Sasidhar's technology magazine

Rupee exchange rates iphone/android app

2012-08-03T20:37:00.004-07:00

Rupya is a very cool app to check the rupee exchange rates on iphone/android. One can compare rates from all the banks.

Currently its showing rates for
Axis Bank, XOOM, Moneydart, ICICI bank, State Bank Of India, Kotak, Bank Of Baroda, Union Bank Of India

Here is the link on iphone App Sore
iphone/ipad Rupya App

Here is the link on Android App store

Android Rupya App

Rates can be compared on web also at www.remitmoney2india.com

Wirless Access Point / Ethernet Bridge

2010-09-19T22:56:00.000-07:00

How do you connect your Blu-ray Player / XBox / Wii / PS3 with no built-in wi-fi support to internet , when your entertainment center is far from your home network router?

The best answer is to use Wireless Access Point with Ethernet Bridge functionality. These devices act as a client and connect to the existing wireless router and provides switch functionality with multiple Ethernet ports.

Here are some of the products that support this functionality

Zyxel WAP3205 Wireless N Router / Ethernet Bridge
NETGEAR 5 GHz Wireless-N HD Access Point/Bridge WNHDE111

Tags: Wireless Access Point as client, Ethernet bridge, wireless to wired, connect XBox to internet, connect Bluray-player to internet

LG BD590, Blu-Ray Player with Media Player, Built in Wifi and 250 GB Hard Disk

2010-09-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

Anyone looking to buy Blu-Ray player would know, how difficult it is to choose one from dozens of features these players offers other than the basic need of playing Blu-Rays DVD's. Most of the consumers will be upgrading their existing DVD players, so one would like to have all the feature set that their old dvd player supports.

Here are some of the basic features that are expected from Blu-Ray-Player

- Bluray and DVD playback
- HDMI ( To connect to HDTV )
- Digital audio either optical or coax ( To connect to the old home theater system that does not have HDMI )
- Audio Codecs ( Dolby, DTS, AC3..)

If you are the one who has lot of media files collection compared to physical disks then you may wish to have

- USB support ( To connect external hard drives or USB drives )
- Different video codec's support ( Divx, Xvid, rm, wmv...)

If you have lot of videos that are captured from latest HD camcorder and if you want to play from your bluray player, then it has to support codecs like AVCHD

If you are online internet media addict, then you might expect to have

- Netflix support
- Pandora
- Amazon video on demand
- DLNA ( to watch media on your PC / mobile phone)

and to access the above internet services you need built-in Wi-Fi out the need to buy an extra external Wi-Fi USB adapter.

If you are a born videophile looking for some advanced features then you need
- 3:2/2:2 Pull-Down
- 24p playback support

If you need all the above features then you need to buy one Blu-Ray and then a media player like Roku / PopCorn Hour

Recently LG released a new Blu-Ray player combining all the media player features into the Bluray player. Checkout LG's BD570 which has got all the features mentioned above, Also BD590 has internal 250GB hard disk and you can just copy the media files directly to the player.

Tags: BD570 BD590 Blu-Ray player Hard Disk HDMI, LG Media Player Network Player, PopCorn Hour Roku

Enabling Subtitles on Comcast HD Box

2009-06-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

When i subscribed for HD cable service from comcast, i have received the Motorola DCX3200 setup box. This has HDMI output and worked pretty good on connecting to my HDTV.

But by default the subtitles (closed captioning) is not working. Here is the procedure to enable the subtitles.

1) Power Off the setup Box

2) Keep Pressing Menu button till you get the "User Settings" screen.

3) Select "Closed Caption" settings and make it enable.

That's it, Power on the setup box and enjoy the subtitles..

Tags: Comcast HDMI HDTV motorola cable DCX3200 subtitle closed caption

VGA to HDMI adapter

2009-05-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

I have recently upgraded my old 29" CRT TV to 50" Panasonic 50PX80U plasma TV(720p). I am enjoying all the free over-the-air HDTV channels and DVDs on the big screen.

However this model does not have the VGA input to connect my laptop. So i have used S-video to RCA cable to connect my laptop to my new TV. Since S-video output is only 640x480, the picture on the HDTV looked very much pixelated when enlarged to 1270x720. I could have bought the Panasonic 50PX85U which has VGA input also, But that was 200$ extra and i did not want to pay that much only for the VGA input.

After researching on the Internet, i have found two types of adapters which are below 100$. Initially i purchased this one which is around 50$

http://www.amazon.com/VGA-Audio-HDMI-Converter-Adapter/dp/B0015YWV1G/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241321451&sr=8-3 (Not good, Don't buy)

But this one supports only 1024x768 resolution and when connected to TV, the picture has some bands at the corners. I returned this immediately and ordered the second one
for 60$

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016SN49Y ( Good one, Amazon Link)

http://sewelldirect.com/Component-VGA-to-HDMI-Scaler-720p.asp ( Good one, Sewell Direct Link)

Right out of the box, This adapter worked great and this supports most VGA resolutions 1280x720, 1024x768 and 640x480. I highly recommend this product to watch the online videos from Hulu, youtube and Divx/WMV/Real video from the computer or laptop on the big screen HDTV. This adapter supports only 720p (1080p not supported ). But this still looks good even on 1080p TVs.

If you really want 1080p adapter you have to pay higher price for the adapter or upgrade your laptop with the new one which has HDMI interface.

Tags: hdmi vga hdmi laptop adapter cable transcoder 720p 1080p TV HDTV Panasonic 50PX80U

Open Source Alternative

2008-01-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

This website has organized all the open source software against its competing commerical product. If you are looking for a open source alternative for any of the known commerical product just search here, you will be provided with tens of alternative software for your need.

omnitech gps review

2007-12-03T23:42:00.000-08:00

Are you tempted to buy the irresistable deal for omnitech gps from staples? read on..

After checking the "Omnitech GPS" deal at staples, i was immediately tempted to buy looking its features like 4.3" screen, Text-To-Speech functionality, google-maps like UI and 170$ price tag when compared to hefty 350$ of garmin nuvi.

I almost decided to buy but staples has only one review. so, i googled to find more information/images in the web but of no use. After seraching it with the keyword "Destinator", i could finally crack down its details and the website of the product.

This is the website for the omnitech GPS, But in the website the word "omnitech" is mentioned nowhere ( Its there only in front page image, hidden from search engines.. )
http://www.navsupport.net/gps/15223/

Here is the link for the review of this GPS
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?s=bb3f4b04227a16cdaaae9872751ab182&t=521001&page=2

It took more than one hour to find out the information even with google, so i decided to share this at one place, which might be useful..

Here is the User manual, checkout the screenshots, you will immediately notice the poor UI compared to garmin and tom tom.
http://www.navsupport.net/gps/15223/download/OmnitechGPS_UM_S19510V2_English.pdf
The mapping data is from navteq, so if you dont mind the user interface much, this is worth the money for the features it provides.

Anyway i am very much impressed with garmin UI, i would better wait till garmin nuvi 200W price drop below $200

Lately i noticed even the pharos GPS sold by Dell also looks some thing like this, seems to be pharos also uses the same UI ( presumably from destinator technologies http://www.destinatortechnologies.com/)

Tags: Omnitech GPS review staples deal destinator Garmin nuvi Tom Tom

Wi-fi SD card Vs wireless digital camera

2007-12-01T11:28:00.000-08:00

Just read the revolutionary SD card which has built-in wi-fi. I am really shocked to digest the new innovation of embedding the wi-fi into a already tiny SD card. Its amazing.

So, whats gonna change with our dialy life ? Once you have shot the photos, there is no need to upload the photos in to the computer/photo websites. The SD card can directly contact your online photo sharing account(provided your user name and pass word) and will transfer the photos. You just have to do one time configuration of your SD card for the available wireless networks.

This is so convinient for the elderly people otherwise a burden of uploading the photos. Even we also tend to forget uploading the photos, after friends marriage or some casual get together. With this SD card life is going to change just take the photos and leave the camera, it will silently do its job and with in less than a hour, photos will be published and shared with every one.

The starting price is around 99$, i feel this price is decent. With in a year this will be a commodity. So no more photos in the computer waiting to get uploaded to internet.

What we can expect to follow this revolution, eventually every gadget with SD slot can become wireless, so is this another revolution in the home networking ? Lets watch and see what are all new gadgets will follow..

checkout more at http://www.eye.fi/

But for the people who want to transfer the photos wirelessly, there is a another option of buying a digital camera which has built in wi-fi. Nikon has already these kind of cameras. If wi-fi chip can be integrated into the SD card, why can not these digital cameras can embed this by default. This is going to be a default option for most of the cameras with in a year.

So if you are holding the old camera and want wireless you can buy eye-fi, otherwise wait for the new digital camera models from canon, sony or nikon.

Tags: eye-fi, wireless SD card, wirelss USB, wireless digital camera

Turn your Mini DV camcorder into a Webcam

2007-11-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

Are you fed up with the video quality of your webcam and looking for the alternative? I found this software from Orangeware, which provides the firewire driver to attach to the IM software. Most of the camcorder manufacturers provides the USB driver for turning the camcorder as webcam. But only the firewire video streaming gives the best video quality. But all the IM's relies on USB for the videoconferencing. So this software tricks the streaming firewire video to be available for the most of the available IM software.

Also this software provides the remote control of the camcorder for the remote viewers.

I spent lot of time researching the webcams for best video quality and zoom, but now i think i should buy affordable(below $250) miniDV camcorder and use it as a webcam.

http://www.orangeware.com/endusers/webcamdv.html

Tom's hardware also has the good article about this..

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/10/08/trash_that_webcam/page4.html

New Panasonic Hybrid VoIP phone

2007-11-18T19:55:00.000-08:00

VoIP is everywhere, now its there in cordless phones also, the new product from Panasonic BB-GT1540B combined the VoIP ATA into its range of cordless phones, This i think a really great move from the cordless product range.

You get the option to choose the free VoIP number for the selected countries ( For now in US, UK and some european countries) . This is part of the phone offering.

No need to buy the linksys or grandstream VoIP ATA and cord less phone seperately. But the only drawback is that VoIP service is tied with the VoIP provider Delta three.

I think similar products will hit the market soon from other cordless phone manufacturers.

checkout more details here http://www.joip.com/

Is samsung sync a IMS phone

2007-09-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

Few months back, i have seen the at&t new offering for 3G based video sharing service. www.attvideoshare.com, Here is the new learning from this bloag that this is part of the move to IMS..

http://blogs.nmss.com/communications/2007/06/finally_an_ims_.html

Installing Ubuntu Linux

2007-08-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Recently i have installed Ubuntu linux on my Dell desktop. I am suprised to find out the installation user interface is comparable with windows XP/ Vista kind of installation. I am really impressed with this.

Downloaded the latest Ubauntu desktop edition from the website and burned the ISO image on the CD. Restarted the system by changing the BIOS booting preferences and ubuntu booted from the Live CD. The advantage with the Live CD kind of installation is, you can play with the system , before you want to really decide whether to install it on your hard disk. As i am impressed with the following features..

Hibernate option
Network configuration is much easier than windows, Lot of screens to resemble the Windows Control panel, So you really dont need to go to xterm/CLI.
Sound Card, Network Interface detected automatically..
Update manager to make sure your system is up-to-date with new fixes/patches.

I decided to install it.

After 15 minutes, asked for the the boot loader preferences and i am ready to using linux along with my windows vista . But the most annoying thing after installing the linux is the ability to choose the right screen resolution. By default the maximum screen resolution i have got is 800x600, So, i have to spend around 3 hours to download the latest nvidia drivers and install it.

The configuration i have used is

nvidia geforce 6150 Video card came with Dell Dimension C5221
Samsung 941BW screen resolution 1440x900

Actually, ubuntu is maintaining very good website http://packages.ubuntu.com/ to search for any kind of packages you might need.

I just downloaded nvidia-glx-new_1.0.9755+2.6.20.5-16.29_i386.deb and executed some of these steps.

installed this package like this
dpkg --install #pkg name#

enabled the new driver like this..
nvidia-xconfig -c /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Thats it, after restarting the system and i have got the beautiful screen resolution i was looking for..

New ways to control the browser

2007-08-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Ever wanted to control the browser easily while browsing internet on TV, This feature from firefox is interesting..

Mouse gestures to control the browser.. :-)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/39

Internet on TV

2007-08-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

Everybody will have different requirements for their in house living room experience. Some people like me want to watch all internet videos, internet radios on TV and home theater. Yes there are many upcoming products to address these like Apple TV, D-Link and neatgear's digital media receivers. But i can not get complete internet experience with these devices.

So, i ended up connecting my HP media center laptop to my TV + Home theater. The problem is i still have to depend on another laptop/desktop to control using VNC client. One more solution is buying Nokia N770 Internet Tablet to use as remote control. This sleek device entirely developed on linux and exciting thing is vnc viewer just works !! Even my favorite SIP client gizmo project also works, what else you need? it does not have phone.

Seems there is lot of development going on for these kind of devices..check out this open set top box..

http://www.last100.com/2007/06/28/neuros-open-set-top-box/

Future Video Phones

2007-08-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

Recently i came across the intel's new media processor CE 2110, which will address the gap in the video conferencing experience in the living room. I am searching for this kind of solution from long time.

But i could not really find which companies are developing the set-top boxes using these processors.

http://www.intelconsumerelectronics.com/Vision/Family.aspx

Check out the video its interesting..