The build quality on the Onza was great, but within 6 months of moderate usage I noticed a constant pull on the Y-Axis of the left analog stick causing the camera to constantly drag downwards. Searching through the internet I found that this was quite a common issue and I guess mostly perpetrated by the adjustable resistance analog stick mechanism which though great in theory and practice was not so great in the implementation. You see, one had to adjust the tension on the analog sticks by turning a mechanical dial beneath the analog nubs, which according to me made it quite prone to mechanical failure and that’s what happened with my controller. Another gripe that I had with the Onza that there was 3 shoulder buttons, out of them a pair being re-programmable to any other other keys on the controller. Though these were quite helpful, they were situated just below the LB/LT and RB/RT buttons of the controller and were exactly the same shape and size as of the LB and the RB buttons, so often they would get pressed by mistake in the heat of action instead of the LB/RB buttons and depending on what they were mapped to, would sometimes lead to totally undesirable consequences. The third gripe that I had was with the directional buttons, they were in more of a circular arrangement with slots between the buttons to differentiate them which I never liked much because I am more used to separate direction buttons and thus never got properly used to of that in the Onza.

Now coming to the Sabertooth, almost all of these little annoyances have been done away with and is in every way an upgrade over the Onza. The centerpiece of all the action being the small OLED screen that has been introduced in this iteration which controls most of the functionalities surrounding the customization of the device. There are two customization profiles that can be set on the fly using this screen, custom button mapping can be done (on programmable buttons, did I mention there were 6 of them !), a test mode to check whether your controller is functioning all right and heck you can also toggle the backlight and rumble features through this screen. This is not all that can be done with the screen though : the analog stick sensitivity options are still there but the mechanical implementation of the same has been done away with so you can adjust their sensitivity purely via the screen. This does away with my primary gripe with the Onza and thus makes the Sabertooth much less prone to mechanical failure.

Now coming to the fully programmable buttons, two of them are situated on the shoulder, again between the LB/LT and RB/RT buttons but the are quite a bit offset towards the center and smaller in size so they are quite distinguishable and there’s no chance at all that you’ll press them if you do not explicitly intend to. Strike gripe number two off the list ! And yes, Razer has reverted to the separate direction button design and there went my gripe number three for the Onza.

The other four programmable buttons is where things become more interesting. They are situated in the backside of the controller and are in a rocker arrangement, you can trigger them by pushing them up or down and are easy to reach and trigger with your middle finger. The best part is that if you have no use of these triggers, you can unscrew them with the screwdriver that comes bundled in and use a couple of bundled rubber plugs to seal the hole. I would say that’s damn good for customizability !  Also another advantage that these triggers might have, if you are gaming on an XBOX is that for FPS games, one can ideally map both downward triggers to the fire button (in burst fire mode) and can really pull off nice accurate headshots with easy and little finger fatigue by pressing them both in quick succession.  But I mostly play FPS games on my PC so I am quite comfortable with my Razer Deathadder and Goliathus combo.

The overall build quality is Razer good with the controller feeling quite great to hold with a rubberized coating all over it, a 3 meter braided controller cable with a quick release feature that will release the controller cable mid way and not harm or dislodge your console / laptop to which you have it plugged to should you or someone else happen to trip over it ! And all this awesomeness comes in a pretty well built carry case to boot !!!

The only gripe that I have with the controller is it’s price. It retails for around Rs 6500 and would appeal to only the elitists or people with really deep pockets (I was lucky to receive a discount on the product and paid the difference in exchange for my faulty Onza). With the XBOX 360 wired controller retailing for around Rs 2000 and the XBOX 360 Wireless controller retailing for around Rs 3000, t’s a hardsell to the common mass. But if you are a gamer and looking for quite a bit of customizability and of course have the money to shell out, then the Sabertooth will not disappoint you under any circumstance ! Needless to say I am loving mine

The post Review : Razer Sabertooth appeared first on Les Aventures de Techiemaque....

Update : 

An update to the post below : I posted the same on this blog and Min Liang Tan’s (Razer CEO) FB page. The first post was promptly deleted, however I posted and a second time and tweeted. Min replied asking me to contact Support but got a better response on Twitter : John Wie reached out to me.

Consequently I was contacted by Razer Asia Support again in the morning offering me a more substantial discount on the Sabertooth (around 25%) or a replacement Onza or a credit note.

I decided to go after option 1 because : 1. I did not want a replacement Onza, run into the same problem again, which seems pretty common, 6 months down the line and go through the same support experience again ! 2. The credit note did not matter as the resellers that I purchased the Onza from have ceased to be official Razer resellers sometime around Feb,2013 (if I remember the month correctly) and therefore could not use the credit note to purchase any Razer product and they have no other controllers on their site (visit tirupati.net or overclockerszone)

It was not the ideal solution for me but I had no option. It sucks to have to pay a premium to upgrade from a faulty product for no fault of of mine in the first place. But it seems that was all the guy from Razer India (nice and helpful) had in his power to do.

I have also emailed John Wie and hope something comes out of this. I think they can definitely do better than this !

I’ve been a passionate Razer Cultist for the last couple of years and have always been impressed about the build quality of it’s products because of their fabulous build quality and futuristic features and have recommended the same to my friends… until the last week when I ran into the horrible state for support of my Razer Onza Tournament Edition game controller (still under warranty) started malfunctioning.

Reached out to Razer Support US only to be rebuffed that my controller was not original (Bought it on Ebay from a store who are the leading importer of Razer Products in India – Tirupati Enterprises, with a proper invoice and serial no.) and thus not eligible for an RMA.

It seems that Clause No. 4 for Razer warranty claims states that “Razer currently has no authorized resellers on Ebay or any other online auction sites.” Well in India, they do !

Razer India has been much more gracious. They said that the Onza was out of it’s product lifecycle and has been replaced by the Sabertooth and offered me two choices : Get a credit note from the store or wait till the month’s end and go for a Razer Sabertooth and pay the difference in price (Rs. 5700 tentatively, with a 10-15% discount). While this is appreciated this does not work for me on two counts.

1.  The credit note can only be used against the store I purchased it and they have no other controllers (from any other manufacturers) in stock.
2.  The difference in cost of the Razer Onza TE and the Sabertooth is more than the price of the Onza itself, meaning I will have to pay more than double the initial investment. Just to give you an idea of the cost of the Sabertooth, I can buy nearly 4 wired Microsoft XBOX controllers at that price. It’s really going to be difficult to explain to my wife and kid, why I, a casual gamer, would need to spend that much on a controller whose price nearly equals to around the price of a Playstation Portable.

I think the Sabertooth is a wonderful product and I would love to own it, but the terms of the exchange leave a lot to be desired on my part.

As I said, I am a casual gamer and I would love to just be happy to just have a controller as a replacement without having to pay anything extra than my initial investment.

I feel Razer gets us gamers (not everyone does, sadly) and I felt dejected and sad after dealing with support for more than a week I am not sure I would invest in Razer anymore ?

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Name : Aahir Bhattacharjee
Sex : Male
D.O.B :  14th March 2011, 10:13 AM
Weight : 3.02 Kgs
The Buzz : Looks a lot like his mother.

[flickr_highslide set=”Hello World !!!”]

Welcome to the world, my precious !!!

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So much so that when Haimanti, my wife, who was my fiancee then, came to visit me in Bangalore for the first time, I nearly threw a fit when she let go of my laptop an inch from the ground.

So much so that after 3 years of marriage Haimanti still thinks that I sometimes love gadgets and my laptop more than I love her.

So much so that I sometimes think that she might be just right !!!

Well she’s five years younger to me and has been a darling both to me and my parents. We fought with each other so much so that my parents had to get involved every time, but we loved each other and still do. We still have the occasional tiffs even now, and now my wife get’s involved to sort out the mess

Me : Bonu (sister), I’m seeing someone

Me : Yeah (blushing…)

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So when Ellie & Crystal from the International Medical Corps (IMC) contacted me to spread awareness about Haiti, I approached them to share their experiences.  Below is a short interview of Crystal from IMC about their experience in Haiti post the earthquake:

Me: A little about IMC and what you guys do ?

Crystal: International Medical Corps is a global humanitarian organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs.  We work in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and now Haiti to give underserved populations access to medical care and other lifesaving services while helping communities rebuild and become self-reliant through education and training. We were founded in 1984 by volunteer doctors and nurses and have worked in more than 50 countries in our 25-year history.

Me: A little about yourself ?

Crystal: I am the communications officer for International Medical Corps and have worked for International Medical Corps for two years.  I currently live in Chicago, Illinois and am originally from Boulder, Colorado.

Me: How did you find Haiti after the quake ? Ground realities, anecdotes will be appreciated.

Crystal: Our team was on the ground less than 24 hours after the earthquake struck, before much of the relief effort arrived in Haiti.  It was completely devastated.   We started working the first night out of the Villa Creole Hotel, which had been turned into a makeshift medical clinic.  We then moved to the General Hospital near the presidential palace.

We have performed dozens of amputations – we just met a ballerina with the national ballet, for example, that lost her leg, but she promises that she’ll dance again.  Just a couple of days ago, we treated a little boy, Monley, who was trapped for eight days under the rubble.  He was miraculously unscathed, but severely dehydrated and emaciated.  Our teams gave him an IV, some water, and a bit of rice and he was soon discharged.  We are now monitoring him, just to be safe, but this shows that miracles are happening in Haiti, even in the face of tragedy.

Me: A little about your efforts in Haiti post the earthquake ?

Crystal: We have been working at the General Hospital, providing emergency medical care and supporting medical clinics throughout Port-au-Prince.  We recently launched mobile medical units to Leogane, Petit Goave, and other underserved areas in Haiti outside the capital.

Me: How did things change when the second earthquake hit ?

Crystal: At the General Hospital, we had to provide medical care outside because people were once again afraid to go indoors.  We also sent a mobile medical unit to Petite Goave, the epicenter of the aftershock to provide medical care and assess what the damage is.

Me: A little about the support and help that you received from everywhere ?

Crystal: There has been an incredible outpouring of support for Haiti.  Millions of dollars of medications and equipment have been donated, while individuals and corporations have also made cash contributions to support our efforts there.  We have also had many people call wanting to volunteer and help in anyway that they can.

Me: How can we, the netizens, help you ?

Crystal: The best way to help is to give money and even $10 really does make a big difference.  This will help make sure that we can continue to buy medicines and support our team and mission on the ground in Haiti – every little bit counts!  You can donate by visiting our website, imcworldwide.org, or texting HAITI to 85944.

For more Information

IMC Worldwide : http://www.imcworldwide.org

IMC : Help Haiti : http://www.imcworldwide.org/haiti

IMC Flickr Set : http://www.flickr.com/photos/46597025@N07/sets/72157623258502090/

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And this is where it all began. A visit to the MEA office in Kolkata got me the response that since my passport was issued in Trichy (It was issued while I was still in college), I would need to visit the passport office there and get it verified (?). Somewhat perplexed, I landed up in Trichy Passport office who told me that I would need to visit the Chennai MEA office to get my passport apostilled. At a loss for what to do I called up the MEA office in Kolkata again seeking for help and the response that I received floored me. It was not under their “jurisdiction” to get my passport, which was issued in Trichy, apostilled. I would need to go to the New Delhi office instead. All attempts to argue over the fact that that my passport was a central government issued document and not a state government issued one and hence should be verifiable from anywhere in the country only yielded curt and irritated replies and this was where I almost gave up.

Not quite. I had been following our Minister for External Affairs, Dr Shashi Tharoor on twitter for quite a long time and have been thoroughly impressed by him. Before that I liked him as an author and his Great Indian Novel has been a favourite sice college. The respect and admiration increased when I had the chance to meet him at a Tweetup in Bangalore.

I decided to reach out to Dr. Tharoor for help. I mailed him and everyone in his office whose email I could gather explaining my apostille woes to him. Not that I expected a reply. I mean, I was one of the many that maybe reach out to him every day with more complicated problems and he is a busy man. On top of that the indian government is not known to be internet and email savvy though it seems things are changing. I waited.

A week went by and I had almost given up when I was pleasantly surprised to receive a mail from Mr Hoti Lal who works for Dr Tharoor’s office and who’s been requested by Mr Sandeep Chakravorty, private secretary to Dr Tharoor to help my cause. Still awestruck, and a couple of mails later i received the following reply :

Dear Mr. Bhattacharjee,

Please refer to your mail for getting your passport apostilled by MEA authorities. In this connection, we had written to the Head of Branch Sectt, Kolkata, Dr. R. Sivakumar (copy of our communication is attached herewith).  After accepting your application, they can verify the particulars from PO Trichy as the passport is issued by them and render the necessary service to you.

You may kindly get in touch with the Branch Secretariat Kolkata at: 2 Ballygunge Park Road, Kolkata (Phone no. 033-2279701 / 22802686)

Regards,
Hoti Lal

PS: Sorry for the delay in reply. I had given the fax to my colleague to scan the fax and send it you by e-mail, however, it got skipped.

Elated and over the top, I reached out to Dr Sivakumar in Kolkata, set up an appointment and met him. He turned out to be a very nice gentlemen and eager to help. I was directed to Mr Sagar Maitra, the Administrative officer of the MEA office in Kolkata and I met up with him. A very nice and knowledgeable person who loves to talk about everything, Mr Maitra and I chatted over various topics from literature to religion for over an hour and by the end of it I had an apostille stamp on the notarized copy of my passport.

This incident did change something. It changed the way I perceived how the government works. This led me to believe that maybe all is not lost and things still work as it should in India. Lastly it instilled a firm belief that at least someone from the government is trying to actually walking his talk of “demystifying the governance process”.

Thanks a lot Dr. Tharoor. I would vote for you.

PS: This post has been chosen as BlogAdda’s Spicy Saurday Picks

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Well I have been a fan since my college days when I first chanced upon The Great Indian Novel and then on Twitter and there was no way I was going to give up on this chance to meet him in person. So according to the invite I turned up at the Bangalore International Centre on the 6th of November along with @vaid and @faiqrg. Thanks so much to @dhempe, @santhoshp, @tinucherian and @23jacob.

We were well in time and were pleasantly surprised when when we got a seat inside the audi without even a cursory security pat, such was the informal atmosphere. Stuck in the famous Bangalore traffic, Shashi Tharoor arrived by 3:30 PM and finally at 3:45 PM the doors were closed and the tweetup began.

After as short and witty introduction the floor was thrown open and the questions began pouring in. Right from how he got tweeting, defending twitter to the media and other politicians and many many more, ending with a short anecdote of how twitter generated help for a young girl from his constituency in Thiruvananthapuram who lost both her legs in an accident. When asked about why he does not write anymore, he said that he does but in 140 characters and on twitter. He said that he  misses writing and yeah, so do we

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/RxcYRIECdbI" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]

Before we knew, it was already 4:30 PM and the minister had to leave for Mysore where he was supposed to speak at the TED India Conference the next day but we had just not had enough. After a group photo and a couple of autographs on books, the white Toyota Corolla with red hooter sped on it’s way to Mysore and I started back on my way home, contented but wanting more…

Other Blogs and Articles

• @manuscrypts : Shashi Tharoor, TGIN and the Bangalore Tweetup
• Today, Tharoor at bangalore tweetup
• Tweeple meet their very own poster boy
• Twittering Tharoor floors city with fan following
• Pics of the Event courtesy @s0h4m : Tweetup with @shashitharoor

The post A Date with an Indian Minister of State… appeared first on Les Aventures de Techiemaque....

If I leave here tomorrow Would you still remember me? For I must be travelling on, now, ‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see. But, if I stayed here with you, girl, Things just couldn’t be the same. ‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now, And this bird you can not change. Lord knows, I can’t change. Bye, bye, its been a sweet love. Though this feeling I can’t change. But please don’t take it badly, ‘Cause Lord knows I’m to blame. But, if I stayed here with you girl, Things just couldn’t be the same. Cause I’m as free as a bird now, And this bird you’ll never change. And this bird you can not change. Lord knows, I can’t change. Lord help me, I can’t change. – Freebird (Lynyrd Skynyrd).

October 23th, 2009 marks the last day of my professional engagement with SAP Labs India Ltd. It’s been a little less than 4 years of a very fruitful tenure here at the lush Labs campus in Bangalore. I learnt all that I could have ever have about enterprise software, manufacturing and shop-floor integration and that too from possibly the largest enterprise software vendor in the world : SAP, a company with a heart I got introduced to the SAP Community Network and a lot of awesome friends some of whom even fall into, what my wife Haimanti and I refer to as our extended family. Add on top of that an awesome team and awesome colleagues and my current manager of one year, with whom I wish I could have spent my entire professional career. He’s just that good. Period.

I was a fledgling and mother SAP molded me into what I am now, and now I am ready to spread my wings and soar the blue skies.

October 26th, 2009 I join IBM India as an Advisory Systems Analyst. I look forward towards more responsibility to shoulder, more innovation and a zeal towards solving real life customer pain-points. It’s quite a change from the generally peaceful life one leads at a product based organisation to the daily hustle and bustle of a customer projects driven service industry and I am looking forward to take up that challenge. I would also be joining my very good friend (he’s like an elder brother to me), college senior, ex-SAP colleague and Co-Author Dipankar Saha who is a wonderful person to work with and a great team in Kolkata whom I personally know to be a delightful and enthusiastic bunch. But due to some personal constraints I’ll be operating out of Bangalore.

So thank you everyone, for being a part of my life and my professional journey and for wonderful love and support that I have received from you guys. I hope and I know that you guys will be there for me whenever I reach out to you.

Wish me luck…

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Link to full post on JonERP.com : Podcast: Abesh Bhattacharjee of SAP Labs on SAP Development Skills and SAP MII

Listen to the Podcast now !

Also check out the cool little contest that Dipankar and I are running on SCN where you stand to win brand new copies of our book : SAP MII Blog/Article Contest – Win Brand New SAP Press Books!

The post SAP MII Developement Skills podcast with Jon Reed appeared first on Les Aventures de Techiemaque....

Ingredients

• 500 gms fresh Large Prawns, de-shelled and de-veined.
• One-Half Coconut
• Coconut Milk, 1/2 of a tea-cup.
• Three small Onions.
• Three Green Chillies
• One Tablespoon Garlic Paste
• One Tablespoon Mustard (The Twist ;))
• Three Tablespoons of Cooking Oil
• Turmeric Powder, Sugar and Salt (per taste)

Preparation

Scrape the coconut meat with a shredder and put it in a Mixer-Grinder / Food Processor jar with the three Green Chillies and the tablespoon of Mustard. Use a little bit of water and grind it to a thick paste at the highest speed setting. The mustard can be omitted if you want to do without the “Twist” and go about the old fashioned way. When you are done, it should look somewhat like this :

Similarly, grind the three onions in a thick paste using the Food Processor or the Mixie.

The last thing to do would be to fry the Prawns for about a minute in the cooking oil, till they are light red in color.

That’s it, you are ready to go on to the actual cooking.

Recipe

Put the cooking oil in a pre-heated pan. You can re-use the oil that you used  to fry the prawns. Add the Garlic Paste to it and saute it till it turns light brown. Add the Onion Paste, Salt, Sugar and Turmeric Powder and continue sauteing till it turns into a dark brown paste. Now add the Coconut Mustard paste, one cup Water and the half cup Coconut Milk to the paste, stir well and cook on low flame in a covered vessel for about 10 minutes.

Serve with steamed rice.

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