘System Restore’.
e) No Acer User Guides on the laptop even though there is an option in the ‘Start’ menu

I have come to the conclusion & verified by the service center later that the restore partition on the HDD is FAULTY, as after a restore the WiFi card & webcam & one feature of he touchpad could not be used, THIS IS A MANUFACTURING DEFECT.
AND more important the restore disks could not be made, 9 DVD’s have been wasted trying to do this (FOUR) by me & (FIVE by) the Acer rep at Vijay Sales , who then contacted his office & was told that the Erestore management s/w on this model is faulty !!! so I had been promised that restore disks would be delivered to me by Acer & have been asked to wait for a week.
On 5th Mar 2010 I spoke to Mr Khan about the different issues on the laptop & he requested I rang up the service center today and fixed an appointment for 6-Mar-2010 but later they were kind enough to call back & cancel that appointment as they have to get that cable from Acer. I was told they would call me to fix the next appointment
On 15th I took the laptop to the service center & they fixed the problem about the webcam, touchpad & bluetooth. I was told that the microphone cable did not need replacement. (Only time will tell whether I am being cheated on this). Regarding the WiFi problem I was informed that they would escalate this problem with Acer & I would be contacted as soon as the solution is found. So currently only thing pending currently is the WiFi problem & the disc.
On the 19th Mar 2010 after getting back the laptop I dropped in at the dealer to check with the Acer rep there, if the restore disc’s were ready. At this time I spoke to the Sales Manager who then promised me the OS disc (Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit) specifically meant for this laptop. (I was pleasantly surprised by this little did I realize that its all BS). Please note I was first promised the disc’s on 2nd of Mar 2010 & there had been no movement on this.
On 23rd I rang up Sales Manager told me that he had started the process for getting the OS disc for my laptop, which had to come from Microsoft Bangalore.
On 30th Mar 2010 I sent the Sales Manager an email & got a reply that it would probably be ready in another week. Acer seems fascinated by the figure 7, everything will be ready in a week’s (7 days) time.
On the 1st Apr 2010 I got an email from another Acer staff that I could collect the CD from their office and the same would be available with the security by the name of Mr Sachin.
On 2nd Apr 2010 I went to the Acer Mumbai office and found it closed & there was no security present. I rang up the Sales Manager and was promised that the CD would be delivered to my house after reaching home the same day I emailed him my postal address.
On 6th Apr 2010 and there is still no sign of the promised OS CD containing Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I was not aware that Acer plays ‘April Fool’ jokes on its customers. Since there was no sign of any disc I called up the Mumbai office & was told that the ‘OS disc’ would be delivered tomorrow. I even asked the person who spoke to me if it was actually the OS disc & was told very emphatically ‘Yes Sir, it is the OS disc’
On 7- Apr 2010 I get the delivery of THREE disc’s & was stunned to find it’s the ‘Recovery Disc’s’ which were promised initially (2nd Mar2010) AND NOT THE ‘OS DISC’ which should mean the OPERATING SYSTEM DISC. ON CALLING the Sales Manager I told him I feel totally cheated that initially (2nd Mar2010) I was promised the (‘Recovery Disc’s) then on 19th Apr 2010 I was promised the OS disc. He got back to me with another staff member (in a con call) who tried to explain to me its only THREE disc’s but when I explained to him that the 4th disc contains ONLY the drivers and the situations where that could be useful. He promised to get me that by 12th Apr 2010. He had no answer why I was first promised the recovery disc & then the OS disc. It’s become very clear to me now that either the people who work in this company don’t know the difference between ‘recovery disc’s’ & ‘OS disc’s’ or worse.
On 12th Apr 2010 the driver disc was also delivered in FOUR working days flat. I wonder what took the other three disc so long to be delivered?
When I mentioned this to my friend he jokingly said his fruit/vegetable vendor on the road knows what he sells right down to where he sources his stock. Another quipped that his butcher knows his customer by community & when they avoid meat.
Another experience with Acer tech support is that the calls from Acer Delhi are at best a comedy of errors but cut a very sorry figure with the customer. I have got calls from a lady who claimed to be from the ‘feedback dept’ asking me if the ‘problem of the laptop battery’ was solved. I had never made any complaint of the laptop battery. On another day I got another from a lady asking me if the problem of ‘overheating laptop’ was solved. I wonder if they had a premonition of things to come! There seems to be some communication problem in your organization.
When such calls are made I have to waste a lot of time telling them the whole litany of problems. As always these people promise that someone will get back to me about my problems, a promise that has NEVER been kept.
Now the only thing that is pending is the why the WiFi cannot connect if the SSID is hidden. I have been promised that I will be contacted once a solution is found but I really don’t have much faith in these guys anymore.
I had even posted the WiFi problem on the Microsoft & Intel site but to no avail. Check oout the post & their replies.
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7network/thread/db0684f0-db3a-47b6-813b-e846fd0ef7b0
http://communities.intel.com/message/88147#88147

Moral of this story (comes with hindsight)

Avoid this dealer
Think twice about exchange offers. If you still want to explore this option then,
Check out the company website if there is a recall for the particular model you are interested in.
If something is wrong with the product DON’T be soft spoken/polite, you will be taken for a ride.
Insist on a replacement as most dealers have a 1-week period when you can return faulty products. I didn’t know this then. they will sweet talk you into 'we will have this fixed very soon crap'. Don't fall for it.
For quick results when you have spoken to all also mention that you will be writing to the MD/CEO with your feedback. Incidentally this post is a abridged version of just that.
Better still avoid this manufacturer.

I have to say that this entire rigmarole has left me totally disgusted & feel that I have been cheated, as a faulty unit/model has been sold to me. The way they tried to mislead then grudgingly give me the disc’s leaves me wondering if they are serious about service to the customer. They come across as shifty, slippery operators. One thing is certain for sure I, or anyone in my family will EVER purchase ANYTHING with the name ‘ACER’ nor will we recommend it to anyone else.

ThunderBird A few Tips & Tricks

2008-12-22T09:20:00.001+05:30

    Thunderbird, is an alternative open source e-mail client. I would recommend it to everyone. if you are using Thunderbird as your E-mail client then this article might be useful to you. So let's get started.

    You might encounter this problem at some point in time. I use many sub folders and while clicking on them, the program stays frozen for a few seconds and then showed it's content. The same thing happens while trying to deleting a mail. This was really annoying.
    Three ways of trying to sort out this problem are
    A Use Thunderbird's 'Compact Folders' option frequently. All messages in a given folder are stored in one continuous database file. When you delete or move a message, it is not actually removed from this file, but left in place and marked as inactive so the program knows not to display it. This is done to keep from slowing your system down by having to rebuild the whole database every time you move or delete a message. The operation to remove all inactive messages at once is called "Compacting". It rebuilds the database file, and updates the .msf summary file for that database. This can cure many message base ills and it should be done regularly.It's possible that many users have never heard of compacting folders (not to be confused with compressing a file). However, most e-mail clients do this to improve performance by not requiring the e-mail client to rewrite the entire folder every time you delete a single message. The reason you might never have heard of compacting is that most e-mail clients default to automatically compacting the folder whenever a certain amount of space is wasted, while you have to enable this in Thunderbird.

How to compact folders

    The best way is to let Thunderbird do this automatically: "Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network & Disk Space -> Disk Space -> Compact folder when it will save over 100 kB -> OK."

    To compact all folders in an account manually, click the account on the left, and then click "File -> Compact Folders". Compacting an account may take from a few seconds to 10 minutes or more, depending on how much mail you have and how recently you last compacted the folders. If you have trouble doing this and the process stalls, try compacting one folder at a time by right-clicking on the folder and choosing "Compact This Folder". If you do not let Thunderbird compact automatically, you should do this regularly.

    Most people never have a problem compacting a folder when its online. However, if you get Nstmp folders that's due to the compacting being interrupted while Thunderbird is downloading new messages. You can avoid this by going offline before compacting (go to "File -> Offline -> Work Offline", or simply click on the icon in the bottom left corner.) It is rare for this to cause other problems but if you suspect it, experiment with going offline before compacting (ideally on a new known good folder). You can only compact IMAP accounts while you are online. However, this normally doesn't cause a problem since IMAP accounts only download the headers to the hard disk.

The 'Xpunge' extension lets you add a button to empty the trash and compact the folders in multiple accounts (in one step). If you use the beta version you can set a timer to automate that. The Mozilla Add-ons web site has several other extensions that add buttons to compact folders.

If you have an IMAP account there are two ways to automate compacting its folders.

    * If you check Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Clean up ("Expunge") Inbox on Exit it will compact the Inbox folder when you exit Thunderbird. If you check "Empty Trash on Exit" it will also empty and compact the Trash folder when you exit.

    * If Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> "When I delete a message" is set to "Move it to the Trash folder" and you set mail.imap.expunge_after_delete to true using the Config editor Thunderbird will compact the folder immediately after you delete or move a message. Note: Thunderbird ignores the modified mail.imap.expunge_after_delete setting until after you have exited and restarted Thunderbird.

    B Another method is right click on a folder which is sluggish go to 'Properties' & click on 'Rebuild Index' under the 'General Information' tab

If compacting doesn’t seem to work
    C When I checked my profile and found many files and folders. I also searched the Thunderbird website for more information. What really got attention to my eyes was this article.
    The apparently problem lies in *.msf files, which are summary files for each folder and might become corrupted and can contain "garbage". So I tested this right away (read results bellow). I have mentioned below the procedure but use this at your own risk. Backup your profile before proceeding.
C1
   1. Close Thunderbird.
   2. Click START - RUN and type %APPDATA%\Thunderbird
   3. Then find profiles.ini file and open it in notepad.
   4. Find the line which contains Path= parameter. Under this parameter is a path to your profile.
   5. Go to your profile folder, where you will find *.msf files.
   6. Delete *.msf files and restart Thunderbird.
   7. Wait for a few minutes, while Thunderbird generates all *.msf files back. When summary file for X folder is done, you can click on X folder and see it's content. If you don't see anything, while clicking on X folder, than summary file is not ready yet or you might have another problem.
   8. Restart Thunderbird.

When I reopened Thunderbird I was happy :to find folders opened instantly with no delays. I also noticed that some of *.msf files are smaller now, so this proofs that some parts were unnecessary in those files. OR

C2

If the corruption is severe deleting the .msf files won't help much, and compacting the folder may just make it worse. You'll typically run into this only with the 'Inbox' folder. Its much more vulnerable to corruption because many users tend to store lots of messages in it and they also frequently delete messages in it. Thats why its recommended that you don't permanently store messages in your Inbox folder, move them to other folders. You can fix the problem by replacing the corrupt folder with a new known good folder that you copied the messages to.

   1. Exit Thunderbird and make a temporary backup copy of your profile folder so that you can revert everything easily if necessary.
   2. Start Thunderbird, create a new folder and name it 'Test' folder'.
   3. In the folder that is giving you problems (e.g. Inbox), select all the messages (highlight one and then press Ctrl+a) and copy them to 'Test' folder ("Message -> Copy" -> [account name] -> 'Test' folder). In extreme cases (if Thunderbird and/or the computer become extremely sluggish), you may have to choose only a few emails at a time (choose one and then press Shift+Page Down or Page Up once or twice).
   4. Verify that all of the messages have been copied to 'Test' folder.
   5. Right-click on 'Test' folder and choose "Compact This Folder".
   6. Go to your profile folder and see if 'Test' folder looks like it has been compacted. It should be significantly smaller in size than the folder from which you copied the messages.
   7. If it looks like 'Test' folder can in fact be compacted successfully, exit Thunderbird, and go to your profile folder. Then:

Rename the file that was giving you problems (e.g. rename "Inbox" to "InboxOLD") and delete its .msf file (e.g. "Inbox.msf").
Rename the 'Test' folder to "Inbox" (or whatever the problematic folder was called) and delete "'Test' folder.msf".
Restart Thunderbird, and use it as usual. If compacting folders seems to work correctly during a test period (such as one week) then you can delete the folder "InboxOLD".

If you a lazy fellow like me & don't bother to compact folders, then be warned that you could face any of the following problems. Mail files will accumulate more and more of the "hidden" messages that have been marked for permanent deletion but have not yet been removed. This can cause a lot of disk space to be used, and it can have a negative effect on Thunderbird’s performance.

Even if a mail folder seems to be empty or nearly empty, the mail file can become very large. This wastes disk space, and when you back up your mail files for safekeeping, you will waste time backing up all these "hidden" messages as well.
When downloading messages, you might occasionally get duplicates of messages you’ve already received
Messages that you have deleted or moved to other folders may unexpectedly reappear in their original folder.
Your anti-virus software might detect infected messages that you long ago deleted, even if you emptied the Trash.
It could cause problems when you try to defragment your hard disk.
Your Inbox might stay blank for minutes.
The new message count could become much larger than the actual number of new messages. A quick fix is to delete the .msf mail summary file for that folder—Thunderbird will create a new one the next time you run it—but this will not work if the folder is badly corrupted.

Inbox stays blank

Another problem that a user can encounter is 'Blank Inbox'. When you try try to open the Inbox and nothing happens (the message list stays blank). The "Building summary file" message (in Thunderbird's status bar) lasts for minutes. Sometimes the contents of the Inbox appear and sometimes they don't. Thunderbird hasn't entirely frozen; it still responds but the Inbox doesn't display messages or behaves strangely.

Try C2 above

If the problem is still not solved then try (not done this personally).

a. Exit Thunderbird.
b. Delete the files "InboxOld" and "InboxOld.msf" and the folder "InboxOld.sbd" from your profile folder.
c. Download the ImportExportTool extension. Note: The ImportExportTool extension used to be called the mboximport extension.
d. Start Thunderbird and install the ImportExportTool extension.
e. After restarting Thunderbird, try to import one of the copies using the ImportExportTool extension.
f. If this succeeds, you can move the messages to where you want them (I suggest somewhere else than the Inbox).
g. If you get a message that the file is not in a valid mbox format, you can try opening the file using any text editor (note that for big Inbox files - I was working with one problematic one that was more than 200MB - it will take a long time to open the file)
h. Check that the opened text file is of a proper mbox format. In the case of my problematic file, the corruption occurs in the first line of the file. Correcting the line results in successful importing using the ImportExportTool extension.
i. If this also fails, you may have to take your loss.

Thunderbird 2 the email client + customisation my experience

2008-12-12T18:06:00.008+05:30

I first started using Netscape Navigator for my browsing & email client needs in 1996. Later I started using Outlook Express (all different versions, from now on referred as OE6) for over a decade. I was never really happy with it but I had no better alternative (TINA factor), even tried Outlook 2000 but found it memory hungry (in those days) & above very slow.

I had heard of other email clients and had installed Eudora once to check its facilities, but was not impressed. OE never seemed to have had any improvement to its functionality. (Except for regular ‘security patches’) Then in beginning of 2008 I installed ThunderBird 2 http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ (henceforth called TB2) and found it much to my liking & with its add-ons it was awesome. It takes about 19 – 21 secs to open first time and uses around 26 MB of memory. It seemed to have almost everything I wanted. But never migrated to it as there were news reports of TB3 in the offing. But in December ’08 I decided to take the plunge. My friend calls me a ‘Microsoft Refugee’ actually I think of my self as a ‘OE6 refugee’

Some of the features I always wanted in an email client are

a) The user can change the mail storage location. OE has this but not Outlook 2000. so that its no longer in the default C:\ drive.

b) Address book storage location is same as the point ‘a’.

c) Email mail a/c settings storage same as in point ‘a’

d) Mail filters could be saved ie: imported or exported.

e) Real time spell check something like in MS Word.

f) Could increase font size in message window by just ctrl +.

g) Wanted smileyes in the mail composer.

h) Auto zip facility of attachments inside the mail composer.

i) Option of easily changing the signature in the mail composer.

j) Easily save attachments automatically in one location (of limited use) or easily save attachments in the location of your choice and even automatically taking the subject line as the file name. (Useful when the attachment is a bank statement eg: (‘Bank Statement from ‘start period’ to ‘end period’ for ‘a/c number’’). This is the level of customization possible in TB2 using extensions.

A lot of these facilities are possible, as TB2 allows a lot of customization by using extensions. All this open source ie: It’s free. :-)

I changed from OE 6 to TB 2, installation is very straightforward and when given a choice to import mail, mail settings, address book. Select mail settings. After that open TB 2 look around to get a feel of it & then import the address book & email thru Tools -> Import.

Default Email a/c Next job is to make an email a/c default, of course if there is only one a/c it will be made default anyway & this para wont be necessary. All email id’s will be seen separate and one below another in the left side pane. Click on the one you want as default and then click on ‘View settings on this account’. The ‘Account settings’ window will now open. Now click on ‘Set as Default’ button. Next in the same window scroll down in the left pane that shows the folders of the email a/c’s and right at the bottom, click on ‘Outgoing Server SMTP’. Select the smtp entry for the default a/c & click on ‘Set Default’, so much for making an a/c default.

Address Book. Now for the address book. If in your previous client you had all your contacts in one folder, then the same will be seen in TB2. But if like me you had segregated your contacts in OE6 into separate folders, then you are going to be disappointed, as all the contacts will be jumbled up in one folder. You will have to make separate ‘folders’ called ‘address books’ (File -> New -> Address Book), in TB2 and drag contacts into the different ‘address books’ of your choice. I guess there is a trade off somewhere.

Mail Import. The imported emails will exist in a separate folder under ‘Local Folders’ called ‘Outlook Express Mail’ with all the separate folder tree structure you had made in OE6 (I assume you had many folders to segregate your mail in OE6). You will have to make a folder with the appropriate name in the relevant destination location. Then go to the imported folder, select all its contents (I assume you know how to do that), right click and click on ‘Move To’ and the relevant destination folder you see. It might so happen that if you have many folders of mail with a lot of contents then there is a possibility that, when you right click on the selected mail you cannot see the relevant destination folder you just made. Don’t fret just close TB2 & open again you will see it, and then do the needful. This ‘donkey work’ will have to be done there’s no escaping it.

In OE you could have had many email ids in your mail profile or you could make different profiles for each email id. If it’s the latter you will have to import mail separately. But import the mail from the second profile only after you shift the mail from the ‘Outlook Express Mail’ folder of the previous mail import & deleting the ‘Outlook Express Mail’ folder, which would then be empty.

If it’s the former then you have a chore of separating mail in the imported OE ‘Inbox’ folder as the contents can be for different a/c’s & also from the imported OE ‘Sent’ folder as the contents can be from different a/c’s.

The mail segregation can be done as follows.

There are two ways of doing it

a) Create a filter (this will be a temporary filter) to separate the mails AND transfer them to the relevant folder.

b) For the relevant folder type the relevant email-id in the search field (top right side of TB2) and then drag separated mail to their destination folder.

This would filter out most mails in these two imported OE folders, but problems could arise in the imported OE ‘Inbox’ folder where your email-id is in the Bcc list. In that case you may have to manually go thru each mail on an individual basis.

Message Filters. After this chore is done now for the ‘message filters’. I presume that if you had many folders in OE6, you would have made mail filters also called ‘Message Rules’ in OE6. Here too there is no escaping the drudgery of making each filter separately as OE6 never had a import/export option. You will have to go to Tools -> Message Filters, select the relevant a/c then click on New to make the filter. I have not elaborated as I presume if you had made a rule in OE6 you can do the same here. it would be a good idea to export your message filters to a folder (created by you) in your Thunderbird profile, so that way you have a backup of your filter when you take a backup of your profile.

Changing Mail Storage location

To create the mail storage location of your choice do the following

Completely close Thunderbird.
Copy the profile folder to wherever you want to store it. You can copy it anywhere except the application's program directory.
Start the Profile Manager. A window similar to the one shown will open.
Click on "Create Profile..." and, in the dialog that opens, enter a descriptive name for the profile you copied.
Click on the "Choose Folder..." button. A "Browse for Folder" dialog box will open.
Select the profile folder you copied and click OK.
Review the path shown in the "Completing the Create Profile Wizard" dialog to make sure it is correct, then click "Finish" to create the new profile.
Select the new profile and press the Start button to start Thunderbird using the moved profile.
Next, check that you can see the folders for each account. If they're missing, use the "Browse" button for the local directory in Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings and Tools -> Account Settings -> Local Folders to specify the correct account and mail directories.

For backups of your email, address books, extensions, message filters all you have to do is make a copy of your profile folder, the same one you changed the location of above. That’s it, a far cry from OE6 where every thing was dispersed, so required far more effort.

Customization. This can be done, using extensions, which can be found, on the mozilla site. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ There are scores of extensions many very useful, some frivolous. Installations are straightforward. Download the required extension then, inside TB2 go to Tools-> Add-ons->Install.
I have found the following useful and am using them.

1. Attachment Extractor. Extracts all attachments from selected messages and then can delete, detach or mark-read and more

2. AutoZip Attachments. Auto Zip Attachments allows you to easily compress (zip) attachments. In mail composer. This icon will be seen in the toolbar of the mail composer window

3. British English Dictionary. (This works in FireFox too.)

4. ReminderFox ReminderFox. displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo's. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, bills, etc) without having to run a whole calendar application. ReminderFox makes sure you remember all of your important dates via easy-to-use lists, alerts, and alarm notifications. This will be seen in the right hand corner of the status bar.

5. Signature Switch. Switch the signature on/off or choose a new one from your predefined set. This icon will be seen in the toolbar of the mail composer window.

6. ThunderBird Message filter Import/Export. Thunderbird Message Filter Import/Export is a thunderbird/mozilla extension to import/export message filters and will be found at Tools -> Message Filters (for exporting) & Tools -> Import Filters (for importing filters).

7. Webmail

8. Webmail Gmail

Some extensions may require additional settings change to customize for your needs. Eg: (1), (above) which I will show below.

These settings (shown below) will allow your email attachment to either be saved on the desktop (default) with the subject line of the email as the attachment file name or can be saved to a destination of your choice, with the subject line of the email as the attachment file name. Destinations other than desktop can be remembered for future use by the settings in the the ‘Advanced’ tab -> ‘Most Recently Used Folders List’ .

where \abc is the user profile name

How to download/re-download recent Gmail messages onto multiple machines

2008-12-05T12:12:00.002+05:30

As you know Gmail POP will only download once & if you've already downloaded your Gmail messages via POP once, you cant do it again on another machine or mobile phone. Gmail will have marked those messages as downloaded already, but to re-download them, use this neat trick, spotted in the Gmail help list:
If you're accessing your Gmail using POP from multiple clients, Gmail's recent mode makes sure that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to the first client to access new mail.
Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it's been sent to another POP client already.

This is how you do it. For all POP clients. Replace 'username@gmail.com' in your POP client settings with 'recent:username@gmail.com' & after that do one of the following
· In Outlook, on the Advanced tab, check the box next to Leave a copy of messages on the server.
· In Outlook Express, on the Advanced tab, check the box next to Leave a copy of messages on server.
· In Thunderbird, on the Server Settings tab, check the box next to Leave messages on server.
· In Apple Mail, on the Advanced tab, remove the check next to Remove copy from server after retrieving a message.

Handy, especially if you want download messages on your laptop, desktop & handheld after getting them once on one of them.

Sharing files/folders across machines thru Linksys WRT54G

2008-01-29T14:39:00.000+05:30

After I wrote the blog ‘ How to configure Linksys WRT54G wireless router’ many people then asked me how to share file & folders from the laptop/s & desktop connected to the wireless router.
First check if you can ping the laptop from your desktop & vice versa (this should work as you can access internet from both the machines) :)

On your desktop
1) Go to windows explorer & go
2) To the folders you want to share with the laptop
3) Right click on it then go to ‘Properties’
4) Next click on the ‘Sharing’ tab
5) Go to ‘Network Sharing & Security’ & click on
6) ‘Share this Folder on the Network’ check box &
7) ‘Allow network users to change my files’ check box.

Now on the laptop (mine is a Compaq machine having Vista Home Basic ) :)

On your laptop (1)
1) Switch on your WLAN (always a good policy to keep it off when not in use)
2) Next Log in to your network (Start -> Connect to -> Double click on relevant network connection option)
3) Open ‘Explorer’ go to the ‘Network’ in the tree on the left side.
4) F5 to refresh the view if necessary. If you can see the desktop great, if not go to next para.

if you cant see it, it means your firewall on your desktop could be preventing it from being seen (like in my case).
In this case go to your firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro in my case)
1) Go to ‘Firewall’ then to the ‘Zones’ tab
2) Click on the ‘Add’ push button
3) go to ‘IP range’
4) in ‘Zones’ select ‘Trusted’
5) Then add the IP of your wireless router (10.10.0.1 in my case) In my case the desktop becomes 10.10.0.2 & laptop becomes 10.10.0.3
6) So in the next line I add IP as 10.10.0.3

So I have added the IP range that should be seen thru the firewall.

On your laptop (2)
1) F5 to refresh the view, you should now be able to see the desktop
2) Click on the icon of the desktop computer & you should be able to see the folder you had previously given sharing rights from your desktop machine.

To the laptop folders which you want seen on the desktop machine you have to do the following.

1) Go to the relevant folder on the laptop right click
2) Go to ‘Properties’
3) Click on the ‘Share’ tab
4) Add the person you want to allow sharing
5) Give him the required permissions.
6) Then click on the ‘Share’ push button.
After that click on
7) Click on ‘Advanced Sharing’
8) Next select the ‘Share this folder’ check box’
9) Add the relevant share name
10) Select the number of simultaneous user you want’
11) Give him the required permissions.
Now you should be able to see the laptop on your desktop.

Now go to your desktop
1) Click on ‘My Network Places’
2) Then click on ‘View Workgroup computers’
3) You should be able to see your laptop icon here.
4) Double click on it & you should be able to see the folders/files/drive you had given permission earlier on your laptop.

If you get an error of no permissions or rights then click on ‘Start’ -> ‘Network’ on your laptop then click on the ‘Network & Sharing Center’ you will see ‘Sharing & Discovery’.
1) ‘File Sharing’ should be ‘On’ &
2) ‘Public Folder Sharing’ should be ‘On’ and
3) ‘Password Protected Sharing’ should be ‘Off’.

This last bit of switching ‘Off’ ‘Password Protection’ is something I don’t like, but have not found a way around currently :(. For the current network connection made as mentioned in my blog is secure, but when this laptop is connected to a unsecured network any where your shared folders/files/drive could be at risk from intruders. As Vista is a new animal to me and since this is the first preloaded OS machine I have I am quite ignorant about how (regarding rights/permissions) the OS was loaded. (Before this all machines I had were assembled to my specs and the OS & s/w’s were installed by me so I feel quite handicapped with this laptop having Vista.

How to configure Linksys WRT54G wireless router

2007-12-01T08:25:00.009+05:30

This article is on how to configure Linksys WRT54G wireless router to be used in conjunction with D-Link DSL 502T, ADSL2+ broadband router/modem, which is used by MTNL & BSNL broadband thru telephone wire in India. The firmware currently on this router is 7.00.1. On how to configure the D-Link 502T model go to

http://socrates0.blogspot.com/2006/01/configuring-d-link-502t-router-for.html I have used PPPoE on the D-Link 502T (not bridge mode) & DHCP on the Linksys router. Also I have not focused on how the laptop detects the network. I have presumed that you know your laptop better than the Linksys WRT54G wireless router :)

The IP address of both these gadgets is 192.168.1.1 & so will create a problem while configuring thru the CD given with the Linksys machine. So I suggest don’t waste time on it like I did. Except for Norton firewall & vaccine (60 day trial version), if you need it and the quick installation guide.

First on how to connect the all the equipment (if you already downloaded the manual then you can ignore this part and refer to the manual for the connecting the hardware & then go straight to part 2..

PART 1

1) First disconnect the RJ 45 wire connected to your desktop Ethernet card coming from the D-Link 502T and connect this wire to the ‘Internet’ port on the WRT54G router as seen below.

as seen in the picture above. So now there is a connection from your D-Link 502T to the ‘Internet’ port of your Linksys router.

2) Next use the RJ45 wire, which came in the Linksys box & connect one end to the Ethernet card of your desktop (which was just vacated by the other wire) and the other end to any of the ports numbered 1 to 4. I have connected to port 1 as shown in the picture below.

3) Connect the power adapter pin in the power socket as seen below

PART 2

So much for the hardware connections. Power up the Linksys router & Desktop computer ONLY . Now lets get to the basic configuration of the Linksys wireless router.

This is how I have done it successfully, so you can too. :)

Open IE6/IE7 browser and type 192.168.1.1, a window will pop up & ask for username & password. Default username is blank & default password is ‘admin’ after which you will come to the screen as seen below

‘Internet Connection Type’ is by default ‘Automatic configuration DHCP’ leave it as it is J (I did not which caused me a lot of grief J )

In ‘Router Name’ enter a name of your choice.

Let MTU be ‘Auto’.

At ‘Local IP Address’ enter 10.10.0.1

‘Subnet Mask’ 255.255.255.0

‘DHCP’ is ‘enable’

‘Starting IP address’ leave it as it is, this will be changed later.

‘Static DNS 1’ 192.168.1.1

‘Static DNS 2’ 203.94.227.70

‘Time Zone’ change it to relevant location.

Click on the 'Save' button.

At this point you will loose contact with the wireless router thru the browser. Double click on the computer icon in your task bar & go to the ‘Support’ tab and see the IP taken automatically by the machine most probably 10.10.0.2. Now type 10.10.0.1 in the browser location bar to gain access on the config page of the router & change (see above) the ‘Starting IP address’ to 10.10.0.2. click on ‘Save’

Next click on the ‘Wireless’ tab give a name to your network also called SSID, remember all wireless machines on this network should have the same SSID ie network name & select what wireless network mode you need. If you have only laptops, which operate in the, 802.11g mode, (most new machines) then select ‘G Only’. Click on ‘Save Settings’.

Now switch on the D-Link 502T (the Linksys WRT 54G & Desktop are already switched on) and after the lights become steady, on the desktop click on ‘Start’ button -> ‘Run’ & type ping 192.168.1.1. If you get ‘timed out’ message, then there is some error, so go over all points above to see if you have missed anything. If you see a reply like the pic below all is well.

WiFi Security

You should be able to access the Internet on your desktop. Hurray So far so good, J remember that your network is still unsecured and we still have to configure the security settings etc.

You can now turn to your wireless PC or laptop to connect it to the wireless network. Here I am assuming your laptop has a built in WiFi card, if you are using an adaptor then follow the instructions of the adaptor maker. XP has a very user-friendly wireless networking utility. If you’re setting up a network for the first time, use the Windows Wireless Network Setup Wizard, in the Control Panel. This copies configuration info to a USB flash drive that you can insert into each additional PC or device. If you use Vista (like me) it’s just as easy going thru the Control Panel for first time users. After you have gone thru the setup wizard and it has recognized the network with the name you had previously given it, now you should be able to access the Internet.

Leave the laptop on for the time being and lets focus our attention on the router configuration thru the browser of the desktop.

Click on the ‘Wireless tab & then on ‘Wireless MAC filter’ (on how to find the MAC address of your wireless machine go to right to the bottom of this page) tab as seen below

Click on the ‘Enable button’ and on the ‘Permit button’ & click on the ‘Edit MAC filter list’ and add the MAC address also called ‘Physical address’

Click on ‘Save Settings’ in both windows.

Next click on the ‘Wireless’ tab -> ‘Wireless Security’ tab and select the appropriate settings (AES, TKIP or AES+TKIP) depending on what your laptop supports. Remember that WPA2 is considered the best as also AES+TKIP if your laptop supports it go for it. Select the same settings and password on your laptop. Click on ‘Save Settings’

In the ‘Security tab’ select 1, 2 & 4 check boxes.(See below). Click on ‘Save Settings’

At the ‘Administration’ tab -> Management change the routers password.

Also select the check box ‘HTTPS’. Click on ‘Save Settings’

After you have made all the relevant then go to the ‘Administration’ tab – ‘Config Management’ and take a back up of your settings. This can be done at a later stage too when you have made all the changes you need.
PS Remember that now to access the router thru the browser the address is 10.10.0.1 and NOT the one you will find in the user guides (192.168.1.1). And to access the D-Link 502T thru browser you type 192.168.1.1. Happy surfing.

The figure you see below is the DNS settings on my desktop & laptop and are relevant to MTNL

Finding the MAC Address and IP Address for Your Ethernet Adapter

Windows 2000 or XP

1. Click Start and Run. In the Open field, enter cmd. Press the Enter key or click the OK button.

2. At the command prompt, enter ipconfig /all. Then press the Enter key.

3. Write down the Physical Address as shown on your computer screen. It is the MAC address for your Ethernet adapter. This appears as a series of numbers and letters.

The MAC address/Physical Address is what you will use for MAC address cloning or MAC filtering. Note: The MAC address is also called the Physical Address.

Windows Vista

Click Start -> Accessories -> Command prompt
At the command prompt, enter ipconfig /all. Then press the Enter key.

Write down the Physical Address as shown on your computer screen.

For those who want their laptops & Desktops connected thru the Linksys WRT54G to share files/folders/drives check out http://socrates0.blogspot.com/2008/01/sharing-filesfolders-across-machines.html

For more info on WPA2 on Win XP check out

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/security/wireless.mspx

&
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/expert/bowman_wirelesssecurity.mspx

Recently I came across two sites which generate random passwords

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

https://secure.pctools.com/guides/password/

Hutch still makes me see red

2007-03-30T13:28:00.000+05:30

In Feb 03, 2005 I had written a review (hence the title) on then Orange & now Hutch in Mumbai (see http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Orange-69311-1.html ) nothing seems to have changed till now. I am writing this to highlight what passes of as service to pre paid customers by Hutch (soon to be Vodafone, hopefully) in India, One of my family members got an SMS on Sat 24^th Mar 2007 that she had to provide documents for proof of identity by 27^th Mar 2007 or else services would be cut off. Both of us went to your Century Bazaar Hutch shop on Sun 25^th Mar 07 and submitted the relevant form & documents, which was collected by Mr. Manish. I took a receipt for the same. Staff here also assured us that as the documents were received; the line would not be disconnected.

On 27^th March 2007 another SMS was received stating that since her documents had not been received, her line would be disconnected & for further details she would have to contact 9833198331, which she did

First Call: & was told by Ms. Suman Pai who assured her that the line would not be cut & if by chance it was cut, (someone playing Russian roulette!!!) she was to ring the same number to ask them to reconnect. Later in the afternoon she got an SMS telling her that the connection was cut, as the documents had not reached them.

Second Call: She rang up 9833198331 again & a joker there had the cheek to tell her casually ‘to visit the Hutch shop again as there was a mismatch in the documents given.’ I don’t think these guys know police verification is done before a passport is issued). A photocopy of the passport was given as proof of identity.

Third Call: This time when she rang (on 9820098200) she was told by this person that they had located her documents & ‘everything is in order’ and her connection would be restored very soon. Then how did the previous person shoot of his mouth about mismatch in documents!!!

Even at 18:00hrs 27^th March 2007 this was not done.

Fourth Call: When she rang up at 18:08 hrs the call was taken by a Mr. Richard & then transferred to Mr.Maddy from the document section, kept on hold for a very long time and then the call got disconnected (I presume it was an accident at their end!).

Fifth Call: At 19:39 hrs 27^th March 2007 the call was taken by Mr. Tejinder and then transferred to the document section to Mr. Sajid. This time after keeping her on hold for some time she was told that her documents were in order and the line would be restored ‘tomorrow’. Then why wasn’t her connection restored in the afternoon when she was told so? It seems it takes Hutch less time to disconnect than to connect. THIS IS NOT CUSTOMER CARE BUT CUSTOMER HARRASSMENT.

What is shocking is the level of miscommunication and incompetence in this organization where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Considering that Hutch had the full year (as per TRAI rules) in which to tell their customers to submit these papers, they tell a customer on 25^thMarch 2007 & expect the document submission by the 27^thMarch 2007. As if the customers have nothing else to do but run with photocopies to a Hutch shop at the drop of a hat. Inspite of this, the documents were submitted well before the deadline. To add insult to injury, Hutch disconnects her line after having sent an SMS on 24^th and promising that she would get an additional talk time of Rs. 100/- !! I guess all this is happening because the deadline they have is 31^st Mar ’07, hence the ‘headless chicken dance’.

This is the THIRD time we (all my family members) has submitted these documents. First, when the SIM card was purchased, second time to their Hutch shop (in those days at Stanrose House) a couple of years ago, and now this. What happened to the document copies, which we submitted then? I wish I had taken an acknowledgement then and noted down the number where the verification call was made from. I was too trusting then. Frankly, if we did not have such a high subscription balance to our credit we would have shifted to another service provider who hopefully knows how to preserve it’s records. This organization seems to have some sort of informal caste system where prepaid customer are treated like second class customers, they think all pre paid customers are plumbers, cobblers or other forms of low life (evident from their treatment)

Let me elucidate on this: last year when I went to your Hutch shop at Khar. The moment I said I want an annual subscription for my pre paid card I was brusquely told ‘go outside & do it” . Even on Sun 25^th Mar 07 at Century Bazaar it was the same story. The forms were issued/collected in the corridor outside the Hutch shop by Mr Manish, who incidentally was late for his post. The watchman gave us the form J, who also tried to sell us a billing scheme. I think this security guy should be rewarded for showing some interest & initiative. I always use the annual subscription & I still have a hefty balance to my credit AND all this is in their kitty before I use the ‘service’.

My experience with their customer care, on 28^th Mar ’07 thru 9820098200 takes the cake. When I tried to ring up Isaac D’souza at (Hutch Nodal Officer Tel as given on your website 66645000) as I had sent him an email today morning, this number was perennially engaged I spoke to customer care exec Avi Parmar who was not aware of this dept or their other contact numbers! (Do they work for the same company?)

Later, at 1122 hrs, when I called customer care to enquire why the line had not been restored, an exec by the name Steven Ali came on the line. When I told him that these documents were given at your Hutch shop at Century Bazaar, he had the gall to ask me ‘where is the Hutch shop located at Century Bazaar’. Was this person in his senses when he asked that question? I can understand the security angle if I was ringing up a bank regarding credit card problems but this was RIDICULOUS. Apparently Hutch staff in Mumbai are suffering from delusions of grandeur, thinking that we have time to waste ringing up customer care for tomfoolery! Not all your prepaid customers are college students either; many of us opt for pre paid as it’s convenient & also we don’t enough faith in the billing systems (to put it bluntly). I think their customer care executives should be trained to behave like professionals & not to speak like they do on their college campuses.

Another point I would like to highlight is that Hutch customer care seems to have a culture where they stonewall the customer when he wants to escalate the matter. That joker Mr Steven (mentioned above) would not call his supervisor when I asked for this. In 2003, (see previous review) when I had a problem with my annual renewal by sms, the staff at the Hutch shop (at Stanrose House in those days) would not call or give me the tel number or email id of their supervisor, where as at HDFC bank the manager immediately gave me her boss’s number & email-id who incidentally sorted out the matter on the same day (AND NOT HUTCH CUSTOMER CARE). Even today when I could not get through to Mr. D’souza. When I asked the telephone operator around 1146 hrs for Mr Asim Ghosh’s exec asst, the line was diverted to Mr Samar, who sorted out the problem in less than an hour (bless him for that) but even he would not give his email id as I wanted to give my feedback about my experience on this issue. He asked me to send my feedback to assist@hutch.in. Frankly I do not have faith in this email-id any more, especially after my past experiences. What always stands out is the ‘couldn’t care less attitude’ or childish attitude of the customer care dept.

In the service industry one thing has always been clear. That is, every customer may accept a mistake as long as there are no lies, arrogance or hints of cover up provided the mistake is admitted to and rectified immediately. In this entire episode over the last two days no one admitted there has been a mistake on the part of Hutch in showing indecent haste in disabling out going sms/calls, when the documents were already in their custody. Only Mr Samar was like a ray of light in all these clouds of incompetence and got things sorted out with out any fuss.

I had sent my feedback on in the past (20-12-06) of my experiences at the Hutch shop at Century Bazaar when I had gone to submit my papers, I only got platitudes. I hope in future I (or any other customer) don’t have to interact with the likes of Mr Steven Ali. Incidentally I did not get the sms after interacting with him asking for my feedback J !!! At 1925 on 28^th Mar 2007 some one called Apurva (from Isaac D’souza’s office - his words, not mine) spoke to my family member saying that all this happened because of a technical problem. That’s the closest they get to apologizing J
This not a technical problem but a systemic one. If a few papers don’t reach the person who should read it before authorizing disconnection of services to a customer, it is not technical but systemic. This same person called me up on 29^th Mar ‘07 with the same reasons & platitudes & I explained to him exactly what I have mentioned above about systemic faults, he actually told me they give ‘at least 48 hrs before they cut a line’ to which I highlighted to him the sequence of events and the time line, (he had actually told me that he had gone thru my email v carefully) to show they were way of their schedule and were very thoughtless, arbitrary & negligent. Whatever this guy uttered did not even stand the test of time as within 3 hours of him giving that spiel I got to hear that many Hutch subscribers have had their connection cut even though they have given their documents well in the time allotted. So whatever this ‘gentleman’ told were all lies and not only is the problem systemic, it’s also VERY widespread. Not only that my family member received NINE sms stating that they would revert back soon for the email sent to them. I suppose this is also a ‘technical problem’ or maybe even out of spite !!!!! For those of you who are frustrated by their help disk, I suggest you check out these url’s, http://www.hutch.in/contactus/nodal.asp or http://www.hutch.in/contactus/appellate.asp or http://www.hutch.in/contactus/contactus_mum.asp & also a cc to TRAI at trai@del2.vsnl.net.in so that they are aware of the (QOS) Quality Of Service meted out to hapless customers. Using the toll free numbers to speak to their helpdesk ‘can be injurious to one’s health’; if you don’t have BP problems you might end up with one. This is not an exaggeration as I am suffering from severe headache for 2 days after interacting with people mentioned above :)

I hope someone will take some corrective measures to stop this customer harassment & that soon with a new name, livery, logo etc the customer will also get unbiased better quality service, or is that hoping for the impossible.

My Experience with the Nokia 6233

2007-03-24T09:47:00.000+05:30

Recently a family member decided to change his phone and I was requested to shortlist a few phones which had the following features

No flip or slider phone
Decent amount of internal memory
2 MP camera w or w/o auto focus
Blue tooth
Cable connectivity to computer
A good screen with at least 65k colours
FM radio
Decent music capability
At least 500 phone book capacity, which allows multiple entries per contact

With these points in mind I short-listed the Sony Ericsson W810i & Nokia N72. but I thought the N72 was a bit bulky for my relative & so we went to buy the phone. But when we went to the dealer (most of our phones have been bought from this guy as he gives us a good overall deal), he suggested the new (at that time) Nokia 6233. I was not impressed, as this phone had just been introduced in the market then, he gave me many reasons why not to opt for the W810i (in spite of it being more expensive). We gave in to his pleading of ‘at least have a look at it’.

We did and the rest is now history as my relative was quite impressed but it s looks as well as its price J. Frankly I was quite nervous of, according to me ‘an unknown entity’; especially after my bro’s experience with the Nokia 6230i (another review here). I didn’t even know how much internal memory it had (more on that later). Anyway the deal was done the old Nokia 6610 went out for 2k and in came the 6233. its been a few months now so I can safely say that its been safely tested n our hands. I won’t bore you with the specs as that can be had @ their web site.

At first looks it looks very impressive as it quite slim (as compared to the N series), has a stainless frame & an overall black look (this piece). This phone is very handy in operation, especially b’coz of its keypad. The buttons in the side vertical rows stick out slightly; all keys have very soft click and great feel to it. The usual (I say this as I have owned a 5110 & 3100 in the past) four-way navigation key and the “OK” button inside it are also very easy to manage.

It uses currently S40 3rd edition operating system.

Flight Mode. This was a new feature for me & was taken in by it, The phone part can be turned off in case you are in a plane or wherever mobile phones are prohibited, imagine having the phone in the off mode and @ the same time listening to the music or radio thru the phone. Can be useful sometimes.

Calls list. Pressing the call key brings up the list of dialed numbers only. But, requires not only making, but also receiving calls. I frequently need to call back people, whose calls I’ve missed – when there are more than two of them, it’s impossible to do that without having to peek in the calls record. To access to general list, you will need to perform at least 3-4 actions, and this is pretty much inconvenient.

BlueTooth-devices searching. The handset is always searching for new devices located nearby; you can’t pick a device residing in the list of already paired ones, and thus end up by having to spend a bit more time.

Incoming messages. The display doesn’t offer the information on sender – only amount of messages (e.g you have one unread message),

Phonebook has only 500 entries to fill, but other standard for all business solutions made by Nokia was 1000 entries (like the 6230i which is an older vintage)this could be b’coz it does not have enough internal memory and firmware in spite of being a of 3G phones.

Themes. There are few themes preinstalled, they are all-standard and do not offer main menu’s icon customization, It is easy to download new themes, which are a lot more colorful and interesting than standard ones. But be warned if the themes are too big it will slow the phone down drastically to the extent u might get a white screen for a long time enough to scare u to think it has hung. Again b’coz of the piddly amount of memory. I really find this shocking as the older 6230i has 64 MB internal memory. If you want to download themes for free or share it with others check out http://www11.ownskin.com/index . This site has a good collection for Nokia & Sony Ericsson phones.

Voice dialing. Tags automatically get assigned to contacts in the phonebook, without having to train before

Copy & Move files is a very primitive operation as u cannot move/copy files to sub folders.

Camera. This handset has 2mpx camera (CMOS) with 8x digital zoom is built-in, which is not much by today’s standards, but it is still pretty enough for a middle class model. But in dark conditions, exposure time increases and every movement your hand makes within that time leads to blurry image in the end. It has no flash like my K750i. There is 8x digital zoom, but there is no reason to use it as it will only ruin ur photo. You can save photos on both memory card and internal memory. I suggest u save it on the memory card which is a micro SD card. Some effects can be applied to already made photos like Greyscale, Sepia, Negative are available. There is auto-timer for self-shots. Overall, the images taken by the 6233 were of decent quality. The lack of an auto focus mechanism really made a negative impact on the image quality,

Video. Handset allows recording video in 3GP format, you can limit recording’s length, but it also can be limitless, until memory runs out (of memory card or internal memory).

Sound I was impressed by the presence of side stereo-speakers, whose grills are positioned more towards the upper end of the handset. The sound quality is awesome but (according to me) the ring tones sound good, purer, but quieter, but you will hear the phone ring (64-tone polyphonic) even in a ladies hand bag (tested) J. For music this handset is very acceptable, however it is weaker than Walkman-phones in terms of interface convenience, detailed adjustments, but in terms of sound quality it is as good, and when we’re speaking about loudspeaker mode – stereo speakers play their role in that.

Music Player is the very simple to use. It allows you to create track lists and also comes with an equalizer with five preset modes - normal, pop, rock, jazz, and classical. There is an option to personalize two sets of equalizer settings. If you want to listen to music with your own headphones, you will have to purchase the Nokia headphone adaptor, as it isn't included in the sales package. The music player is able to run in the background, enabling you to access other functions on the handset while enjoying music.

Radio The phone comes with Visual Radio player, which takes advantage of a GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA data connection to download information from participating radio stations around the world, providing the user with visual and textual information on the artist and song that is playing over the FM radio. Currently I think this facility is available with only 1 FM station. Can’t recollect which one.

SMS The SMS system works well. There is an option to access a list of recently messaged contacts, which allows fast access to commonly used recipients. This is especially useful when you only SMS a few people from a long list of contacts.

This is supposed to be a 3 G phone but its internal memory is a pathetic 6MB, which is a real shame. Considering its older avatar 6230i had 64 MB! It has a slot for a micro SD card which can take up to 1 GB (64 MB card comes with the box), I find it very difficult to get the card out due to its miniscule proportions. The 6233 claims to have video calling function. But it has only one camera. Another interesting feature I see on this phone is a list of upcoming calendar appointments, can be displayed on the standby screen. This is called Active Standby. You can personalize the active standby screen by organizing how you want it to be displayed. For example, you can set the line of icons to appear at the bottom of the screen instead of the top. A good feature of the S40's Active Standby is the ability to set shortcuts to the left and right directions of the center-pad. If you do not like the Active Standby feature, you can always turn it off in the Settings menu. With it turned off, you can press on the four different directions of the center -pad to launch different applications. The directional shortcuts can be customized to your liking, as can the left and right soft keys.

Battery life was average. The phone lasted about three days before being recharged. This was with around 30 minutes of calls each day and quite a lot of SMS messaging, taking pictures, and GPRS usage. Using Bluetooth frequently brought that duration down drastically. The phone also has support for USB 2.0 via the Pop-Port connector. This results in fast synchronization of data between phone & PC. Overall a good phone except for my previous gripe of grossly inadequate internal memory by today’s standards. Incidentally this is a common feature of many of the newly introduced Nokia models of late. Lower prices come with lower memory! Some may try to rationalize that having a memory slot with upto 1 GB capacity should be enough. True for many situations, but not if you want to say add pictures to your contacts (even video is allowed !!!) this can be stored only in the phone memory. Even having large files as themes can cause your phone to slow down or even hang. So if you want a phone with large capacity internal memory go for 6230i, the E series (eg: E50 is currently cheaper than 6233) or the N series, or look @ Sony Ericsson phones.

CAS The real truth, a customers perspective

2007-03-21T09:40:00.000+05:30

All of us have read so much about CAS (Conditional Access System), which has been thrust down the throats of citizens in the metros in India. The reasons for this implementation was because of

Under reporting of connection thus tax evasion by the cable wallah, MSO etc,
Another reason was it was ‘better technology’ whatever that means as you shall see.

Regarding the first point when we pay are dues honestly to the cable wallah, why are we being penalized for ‘under reporting’ on his part. The cost of CAS Set Top Boxes and its implementation should have been borne by the cable wallah or MSO or the govt. but no since the local citizen does not have a lobby, we lost. On the second point shouldn’t the customer have a choice what he wants, better technology or whatever?

It was my turn to ‘get it’ from 31^st Dec 2006, but not unexpectedly channels went of the air on 31^st Dec sometime in the morning. This clearly showed the mentality of the people involved, trying to pressurize viewers in this crude way. Thus started my travails of CAS J. I took two tv connections of Indusind Media & Communication (Mumbai) thru Rohit Vision the local franchise in Mahim Mumbai.

Knowing the quality of service of this cable wallah as I had suffered for three years with my Sify ‘Broadband’ service of which he is also provides in my area (see my Sify suffering article in this blog). I had decided to opt for DTH but I wanted it to be a coordinated effort with the rest of my building mates as I wished to go in for a community dish antenna in my building. To cut a long story short, there was a general consensus in my building, that we try CAS ‘for a few months’ then decide whether to go in for DTH. All of us missed out that a la carte selection of channels required us to pay for FOUR MONTHS at a time, as the different bouquets did not have all the required channels we were compelled to go for a la carte. A mix & match was not allowed then. It is now. ie: you can select a bouquet which is a best fit and then select those channels which are not there in bouquet. That was my first mistake that I got talked into this even in spite of my experience with the QOS (Quality Of Service) from my cable wallah. As I know his capability of handling ‘advanced technologies’ is like asking ‘Flintstones’ of comic book fame to launch a satellite. The only sign of evolution in them is that they have learnt to be polite where as before they were absolute ‘topori’.

Anyway the two STB’s were installed on the 6^th of Jan 2007 and the picture quality was impressive, but the sound was mono. At this time the signals were not encrypted hence you could watch all the channels just like the old days. Around the end of Jan we gave our channels selections and the encryption of channels started & all hell broke loose. We now see Flintstones at work :)

Let me enumerate the problems faced:

Problem 1

First point I would like to make is that I have not received ANY RECEIPT YET for my cheque payments for the STB deposits or for the four-month rent for FTA or pay channels. The cheques for the deposits were collected on 7-Jan-07 for both CAN’s (Customer Account Number) & were cleared on 10 & 11 of Jan-07.

The cheques for the channel rent and STB & FTA rents for four months were collected on 28-Jan-07 & were cleared on 3 Feb-07. So there has been ample time to give customers their receipts. When I ask my cable wallah I am told that receipts have to come from Indusind Media & when I ask on the toll free number I am told very casually ‘ask your cable wallah’, is this ignorance on their part or is this part of company policy? According to TRAI advertisements in the media we should be given receipts for the payments made, so why this delay? I think the ploy here is when there no receipts issued they can fudge the dates (especially true for people who have paid in cash) of when the STB’s were installed so when they return the customers deposits they can also fudge the amount returned which is dependent on the date of installation. Clever chap’s isn’t it!

Problem 2

· When I subscribed, I was specifically told that I could choose the language for the channels, which had been dubbed in local languages. There is no sign of this till date in spite of many complaints. This is true for both CAN’s. eg. Cartoon Network sometimes comes in Tamil or Hindi ! In fact on 4-3-07 when I wanted to watch Harry Potter movie on Cartoon Network, I find the sound is in Tamil. I was told by one of the call centers guys that this is a technical problem (really!!!!) but no word on when it going to be solved as this was happening even before CAS was introduced.

· On 4-3-07 I found that for half a day HBO had gone off the air!!! But appeared again later in the day, also, I find that almost all channels tended to freeze.

Problem 3

On my second Tv

· I get a blank screen for -

NDTV 24x7,
Etv Marathi &
Zee Tv.

Even though I had selected these channels. I have made around 6 complaints to their toll free numbers and a visit to Rohit Vision, all I get is dubious reasons or promises, which have not been kept. Incidentally Indusind Media & Rohit Vision staff is oblivious to the fact that ETV Marathi is FTA in Maharashtra (Press Release No. 109/2006 dated 15-11-2006) as on 5-Feb-07.

Also the channels which are visible on this Tv is basically useless in the because the pictures freeze and you also see the indigital logo super imposed on the screen, so you can say this tv can be viewed only after 1900 hrs with less freezing.

On 4-3-07 I got a shock that except for National Geographic & Discovery ALL CHANNELS were off the air I spoke to ‘Rahul’ on the toll free number who tried some hit & miss tricks which all failed and as usual I was told that ‘my complaint will be forwarded to the right people’. He also told me that the freezing is a network problem and that this would be referred to my cable operator (passing the buck?),

But why is this happening ONLY AFTER the encryption started? Before that, things were fine and no one has any explanation why does the freezing decrease in the evenings when there should be MORE load on the network. Please note this does not seem to affect others very much in my building, who are on the same network. From my diagnosis since the freezing happens after the encryption started it means that this adds a lot of ‘overheads’ on the cable network which to put it politely, is primitive. What can you expect when it is ‘unstructured’ & runs over treetops & terrace tops. This was ok when the signals were analogue not when its digital.

Problem 4

Now the input coming from the STB goes into the video socket, what this means is that, If you have a Tv which has advanced features like

Individual volume settings for channels

Maximum volume setting for channels or

Volume settings, which take care of blaring of sound when the ads or music starts. Such features are rendered useless..

Problem 5

Also there was a lot big talk of there being

Parental Control, nothing of that sort exists

Another promise was movie on demand that too does not exist. Nor does my cable operator know what it’s all about J

Incidentally these digital STB’s being distributed are MPEG 2 technology so you can guess the vintage of this so called ‘advanced technology’.

When I have rung up their toll free number I have spoken to people by the names (as given by them) Anand, Ashok, Tahir, Sayeed Arbaaz & Rajan

Here are some of the ‘reasons’ given by them.

There is a technical problem.

Server is down.

That channel is distributed by ‘so & so company’ which is having a problem, hence your problem (passing the buck)

Sir, we will call you back in ‘FIVE MINUTES” but their five minutes never seem to get over. I am still waiting.

We will send some one to your place that has so far never materialized.

Our head office tel no. is 28248345 & 28248300 ‘Please contact them’, for the first number you get an error message!!!

O! that’s a cable problem, Please contact your cable operator

To say the least, I am utterly disappointed & disgusted by what is happening in spite of making all the payments for four months (all cheques have been encashed), I cannot view what I have paid for. I have even been told that one of the forms with the channel selection had not reached their office; I am quite shocked by the type of service meted out to paying customers, which is far removed from all the hype & gas generated in the media about CAS and its so called benefits. I am actually coming round to the opinion that I made a BIG MISTAKE in being prompt in my payments. I feel totally cheated. I had written to Sanjay Kamat who I was told is chief of customer care with Indusind Media & Communication (Mumbai)( sanjay.kamat@incablenet.net ) on 5-2-07 and again on 12-2-07 but to no avail. BTW I get the read receipt from these people but no courtesy of a reply much less solving the problem.

On 16-3-07 I did some troubleshooting & found the cause for some of my problems but everything is still not what it should be. I have now decided to go in for a DTH connection from Tata Sky very soon. Incidentally I am still waiting for my receipts for the payments made.

On 21-3-07 I am pleasantly surprised to find that the channels I have opted for are clearly visible (lets see for how long), that means all those amateurish excuses made all these days were all lies, delaying tactics or plain ignorance. This goes to prove that the source of the problem was outside my house (probably changed some main cables or installed/replaced more powerful repeaters).

Others in my colony tell me that some of their payments have still not been collected; another case where a person asked only for ‘ZEE Tv’ gets all channels even though she has not opted for them. Another person who has disconnected one connection of CAS has been told ‘The set top box is now yours, keep it’ even though the person has taken it on rent. No word of returning the deposit. Also no one I meet in my colony seems to have got their receipts for the payments made. I guess the mind set of the people involved became very clear to the citizens in the CAS areas when the channels went of the air on 31^st Dec 2006 in the morning itself, instead of midnight. This crude stunt was only to get people to go in for the STB’s. For people who seemed in an indecent haste to implement CAS, this company seems to be having an inordinately long ‘teething problems’. With all this happening I feel that this introduction of CAS was hurried thru when the infrastructure was not in place nor is any one interested in providing genuine service, it looks more like the intention was only to unload the STB’s on the hapless citizens, which was in their inventory. In spite of pious proclamation made in the media to the contrary. Frankly any business model, which has the cable operator in the supply chain, is doomed to failure or immense dissatisfaction for the customer (read my reviews on Sify & Tata Indicom broadband). CAS is ALL GAS.

All I can say to people who will be unfortunate to be in areas, which will go in for CAS, in future, is opt for other technology platforms eg DTH. IPTV. They too have their drawbacks & you could also have bad experiences with their service providers too but there is competition on those platforms only problems is that on DTH platforms there is no portability in their STB’s (as of now) this is something that TRAI should deal with right now before it inconveniences more people.

My Experience with K750i

2006-10-04T20:23:00.000+05:30

I had been keen to change my cell phone for some time (this was in Oct 05 ). As Ihave so far been a Nokia user for around 8+ yrs I automatically gravitated tothis brand. After doing the usual rounds of surfing the Nokia site I was not mpressed by whatever I saw, except maybe the 6230i, but that my brother had bought that June and had a real bad time (Read that review) & 6681 but thathas a 1.3 mega pixel camera. But I was interested in the upcoming models likethe 6270, 6280 etc. when I went to my friendly neighborhood dealer in Shivaji Park he advised me to wait for the 6270 which was due in Dec 05 (according to Nokia). Jan 2006 came & went and there was no sign of this model in Mumbai that was when I seriously decided to look @ other manufacturers like Sony Ericsson coz my main worry was how to export my contacts from a Nokia phone toa SE phone. Once that was settled I went thru their site & short-listed theK750i & W800i. The specs on paper r same but the K750i was cheaper. So Iopted for it.
The dealer told me the price was Rs 15500 (much cheaper than a so called authorized dealer like Sierra) with bill & warranty (In Mar 2006) . I was presented asealed green coloured box which said it was a limited edition piece. (It hasSania Mirza on the cover, not that it matters to me). On opening it I got a pleasant surprise that it contained an external flash, which can be fitted tothe phone wow. (Incidentally even the dealer didn’t know of this). This is notfound in the usual box, which is over all white in colour. After checking the piece thoroughly I decided this was for me.
I wont bore u with the specs of this phone as u can find it on their website. The display is crystal clear though fades in sun, Reception and voice quality is both proved excellent, as also itsbattery life.
Camera The camera is a 2-mega-pixel camera,which is very good, there’s also a in built light, which can be used while taking a photographs and performs v well even under poorly lit conditions. Also since I got afree external flash I find that very useful. Here are some
Some Tips for Camera function
1 = Opens menu with"picture size" ready to select
4 = Toggles Macro mode (forclose up photos)
7 = Toggels Night mode
* = Toggles Light
0 = While in video modetoggles length of recording.

Press <> to adjust the exposure.
Lazy to access the Camerafunction through the Menu? Simply press and hold the camera button and the camera function will be activated! Another useful feature of the model is the presence of an auto focus. It works for any distance including the Macro mode.I have taken a sunset shot form a room thru a plate glass window & it cameout really well, which was a real surprise. U can also adjust the brightness ofthe picture being taken. The camera supports three possible resolutions -1632x1224, 640x480, 160x120 pixels. Two types of data compression, Normal andFine, are available. If ‘Normal is selected quality is quite good, and photo’slook quite well. The photos differ in size depending on the resolution. Thus a photo in the Normal mode takes about 300 KB when the Fine quality gives 500-600KB. Saving the photo takes the same time not depending on the case, that is about 1-2 seconds. I have taken a sunset shot with the phone camera thru a picture window glass which u can see below
The audio player was a surprise for meas I found that the audio quality quite good, I hear it will get better after upgrading the firmware :) There’s also a play list. Using the device as an mp3 player brings no real serious battery life shortage, energy consumption iscomparable in the radio mode too. Equalizer setup is present among the other settings (Bass, Voice, Tremble etc), as well as the ability of creating your own settings. Depending on these settings the sound will actually change, thisis noticeable. The presence of a memory card turns the K750 into a fully functional mp3 player with good quality.
Radio The phone also has a built-in FM tuner. Phone’s memory can store up to 20 radio stations; the stereo headset that is part of every package, which is quite good also plays the role of antenna. U can also use the loud speaker which is good & does not cause jarring except @ v high volume :) In case you are using auto-search the phone willfind about 6-7 stations with the strongest signal’s coverage and store them in the memory. At the same time radio stations with weaker signal, but prettysuitable for listening will be skipped. They can be added into the listmanually. If u minimise the radio display, u can listen to the radio AND usesome other function eg: make & receive calls, send SMS etc
Phonebook can contain 500 entries with multiple entries allowed. For backups the PC Suite (like Nokia) does not allowback ups of the phone book. U have to use MS Outlook or MS Outlook Exp to synchronize ur phone book. For some reason u cannot see the contacts on the SIM card ALONG with those in the phone (like Nokia) unless go thru the menu. Only the contacts on the phone can be seen.
Messages Features found here r common to most phones.
Organizer.
First the ‘Calendar’. There are three types of event view, monthly, weekly and daily. In last case you see the list of all things to do and reminders, in the other two modes you will notice the highlighted time with events or the day. Fast forward to a specific year, day or month is present. It’s kept simple and,
The ‘Scheduler ‘allows you choice to choose one of the 6 icons assigned to the action type, specify the place where it will occur, length and setup reminder (beforehand or in the entered time). I was could not find a way to setup reoccurrence rate; maybe I have to spend more time on it J. From the editing menu you can choose another time and date for separate events.
‘Reminders’ work even if the phone is turned off, in case you turn on this function in the settings menu. Pleasant peculiarity of this model is that you can turn on/off automatic switch of profiles after the event had occurred, as well as return to the earlier set profile after the event is over.
The ‘To do list’ allows, only two modes of events, call or reminder. On the other hand this is pretty enough, simplicity has its own advantages as well.
The phone has support for sending schedules to different devices (like IrDA, Bluetooth). Same thing can be sent from your office or desktop PC without any additional software for synchronization.
‘Notes’. The phone supports recording short text notes; in common list first word from each is displayed.
‘Alarm clocks’. The phone has single as well as reoccurring alarm clock, which can be setup by the defined days of week. The alarm clocks will work even if the phone is turned off.
‘Countdown timer’. Everything is pretty simple here, although same thing can be said about the stopwatch, it supports intervals. The phone has ‘Code storage’ feature, there’s also a ‘Calculator’ and ‘World time’ function.
What I like
1. The clarity & resolution of the screen is both bright and clear as well as unusually sharp due to its resolution of 176 x 220 pixels & 262,144-colour TFT LCD
2. I like the feel of the keypad quite crisp.
3. When this phone is connected to the PC thru the cable it gets charged, which can be useful for people who use the phone for Internet connectivity.
4. Another thing I have observed is that if u have a person in ur phone book & he calls from a new number which u would like to add against his name it can be easily done. Real handy
5. My friend has tried this feature, though I cant vouch for it as I don’t have a Sony TV, is that the phones infrared port can be used to operate Sony TVs.
6. The phone also has a feature, I haven’t seen in other phones. An online update service where the user can update his phone’s firmware (software) through the internet for free. And each one brings, new features or improvements on the phones current features, like increase in speaker volume etc.
What I like don’t like
1. It has 40 polyphonic ring tones, which I find to be unsuitable for our noisy Indian environment except the SE default tune. But u can add ur own.
2. The USB cable given with the kit is quite long. Today’s PCs have front USB outputs, thus there is no need for such a long cable. That’s true for notebooks and other portable gadgets. Maybe I am nit picking :)
3. Making of groups can be used only for sending multiple sms and not for assigning ring tones to a particular group. U have to assign a ring tone to an individual contact only.
4. While using the hands free speaker a lot of background noise is picked up if u increase the volume to the higher side
5. I miss the auto brightness control for the screen (like the newer Nokia phones).
6. Headset provided to listen songs doesn’t allow changing channels using the button in head set. Activity menu pops up (whenever a message arrives) though u are doing some other operations.
7. PC Suite which come on the CD or even the latest ver available is very limited as compared to the Nokia PC Suite
8. Another thing I miss from my Nokia days is, I cannot send sms thru my computer using PC Suite when my phone is connected to the PC. Now I am demoted to a two thumb typist as Sony Ericsson PC Suite does not have this feature. :))

Configuring the D-Link 502T router for MTNL Broadband Do it yourself

2006-01-17T11:28:00.003+05:30

One of the most important things is read & take very seriously the message by MTNL about the Tel. wiring in your house. The main telephone wire should first come to the POTS Splitter (comes with the D-Link 502T router), to the socket called ‘LINE” on the splitter. (See diagram below). The wire from the socket called ‘MODEM’ should lead to the D-Link router & the wire from the socket called ‘PHONE’ should lead to a phone or the phone network in your house. The wiring of the router is shown in the MTNL user guide so not mentioned here.

Next open the browser and type, http://192.168.1.1/ press enter

1) You will get a small dialogue box where the user name is admin & password is also admin.

2) Once you have logged in, the HOME directory tab is prominent with the Setup Wizard menu displayed. Click on the ‘Run Wizard’ button in the middle of the screen. A pop up menu will appear. This is the Setup Wizard.

3) This procedure consists of
(a) Setting the time zone
(b) Set the Internet connection
(c) Restart the router.
4) Click on the Next button & configure the Time Zone by selecting the appropriate time zone. Click on the Next button after you have made your choice.

5) Next you have to set the Internet connection type for the WAN interface. On the screen that you see (shown below) select ‘PPPoE/PPPoA’ and click on Next.

6) In the screen as seen below type in the Username (Your Tel No) & your Password (your CA number, Customer Identification number). This available on your tel bill. VPI should be 0 (zero) and VCI as 32.

These VCI & VPI I have mentioned above is basically for MTNL for the other ISP’s in India it’s the following

Connection Name	VPI	VCI
MTNL	0	32
BSNL	0	35
Airtel	1	32
VSNL	0	33

Connection type should remain as PPPoELLC. Click Next and skip to the Setup Completed menu below.

7) Setup Competed: click on the Restart button. At this stage you will get another screen telling you that the ‘The system is now restarting. Please wait’. Please do not turn off the router while it is still displayed
What is mentioned below is what is done by the MTNL staff to configure the router when they install it at your residence & this is not know to most users.

After you have done the above mentioned settings Click on WAN on the left side of your screen & you will see a screen as seen in Fig 1a.

In the 1^st field PVC click on the list box (the downward pointing arrow) & select ‘PVC0’. Scroll down (Fig 1b) and click on the ‘Apply’ button seen below.

Next click on the ‘TOOLS” button in the horizontal tab seen below and then click on the ‘SYSTEM’ button, scroll down & click on the ‘Save & Reboot’ button. This may take some time, it may also happen you get the browser error ‘Page cannot be displayed’ in that case click on the Refresh button.

Now you should get a similar screen as seen below (seen in two parts) where the status should be seen as ‘Connected’. You can click on the STATUS button and check the status of your connection. You are now ready for a broadband experience.

PS: You will notice that in the last two screen dumps some fields are blanked out, that in no way should reduce the significance of the overall picture :)

After this is done you can follow what is mentioned in the user guide to change your password, create your email id etc.

All those who want to use a wireless router in conjunction with the above gadget can see the link given below. I used a Linksys WRT54G ver 7.00.1 )

http://socrates0.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-configure-linksys-wrt54g.html

What are RSS feed readers

2005-09-15T13:21:00.000+05:30

Reading News and Blogs via Really Simple Syndication - Spam Free

Most of us keep a mental list of our favorite Web sites--perhaps 5 to 10 destinations that we swing by every day. But usually only a few of them contain new stories that are worth reading immediately, so a habit of loading and scanning each of these sites daily can waste a lot of time. If you can't afford to miss out on the latest news, are having a hard time managing the deluge of information you receive via e-mail, or simply want a more convenient way to manage and control your online news and information, RSS feeds may be the next best thing for you. Email newsletters are great, but spam is not. The deluge of junk mail has made it increasingly painful to follow the news and what's happening on your favorite web sites via email.

Either the newsletter you're eager to read can be hidden in a massive spam attack or it does not arrive because your ISP is blocking spam and your favorite newsletter falls victim to the filters, too (now you know why a "false positive" is something negative).

RSS Feeds as an Alternative to Email Newsletters

Fortunately, there is an alternative way to subscribe to the web sites and blogs you visit regularly: RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (of course, the acronym can be explained in many other creative ways), and it allows you to "syndicate" news summaries from web sites. Along with breaking-news headlines from online versions of publications, feeds can deliver everything from Weblogs and weather alerts. Feeds arrive in various formats, but the most common are RSS and a new standard called Atom that expands on the capabilities of RSS. Both can be read by most available readers.

You can use these syndicated RSS "feeds" to display the latest news from major newspapers, for example, on your own web site or read them on other sites collecting these feeds. Using very simple, easy-to-use, free or low-cost software called an RSS reader, Also called "RSS aggregators," RSS readers are one of the biggest new categories of software in recent memory. A quick online search will find more than 50 programs designed to scan subscription news feeds, and each one works a little differently than the others. Some are stand-alone applications; others plug into your e-mail client or your Web browser; and still others act as Web services, permitting you to access them from any browser. The type that will suit you best depends on your work style. You can have all the latest headlines on topics you choose delivered to your desktop for free. You can even choose the source. When your reader displays a headline of interest, click the headline and you'll be whisked to the source Web site for the full story. And there is NO SPAM. With RSS you no longer have to visit your favorite Web sites to check for new updates--you simply open up your reader and see all the headlines from all your selected sources in a matter of seconds.

Where do I get a RSS reader

New RSS readers are being developed every day. Here is a list of some of them

Using RSS Feeds

Subscribing to an RSS feed is easy.

Look for a little orange XML icon on your favorite news site or blog, telling you to "syndicate this site".
Copy the feed's URL (it will usually end in .xml, .rdf or .rss).
Paste it in your RSS feed reader.
Now let the feed reader do its aggregating work, and enjoy the news.

Should you ever encounter "Atom" or "web" feeds instead of "RSS" feeds, do not let that confuse you. Essentially, they are all the same, just different names and slightly different protocols for the same functionality. Your RSS feed reader should be able to use either version just fine.

RSS and Your Email Program

While dedicated programs to read RSS feeds are developed, have you noticed how the most useful borrow much of the interface and functionality known from your email program? Before long, more and more email programs and web-based email services will be able to read RSS news. Mozilla Thunderbird, for example, integrates RSS feeds nicely and seamlessly, and NewsGator turns Outlook into a capable aggregator. Email clients are the natural environment for Usenet news, email and RSS feeds. These methods of following news are strikingly similar, and aggregating them all in the same powerful program has many benefits.

Which feeds do I need

Every reader includes a list of sites to get you started--sometimes hundreds of them, usually organized into categories like the sections of a newspaper. Here are some places where you can find more news feeds

For Economic times & Times of India (http://info.indiatimes.com/rss/#etfeeds )
Rediff (http://in.rediff.com/push/rss.htm )
Indian Express (http://www.expressindia.com/syndications/ei.xml )
CNN (http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss )
PC World (http://www.pcworld.com/resource/rss/0,00.asp )
Tech Republic (http://techrepublic.com.com/1200-22-5154511.html )
Cnet (http://www.cnet.com/4520-6022_1-5115040-1.html?tag=cnetfd.ft )

Most websites now a days provide a RSS link so you can go to your favorite website & locate and copy the link into your RSS reader J Happy surfing